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The Ins and Outs of Albinism · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too. So it's a
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Speaker 1: good old fashioned bout of stuff you should know. Ready
0:19
Speaker 1: to kick you in the duff. Oh my gosh, about
0:23
Speaker 1: where we a sickness? Yeah, some some would say, oh dear,
0:30
Speaker 1: I'm ready for this one. I'm so excited because awesome,
0:33
Speaker 1: I understand genetics and chemistry like I've never understood it
0:38
Speaker 1: before in my life. Well, I think that a little
0:41
Speaker 1: credit goes to our palagraphs or who has a knack
0:44
Speaker 1: for explaining very complex science stuff. Uh. And we also
0:48
Speaker 1: need to shout out, as usual when it comes to science.
0:52
Speaker 1: A kid's website, which is in this case Frontiers for
0:55
Speaker 1: Young Minds. That was a really good one. Yeah. They
0:58
Speaker 1: had a pretty good breakdown on albinism. Not albinism, let's
1:03
Speaker 1: just get that out of the way. Yeah. And I
1:05
Speaker 1: also tried to find out it it doesn't seem appropriate
1:09
Speaker 1: to say albinos. Uh. I didn't expressly see that anywhere,
1:13
Speaker 1: but it just it seems like with the how we
1:16
Speaker 1: refer to things these days, that that that that stands
1:19
Speaker 1: out as something that we shouldn't do. Certainly did you
1:21
Speaker 1: find that though I did not, I didn't um, although
1:25
Speaker 1: there are all sorts of like um like pro social
1:29
Speaker 1: sites for people with albinism all over the place. I'm
1:33
Speaker 1: surprised we didn't run into that, but because I saw
1:35
Speaker 1: it used. But I'm gonna err on the side of
1:38
Speaker 1: caution and just say albinism, yeah, totally, or people with
1:44
Speaker 1: albinism right well sure, or plants. Yeah, that's that's something
1:50
Speaker 1: that came up. Like certainly you've you're familiar that you know,
1:54
Speaker 1: not all it's not just people who can have albinism,
1:57
Speaker 1: but that um animals can too. Every once in a
2:00
Speaker 1: while you hear about it very rare like um uh,
2:03
Speaker 1: like a shark with albinism or like you said, an
2:06
Speaker 1: alligator with albinism. It's just so um stark and surprising.
2:10
Speaker 1: One of the reasons why is because it's exceedingly rare
2:13
Speaker 1: in the animal kingdom. UM. But it's still around, and
2:17
Speaker 1: it's not just mammals that can have albinism too, although
2:20
Speaker 1: it would make a lot more sense if it was
2:22
Speaker 1: just mammals that got it because it affects a very
2:26
Speaker 1: specific part of the body, the Melana sites, which we'll
2:31
Speaker 1: talk about in great, great, great detail a little bit um.
2:35
Speaker 1: But but that like, uh, like a whole cascade of
2:40
Speaker 1: events goes from or it takes place within those Melana sites,
2:43
Speaker 1: and any part of that can get messed up or disordered.
2:47
Speaker 1: And those those are what are the basis of the
2:50
Speaker 1: different types of albanism, as we'll see. Yeah, and you
2:53
Speaker 1: know the reason that you you indicated that it was
2:55
Speaker 1: super rare to see like a guerilla with albinism, although
2:58
Speaker 1: you can see that's because and we'll get into the
3:01
Speaker 1: genetics more specifically, but it's in autosomal recessive trait, which
3:06
Speaker 1: means that both of your parents have to have this
3:11
Speaker 1: Albanism gene. So, I mean, it's rare enough in humans
3:15
Speaker 1: when two people fall in love and mate for life
3:17
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. But when you're counting on two
3:21
Speaker 1: sharks that happened to swim by, that happened to have that, uh,
3:25
Speaker 1: express their genes that way, and they happen to, you know,
3:29
Speaker 1: get friendly with one another, bump up against one another.
