Black & White, its more than skin.

I recently watched an episode of a TV show named House MD, in this episode Dr Foreman surgested a medicine for a man, he said it worked better on black people than white people because of biological diffrences. This got me thinking, except for skin coulor, how big a difference is their between Black people and White people. This post is going to be mainly quotes from other sites since im not a doctor.

And just so i dont get shot down here. I am not a racist, im just curious on medical differences.

Salt-sensitive hypertension is more common and has more severe consequences in urban black populations than in white populations. Increased renal sodium reabsorption through epithelial sodium channels may underlie the development of high blood pressure in black people. Increased sodium channel activity has been detected in subjects with Liddle’s syndrome by nasal potential difference measurements. Nasal potential difference measurements were made in 39 black normotensive, 106 black hypertensive, 51 white normotensive, and 61 white hypertensive subjects.

The above quote shows us that black people are more affected in this case than there white counter parts. This information was found Here.

The Science Museum in London said Dr Watson had gone "beyond the point of acceptable debate" during an interview this weekend in which he claimed black people were less intelligent than their white counterparts.

His main thoery on this is because of the shape of the skull i believe, you see black peoples skull shape is remarkably simeliar to a chimpanzies. Yet white peoples, well greek in his exmaple; Greeks skull shpae is much more different. A diagram of the skulls can be found Here, and the article about this can be found Here.

Initial findings demonstrated that 74% of men and 65% of women believed in genetic contributions to the perceived race difference in athleticism. Thirty-three percent of the men and 26% of the women stated that genes explained a lot or just about all of the difference between Whites and Blacks in athleticism.

Maybe black people are more athletic than white people or maybe were bad losers and are blaming genetics lol.

In todays society we are finally relising that we can all live in peace and not care about skin colour, but as THIS article shows, we may just need to still treat different colours with some different drugs. In my mind it doesnt matter if your black or white, you still desearve the same medical treatment, but that article shows that maybe your skin colour will matter what drugs you get.

Thanks for reading this and if you have any other info on other diferrences please post it, and if any of my facts are wrong, sorry i aint no doctor so im not sure.I hope that you enjoyed it. Take care, Fox.

[edit on 18-3-2008 by ProTo Fire Fox]


Mod edit: fixed bbcode

[edit on 18-3-2008 by chissler]

Hey ProTo,

This is kind of off topic, but I just figured I'd let you know that I absolutely LOVE your avatar.

Kudos.

Interesting thread btw.

reply to post by ProTo Fire Fox

Of course racial differences are more than skin deep.

Americans of all people must know this. In the days when prejudice and discrimination kept black athletes out of top-level American football, baseball, basketball and other sports, all the American record-holders and champions were white.

Now, they're mostly black.

We see the same thing in the general dominance of blacks in many if not most Olympic contests.

In terms of absolute achievement, blacks run faster, jump higher, are better co-ordinated physically and pack a lot more strength and power.

[edit on 19-3-2008 by Astyanax]

Originally posted by Astyanax
reply to post by ProTo Fire Fox

 

Of course racial differences are more than skin deep.

Americans of all people must know this. In the days when prejudice and discrimination kept black athletes out of top-level American football, baseball, basketball and other sports, all the American record-holders and champions were white.

Now, they're mostly black.

We see the same thing in the general dominance of blacks in many if not most Olympic contests.

In terms of absolute achievement, blacks run faster, jump higher, are better co-ordinated physically and pack a lot more strength and power.

[edit on 19-3-2008 by Astyanax]

Not to mention during the days of slave labour the Big wig richies mated the largest african Americans to creat super sized monster workers , since their genes adapted quicker that caucasians...If you can't beat'em...mould 'em..i Guess

Originally posted by Astyanax
reply to post by ProTo Fire Fox

 

Of course racial differences are more than skin deep.

Americans of all people must know this. In the days when prejudice and discrimination kept black athletes out of top-level American football, baseball, basketball and other sports, all the American record-holders and champions were white.

Now, they're mostly black.

We see the same thing in the general dominance of blacks in many if not most Olympic contests.

In terms of absolute achievement, blacks run faster, jump higher, are better co-ordinated physically and pack a lot more strength and power.

[edit on 19-3-2008 by Astyanax]

the only sports in the olympics that shows black dominance is Track and field and of course Basketball because the USA uses their Pro Athletes...

the only other Black you really see are sparatical throughout the Games

For example Tennis the Williams sisters and the Legendary Dominique Dawes For Gymnastics which to this day is the first and only African American to win Olympic Gold and an individual event Medal in Gymnastics, she might even be the first Black person at all to Win Gold at the Olympic Games in the Sport....

