Your Skin Color May Affect How Well Your Medications Work: Researchers

In a call for change, researchers urge the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to consider an often-overlooked factor in drug trials: the color of a patient’s skin. A new perspective article published in Human Genomics on Oct. 9 suggests that melanin, the skin pigment responsible for skin tone, can bind to drug compounds and may significantly influence how medications interact with the body. This revelation could have implications for millions of patients and may change the approach to clinical trials, drug safety, and dosing. Skin Pigments Prolong Drug Effects The authors found that skin pigments can bind to some drug compounds, warranting widespread investigation into how they affect drug efficacy....