3:33
Speaker 1: Sure rub fins, however sharks do that thing. Uh, it
3:38
Speaker 1: makes it even more rare because you're counting on um
3:41
Speaker 1: almost just like you know, fate or destiny, not destiny.
3:44
Speaker 1: Let's not get hippie dippy about it. But you know,
3:46
Speaker 1: a couple of guerillas getting together in the midst that
3:50
Speaker 1: both have this genetic gene. They wait for the mist
3:53
Speaker 1: to settle and then they're like, no one can see
3:56
Speaker 1: I just said genetic gene too. That's just what I know.
3:59
Speaker 1: So yeah, for whatever reason, Chuck, whether it's like because
4:02
Speaker 1: the populations are isolated or what, but it it does
4:04
Speaker 1: seem to be much rarer. Albanism does seem to be
4:07
Speaker 1: much rare in like the wild than it is among humans.
4:11
Speaker 1: And even in like some human populations, it's like you
4:15
Speaker 1: could call it not rare at all. Like if you
4:17
Speaker 1: go to some parts of Africa, UM, some parts of
4:20
Speaker 1: central or South America, UM, you'll find you'll find groups
4:24
Speaker 1: that like are fairly small genetically speaking, um and and
4:30
Speaker 1: the and albinism has just become kind of like an
4:33
Speaker 1: endemic trade among the population. Yeah. And I think that's
4:37
Speaker 1: even where the first uh, the word albino was first
4:40
Speaker 1: used in the eighteen hundreds in Africa for people that
4:45
Speaker 1: had albinism. And it's I think the root is the
4:47
Speaker 1: Latin albus or albo from Spanish, Spanish and Portuguese. That's right.
4:54
Speaker 1: So when we're talking about albinism, I think most people
4:57
Speaker 1: probably know what we're talking about. But um use, really,
5:00
Speaker 1: when you see a person with albinism, they have either
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Speaker 1: totally white hair or a very light colored hair UM
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Speaker 1: usually UM, little to no skin pigmentation UM. Or they
5:14
Speaker 1: can have kind of like a yellowish or pinkish skin pigmentation. UM.
5:19
Speaker 1: They might have eyes that lack color or seem red,
5:24
Speaker 1: which apparently has to do with the blood vessels in
5:27
Speaker 1: the eye reflecting the red light from well back out
5:31
Speaker 1: at you the viewer. But all of this has to
5:33
Speaker 1: do with a complete in total or a greatly reduced
5:37
Speaker 1: lack of melanin. Right. Yeah, And you know, if we're
5:41
Speaker 1: gonna crumble a myth, we can crumble the myth that
5:44
Speaker 1: um you are not. Like, if you have albinism and
5:49
Speaker 1: you don't have red eyes or pink eyes, then you
5:52
Speaker 1: don't have true albinism, And that's not true at all.
5:54
Speaker 1: There are a lot of different kinds of albinism, and
5:57
Speaker 1: depending on the way that genes express themselves, there can
6:00
Speaker 1: be a range of of effects on your body. Uh
6:05
Speaker 1: ed was mentioned even with the plant Kingdom with maize,
6:09
Speaker 1: you know, there's uh you can have and it's not
6:12
Speaker 1: white corn. That's a different thing altogether. But if you,
6:15
Speaker 1: because it trusts me, if you look up albanism and corn,
6:19
Speaker 1: the first thing you're gonna see as a corn snake.
6:22
Speaker 1: Even if you so you have to type in maze
6:25
Speaker 1: and then you're just gonna see white corn. But there
6:27
Speaker 1: are a few different kinds of albinism and maze, one
6:30
Speaker 1: of which basically is no pigment or chlorophyll, and that's
6:33
Speaker 1: not even gonna survive because it's a plant, one that
6:37
Speaker 1: will eventually become just a regular ear of corn. And
6:40
Speaker 1: then a third type, which is really interesting. It's striped
6:43
Speaker 1: and some parts have that pigment in some parts don't. Yeah,
6:47
Speaker 1: And like, if you put two different types of albinism,
6:51
Speaker 1: whether it's corn or humans together, the person who has
6:55
Speaker 1: both of those different traits probably won't appear to have
6:59
Speaker 1: albinism all because you have to have matching gene mutations
7:04
Speaker 1: to have an autosomal recessive uh uh genetic disorder in
7:10
Speaker 1: albi is one of those, like you said, yeah, And interestingly,
7:14
Speaker 1: if you just sort of look at it in a vacuum.