Oh yes...and you rarely see Black in the winter Olympics.....

YAY for Dominique Dawes!!! and i'm not black....hah

[edit on 19-3-2008 by Goradd]

i meant to say sparatic....had a clueless moment there...haah....

Go Dominique dawes, you should check her out...

www.youtube.com...

distinct changes in biology, but the problem is people like to extrapolate that to mean distinct changes in personality and intelligence. That's where the racism starts. Assuming someone may be more prone to a medical condition based on skin color is acceptable, and even expected. Assuming their reaction to something, or the criminality is unacceptable.

Hey, just did a bit more reserach and sickle cell is considered a 'black disease' only ever been 2 case of it for white people. Any one know of any other such things ?....

Fox

When you hear them say that all races are alike, thats just public consumption science, its not reality.

Behind the scenes they know there are differences, and they know it. But for some reason, only people very high up can say those things, its not for us to say it.

I've heard somewhere that black people were more likely to get heart disease. Not sure if it's true, though.

I also have a frield who has sickle cell anemia, and he's Pakistani. Sickle cell is fairly common in southeast Asia, because by a strange twist of fate, sickle cell makes you immune to malaria, and malaria is common in this region.

Just a couple random thoughts I had when reading this.

Horses for courses

Compared to most other animals, human beings are very closely related to one another in genetic terms. Yet people of different races are normally quite easy to tell apart.

That's because 'racial' differences are really physical differences like skin colour, eye shape, or the ability to digest milk as an adult. These differences are caused by genetic variation, and they're easy to spot. And as we know, they are shared by groups of people who are slightly more closely related to each other than to people in other groups, people who share more of the same genes with each other than with 'outsiders'.

Besides their similarity in appearance, there is another thing we can observe about these related groups: they share the same geographical origin.

For people who understand how natural selection works, the geographical distribution of races provides a simple, sensible explanation of racial differences: they are adaptations to the local conditions under which the ancestors of these races evolved.

The classic example is also the classic racial demarcator: skin colour. People whose forebears lived in lands near the Equator, where sunlight is strong and direct, have lots of melanin in their skins to guard against sunburn and skin cancer. Albinos and light-skinned people suffer disproportionately from these ailments, so light skins and albinism slowly get bred out of tropical populations.

But your skin also synthesizes a chemical your body needs -- vitamin D -- from sunlight. Too much melanin interferes with this process. In the tropics it doesn't matter -- enough sunlight still gets through to make the process work. In the temperate and frigid zones, where sunlight is diffracted and dim and the days are short in winter, dark skin is a bit of a handicap, so over the millennia it got bred out in favour of lighter skins. The process was probably helped along by 'sexual selection' -- a preference for lighter-skinned mates, in this case. Sexual selection can drive very rapid genetic modification.

The same sort of selective mechanism -- such as the anaemia/malaria trade-off made possible by the sickle-cell gene, which Dragon's Demesne refers to -- explains other 'racial' differences.

Now, understand that these differences are functional -- they make people's bodies better at doing some things and worse than others.

Therefore, there are real functional differences between the races. But they don't make any one race better than another. It's horses for courses, as they say.

Originally posted by DragonsDemesne
I've heard somewhere that black people were more likely to get heart disease. Not sure if it's true, though.

Some of that is related to poor access to health care as opposed to genetic differences.

With regards to the sport side of things I have also found this to be true


Apart from Swimming --

When I was in school I grew up with 2 black kids for 13 years.
One was the fastest runner in school and the other was the best footballer.
But niether of them could swim or at least found it alot harder than the rest of us they just sank when they hit the water.

Does anyone know of any world class black swimmers ?

