ReviewProceedings. Biological sciences2014
Was skin cancer a selective force for black pigmentation in early hominin evolution?
Review in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 73 citations in OpenAlex.
- Features of Skin of Color.Deutsches Arzteblatt international · 2026Review
- Dark Skin Evolution in Early Humans: Revisiting the Skin Cancer Hypothesis Through Migration-Related Mismatch.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Review
- The genetic architecture of human skin pigmentation: evolution and adaptation across global populations.Frontiers in genetics · 2026Review
- Why humans evolved blue eyes.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Article
- Our ancestry dictates clonal architecture and skin cancer susceptibility.Nature genetics · 2023Article
- Development and usability evaluation of a mHealth application for albinism self-management.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2023Article
- Article
- Evolutionary psychiatry: foundations, progress and challenges.World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) · 2023Article
- Vitamin D in the Context of Evolution.Nutrients · 2022Review
- Vitamin D and Pigmented Skin.Nutrients · 2022Article
- A transdisciplinary approach to understand the epigenetic basis of race/ethnicity health disparities.Epigenomics · 2021Article
- The evolution of human skin pigmentation involved the interactions of genetic, environmental, and cultural variables.Pigment cell & melanoma research · 2021Review
- The Evolutionary History of Human Skin Pigmentation.Journal of molecular evolution · 2020Review
- The 4 D's of Pellagra and Progress.International journal of tryptophan research : IJTR · 2020Review
- From humans to hydra: patterns of cancer across the tree of life.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2018Review
- The Vitamin D⁻Folate Hypothesis as an Evolutionary Model for Skin Pigmentation: An Update and Integration of Current Ideas.Nutrients · 2018Review
- Nothing in cancer makes sense except….BMC biology · 2018Review
- Adaptation of human skin color in various populations.Hereditas · 2018Review
- The colours of humanity: the evolution of pigmentation in the human lineage.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2017Review
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1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Melanin provides a crucial filter for solar UV radiation and its genetically determined variation influences both skin pigmentation and risk of cancer. Genetic evidence suggests that the acquisition of a highly stable melanocortin 1 receptor allele promoting black pigmentation arose around the time of savannah colonization by hominins at some 1-2 Ma. The adaptive significance of dark skin is generally believed to be protection from UV damage but the pathologies that might have had a deleterious impact on survival and/or reproductive fitness, though much debated, are uncertain. Here, I suggest that data on age-associated cancer incidence and lethality in albinos living at low latitudes in both Africa and Central America support the contention that skin cancer could have provided a potent selective force for the emergence of black skin in early hominins.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.