7:17
Speaker 1: Albinism isn't necessarily harmful. Uh. There can be comorbidities, and
7:23
Speaker 1: there can be other effects that happen, of course, like
7:26
Speaker 1: with things like sun and sunburn and sun exposure, and
7:29
Speaker 1: there's our vision problems that can happen, and we'll get
7:31
Speaker 1: into all this more specifically, but just by itself, albinism
7:36
Speaker 1: isn't necessarily harmful to a person or a population, right,
7:41
Speaker 1: And there's different types to their syndromic and non syndromic,
7:44
Speaker 1: and syndromic means that you usually have other related health issues,
7:48
Speaker 1: and there are syndromic types of albinism. But one of
7:52
Speaker 1: the things that tends to UM tends to go along
7:57
Speaker 1: with albinism, along with the lack of skin and hair
8:00
Speaker 1: or pigmentation UM is vision problems, which we'll talk about,
8:05
Speaker 1: but there's other stuff too. There's they've correlated UM autism
8:08
Speaker 1: with albinism, which I couldn't find a lot on, but
8:12
Speaker 1: it maybe wonder there's also a correlation between vision um
8:16
Speaker 1: problems and autism, and it's possible, they theorize because no
8:20
Speaker 1: one knows at this point what the correlation is, but
8:23
Speaker 1: they theorized that UM has to do with a low
8:26
Speaker 1: level of visual input leading to autism. So it's possible
8:30
Speaker 1: that if you have a low level of visual input
8:33
Speaker 1: because of albinism, that could lead to autism as well, potentially. Right,
8:38
Speaker 1: so much we don't know, but we do know that
8:41
Speaker 1: it is albinism is a neural crest disorder. And this
8:45
Speaker 1: basically means, I mean, we can get as as wonky
8:49
Speaker 1: here science wise as you want to, but the easy
8:51
Speaker 1: version is it means that it's very early in embryonic development, uh,
8:56
Speaker 1: when a group of cells is folding into a crest,
8:59
Speaker 1: and at this point, if something is going on with
9:01
Speaker 1: those cells, it can affect a lot of different things
9:03
Speaker 1: moving forward, including albinism. Right, Because those neural crests, when
9:08
Speaker 1: they form the extremely early embryonic stage, they form um cartilage, bone, skin,
9:16
Speaker 1: smooth muscle, cells, neurons, They differentiate into a bunch of
9:19
Speaker 1: different stuff. But the point of that is is that
9:22
Speaker 1: like you're the gene that is responsible for whatever type
9:27
Speaker 1: of albinism you have, um like differentiated like really early on,
9:32
Speaker 1: long before many other genes were active. It also it
9:36
Speaker 1: also points out, Chuck, I think, um, something that's that's
9:39
Speaker 1: worth mentioning that at this point because it's a genetic disorder,
9:43
Speaker 1: and apparently in extraordinarily early in development genetic disorder. Um,
9:48
Speaker 1: there's no treatment for albinism. Everything treating is just to
9:51
Speaker 1: take care of the the symptoms that come along with it.
9:56
Speaker 1: I think that's a good overviewed to get us going.
9:59
Speaker 1: Don't you think so too. Yeah, let's let's take a break.
10:01
Speaker 1: I smell a break. Yeah. Well, in fact, I could
10:04
Speaker 1: just be done and we could just run a bunch
10:05
Speaker 1: of ads if you want to do it that way.