I've been reading some anthropology/genotype/bloodtype materials lately and scientists are claiming that one of the oldest genetic markers any of us have is not race, but blood type. Africa is considered by some researchers to be the "cradle of life", where the first humans appeared about 50,000 years ago. All of them had blood type O. They were hunter gatherers who chased the herds eventually out of Aftrica and into Europe, Asia, crossed the land bridge into North America and so on. These folks had to be very athletic & have terrific endurance. Studies done on athletes have shown blood type Os are the most gifted endurance athletes, able to bring consistent athletic performance day after day, with almost no fatigue, assuming said athlete is properly conditioned. Blood type As have the worst problems with training fatigue and often require more rest days to bring the same performance as the Os! Bs & ABs fall somwhere in between. The first As appeared about 25000 years ago and were the first farmers/community organizers. Bs appeared about 10,000 years ago in the Himalayas, and were nomadic tribesman (think Atila the Hun). The first ABs didn't appear until about 1000 years ago. I realize all of this is just theory, but with my family and friends these blood type theories have pretty much held true. The Os are much more athletic and naturally extroverted than the As. The As are more organized and detail oriented than the Os. Can't speak for the other 2 types, as we're just As & Os in my family. We're all athletic, but the Os are much more competitive. I hope more research is done in this field, as it could help to show how ignorant racism really is! Test the theories for yourself...talk to someone of another race with your same blood type and see if you don't have some basic personality/athletic traits in common!

on the subject do the smallest known observable "things" exhibit different interactions with different forms of light emmision?

Originally posted by ProTo Fire Fox
Thanks for reading this and if you have any other info on other diferrences please post it, and if any of my facts are wrong, sorry i aint no doctor so im not sure.I hope that you enjoyed it.

I did. I found it refreshingly honest. You asked some questions, I think I have some answers.

Your first quote begins:

Salt-sensitive hypertension is more common and has more severe consequences in urban black populations than in white populations.

From this, you've concluded that "the above quote shows us that black people are more affected in this case than there white counter parts." That's not a factually accurate interpretation of the facts. The "urban black population" is not commensurate to "white populations." When it comes to nutrition, the contemporary urban population of any color is more affected by geography than race. Following the riots of 60's and 70's, many national supermarket chains chose not to re-build in those neighborhoods, due to risk. While totally understandable from a cost-analysis point of view, the decision doomed poorer city-dwellers, who couldn't afford cars and/or gas, to depend on local grocers, or "bodegas" where I live. Anecdotally, I've always been lucky enough to shop outside the neighborhood, but others had to wait until gentrification (the last 5 yrs) to get any real supermarkets within walking distance. Here's some more info: "Nearness of supermarkets boosts people’s intake of nutritious fruits and vegetables, study reveals"

The second part of your hypothesis begins with this:

The Science Museum in London said Dr Watson had gone "beyond the point of acceptable debate" during an interview this weekend in which he claimed black people were less intelligent than their white counterparts.

I read the article and the sources. I agree with The Science Museum. How could I not? This "doctor" called me stupid. Not only is it offensive, it's incorrect.

Your third quote (btw, you didn't include a link), says:

Initial findings demonstrated that 74% of men and 65% of women believed in genetic contributions to the perceived race difference in athleticism.

What people "believe in" is not really a scientific indicator. People are often mistaken.

Your final link was about the drug Bidil, from back in the deliberation process. The medical community had concerns then (about the validity of the research that led to a race-based prescription), but the drug has since been approved by a crony-infested FDA, and put on the market. The process was expedited, I'm sure, by the greasing of palms.

The Association of Black Cardiologists co-sponsored the clinical trials for BiDil, received $200,000 from NitroMed, and enthusiastically supported the drug's approval.

That arrangement wasn't unusual. In July 2004 the National Institutes of Health published a study urging millions of Americans to take statin drugs in order to lower their risk of heart disease. It was later revealed that eight of nine authors of the study had financial ties to makers of statin drugs. The ties were not made public when the dubious findings were first announced.
A Bitter Pill for Black Hearts

Based on your article and the one I found, I think the company in question, Nitromed, is guilty of more than a few things, intellectual laziness and bribery are high on the list.

Anyways, I'm glad you presented your questions. It's always good to take out some of those old assumptions, dust 'em off, and test them out. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. That's what ATS is for.

Originally posted by ProTo Fire Fox
Hey, just did a bit more reserach and sickle cell is considered a 'black disease' only ever been 2 case of it for white people. Any one know of any other such things ?....

Don't know where you got that bit of information, but it is definately wrong. Sickel Cell anemia is more widespread in Africa, and surrounding regions around equator, because it gives immunity to the malaria parasite. But it is definately not a "black disease".

Originally posted by Ausar
on the subject do the smallest known observable "things" exhibit different interactions with different forms of light emmision?

Im not sure what you are asking here, but light is bend by diffferent molecular structures. As an example, flouorescent molecules are excited at specific wavelengths, and emmits light at a longer wavelength.


I found this great link from The Wiki Of Pedia, that should answer most of the OP's questions!