| Many factors can affect how well a drug works: age, whether you've eaten, your weight and even drinking grapefruit juice. Recently, I learned skin color can also play a role.
Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, highlighted this last week in the journal Human Genomics and called for drugmakers to take steps to better understand the reaction between melanin, the substance that determines skin tone, and medications.
There are two main types of melanin, they say. Studies have indicated that the one associated with darker skin tones, eumelanin, naturally binds to certain compounds. The scientists list several such compounds, including nicotine. What this means, they write, is that nicotine could accumulate at much higher levels in Black people's skin.
This has implications for understanding nicotine addiction as well as smoking cessation, particularly when it comes to nicotine replacement therapies like patches, the researchers say. The patches, which people typically stick to their arms or chest, are supposed to supply a steady flow of nicotine throughout the day to to help reduce cravings.
But if eumelanin's affinity for nicotine impacts that flow, it could mean people with darker skin will have a harder time quitting. This is an especially important issue for smokers who want to quit and plan to use a cessation method to help. In 2022, about 30% of those people used patches, according to the National Institutes of Health. Black people already face many hurdles in relation to smoking, everything from being targeted by tobacco companies with menthol cigarettes to having less access to treatment for lung cancer. They're also less likely to quit.
Federal health officials say there's an urgent need for highly effective treatments to help people stop smoking. The Food and Drug Administration and NIH plan to meet later this month to talk more about how to raise the dismal number of smokers who effectively quit each year. That figure currently stands at 7.6% overall, with Black smokers at just over 5%. The discussions will cover ways to support measures beyond complete abstinence that could speed approval of novel approaches, like alleviating the bothersome side effects of quitting. And they'll delve into research that companies could use to bring smoking cessation products to market. Scientists Sophie Zaaijer and Simon Groen from UC Riverside laid out a cost-effective way drugmakers could investigate whether melanin affects these potential treatments. Hopefully they'll listen. — Anna Edney | 
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