10:07
Speaker 1: I don't think everybody would like that. I think they'd
10:10
Speaker 1: rather hear is muddle through albinism. All right, we'll do
10:12
Speaker 1: a couple of messages from our sponsors and we'll be
10:15
Speaker 1: right back as watch skul So, when most people think
10:37
Speaker 1: of albinism, chuck Um, what they're actually thinking of is
10:40
Speaker 1: a specific type called oculo cutaneous albinism or O c A,
10:44
Speaker 1: which is the most prevalent form, but it's also the
10:47
Speaker 1: most distinct form as well. Yeah, and this is you know,
10:51
Speaker 1: if you've ever seen the musician Johnny Winner or or
10:55
Speaker 1: Edgar Winner or uh, you know a lot of times
10:59
Speaker 1: people with alba is m will be cast in movies unfairly.
11:03
Speaker 1: A lot of times it's it's the bad guy because
11:05
Speaker 1: they have a unique look. Uh, and you know, it's
11:08
Speaker 1: Hollywood and that's kind of what they do exactly. And
11:13
Speaker 1: we'll get into that later on too. But um, it's
11:16
Speaker 1: funny though. I did see a couple of videos where
11:18
Speaker 1: people with albinism sat and watched movie characters of people
11:23
Speaker 1: with albinism and basically just sort of made fun of it.
11:27
Speaker 1: They're just like, Okay, another bad guy. That's a surprise.
11:31
Speaker 1: But that's exactly that's what you're talking about. It. That's
11:34
Speaker 1: o c A. One is when you're talking about maybe
11:36
Speaker 1: someone with the pink or red eyes, the lack of pigment,
11:39
Speaker 1: the skin, that white white hair, right, um, and that one.
11:44
Speaker 1: So there's supposedly there's somewhere between four and maybe even
11:48
Speaker 1: nine different forms, but most scientists who study albinism recognize
11:54
Speaker 1: maybe four to five different forms. The rest of them are, um,
11:57
Speaker 1: these really really almost ex oddic rare mutations that have
12:01
Speaker 1: occurred in these really isolated communities where albinism is actually
12:06
Speaker 1: common enough that it just is mutating in a new form.
12:09
Speaker 1: So most people say four to five forms. Um, And
12:12
Speaker 1: if you're like the easygoing type, you just call it
12:15
Speaker 1: type one type two. If you're high strung like me,
12:17
Speaker 1: you probably call the most common one O C A
12:20
Speaker 1: one A. There's also O C A one B, O
12:23
Speaker 1: C A two, O C A UM three and four
12:27
Speaker 1: and so on, actually not so on. That's that's all
12:29
Speaker 1: of them. But the thing that all of these are,
12:33
Speaker 1: at least most of them sharing common is that there's
12:36
Speaker 1: either a total or complete lack of pigmentation. And then
12:41
Speaker 1: again it affects the eyes because it's that ocular cutaneous albinism.
12:46
Speaker 1: And so with this lack of pigmentation, that one, uh,
12:51
Speaker 1: that's that most people think of when they think of albinism.
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Speaker 1: O C A one A there's like no pigmentation whatsoever.
12:59
Speaker 1: And everybody with albinism has those those pigment forming cells
13:04
Speaker 1: melana sites. It's just the for different reasons, those melano
13:08
Speaker 1: sites are not producing pigments to varying degrees, and in
13:12
Speaker 1: O C A one eight they're not producing pigment at all. Right, So,
13:17
Speaker 1: like you kind of said at the beginning, if you
13:18
Speaker 1: see someone that has the red or pinkish eyes, it's
13:22
Speaker 1: those are the blood vessels that you're saying. Because of
13:24
Speaker 1: the lack of pigment, and that's what's also going to
13:27
Speaker 1: lead to those vision problems. Uh. Like you kind of
13:30
Speaker 1: hinted at it. You know, a lot more light is
13:32
Speaker 1: going to be entering your eye that's not being absorbed
13:35
Speaker 1: like it would if you have pigment in your eye.
