There is the possibility that melanin’s biological role in the human body may extend far beyond simply protecting us against UV radiation. In fact, one recent and highly controversial paper proposes that melanin is responsible for generating the majority of the body’s energy, effectively challenging the ATP-focused and glucose-centric view of cellular bioenergetics that has dominated biology for the past half century.
Research is now emerging indicating that melanin may function in a manner analogous to energy harvesting pigments such as chlorophyll, and may have even have driven our evolution into the uniquely hairless, brain-dominant hominins we are today. While melanin’s proposed ability to convert sunlight into metabolic energy has amazing implications (one of which is the taxonomical reclassification of our species from heterotrophic to photoheterotrophic), what may have even more spectacular implications is the prospect that melanin may actually both protect us against ionizing radiation and transform some of it into metabolically useful energy.
In a day and age where radioisotopes from nuclear weapons testing, routine releases from the nuclear, fracking, and coal-fired power industries, and more recently, global fallout from the Chernobyl and Fukushima meltdowns, are increasingly accumulating in the environment, food chain, and our bodies, reducing radiotoxicity and/or enhancing detoxification mechanisms should be a universal concern. Add in the unavoidable onslaught of medical, cell phone communications and WiFi technology, and air travel associated radiation exposures, and you can virtually guarantee your body burden of radiation exposure is significant and represents a serious health risk...read more>>>...