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WORLD ANTHROPOLOGICAL UNION

CONGRESS 2024​

Paper

Variation of quantitative skin colour and its association with serum Vitamin-D concentration among different populations in Jharkhand, India

presenters

    Sumit Maitra

    Nationality: India

    Residence: India

    Department of Anthropology, University of Calcutta

    Presence:Online

Skin colour and Vitamin-D have a specific connection. Skin colour has evolved throughout time to protect against severe UV radiation while still allowing for cutaneous vitamin-D production. Vitamin-D is necessary for human health and is synthesized in the skin in the presence of ultraviolet B radiation (UVB). Furthermore, when isolated groups of individuals relocated into dramatically different climatic environments with extremely low or high UVB exposure, pigmentation phenotypes consistently arose as a result of unique genetic processes. Skin colour varies greatly in India. Simultaneously, low serum Vitamin-D concentrations have been a major health concern throughout the Indian subcontinent. However, anthropological studies regarding the association of both skin colour and Vitamin-D levels have been underrepresented in India. In light of this, the current study attempts to disentangle the relationship between quantitative skin colour, Vitamin-D, and other factors in different populations of Jharkhand, India. The current study was conducted among multiple populations from a cluster of villages in four separate districts of Jharkhand, India. The survey found that 61.4% of all subjects had skin type V (brown), 36.36% had skin type VI (dark and very dark), and 2.27% had skin type IV (tan). The study also found that 94.6% of patients had low blood Vitamin-D concentrations. A lack of understanding, awareness, and consumption of Vitamin-D-fortified foods, as well as socioeconomic situations, garment structures, sleep cycles, regularly skipping breakfast, and other cultural variables, might all contribute to this insufficiency and deficiency. However, no significant correlation has been identified between serum Vitamin-D content and several quantitative skin colour factors. Adequate sun exposure with low blood Vitamin-D levels but darker constitutive skin tone supports the melanin and Vitamin-D hypothesis, which has yielded a wealth of information on human evolution.

Keywords:

Vitamin-D, Skin type, Deficient, Insufficient, Constitutive