13:37
Speaker 1: It's not being diffracted. Uh at the very least, if
13:40
Speaker 1: you have albinism, you're probably gonna be really sensitive delight. Um.
13:44
Speaker 1: But it can also actually damage the retina as well, right,
13:48
Speaker 1: which is a big one. Um. As we'll see, that's
13:51
Speaker 1: a it's a huge problem that the idea that um
13:54
Speaker 1: it's called photophobia, like deep sensitivity to light. Yeah. Um.
13:58
Speaker 1: And then also you you just can't see as well,
14:00
Speaker 1: um like you can in that in turn can lead
14:03
Speaker 1: to problems with learning in high school drops. It's like
14:06
Speaker 1: a cascading effect that all just chickins with not enough
14:08
Speaker 1: pigment in the eye. It's really astounding with just something
14:12
Speaker 1: that seems kind of small has like the impacts that
14:15
Speaker 1: it has. Yeah. And you know the great thing about
14:18
Speaker 1: most schools systems these days is they make great efforts
14:23
Speaker 1: for any kind of uh kid in school that has
14:26
Speaker 1: any sort of a challenge to say like, all right,
14:29
Speaker 1: well we have something to accommodate for that now. But
14:32
Speaker 1: it you know, it's taken a long time to get
14:33
Speaker 1: to this point and we still have a long way
14:34
Speaker 1: to go. But you know, you can't imagine somebody with
14:38
Speaker 1: albinism in the nineteen you know, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies,
14:43
Speaker 1: and what schooling must have been like when it was
14:46
Speaker 1: basically just like sorry, you know, you can't you obviously
14:49
Speaker 1: can't keep up. You're struggling to learn to read, and
14:53
Speaker 1: we don't quite know what to do with that, right
14:56
Speaker 1: and there, and and they always punctuated with him. And
14:59
Speaker 1: by the way, everything your classmates are saying about you
15:02
Speaker 1: is true. Hopefully teachers are at least kind about it
15:07
Speaker 1: even back then. Maybe, but kids are always mean. Yeah,
15:10
Speaker 1: for sure. They're getting nicer, though, are they. That's great, man,
15:14
Speaker 1: that's a huge improvement. Well, they are, but it's um,
15:17
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously they're still bullying and a lot of
15:19
Speaker 1: problems with that stuff. But the kids are getting better
15:22
Speaker 1: because it's I think we've proven as parents and educators
15:25
Speaker 1: that that can be taught, that you start them at
15:28
Speaker 1: a young age teaching about facial differences. Or just any
15:31
Speaker 1: kind of differences and that you know that we're all
15:34
Speaker 1: the same. Uh. You know, it sounds very free to
15:36
Speaker 1: be you and me, but we're all the same on
15:38
Speaker 1: the inside. And so that kind of like teaching that
15:41
Speaker 1: stuff actually works. That's why it's frustrating when people push
15:45
Speaker 1: back on that kind of thing. Yeah, I don't want
15:47
Speaker 1: Mike could be nice. You can't make my kid be nice.
15:50
Speaker 1: It's a First Amendment issue. That was just a little
15:54
Speaker 1: soapox moment for me. I like it. I put one
15:56
Speaker 1: foot up on there with you too, Thank you so
16:00
Speaker 1: um so there's room for you in eat chuck. Yeah,
16:04
Speaker 1: Jerry's always up here. Of course she won't stop. It's
16:07
Speaker 1: a little much if you ask me, so, chuck. Before
16:09
Speaker 1: we keep moving on, because I think we need to
16:11
Speaker 1: talk about that social aspect of albinism now. Um but
16:16
Speaker 1: but before we hit that, I want to say, there's
16:18
Speaker 1: one other thing that one of the big differentiators about
16:21
Speaker 1: between the different types of albinism is, like we were saying,
16:25
Speaker 1: at what point in the process of creating melanin that
16:30
Speaker 1: the pigmentation um is disrupted, means that you could actually
16:36
Speaker 1: produce some levels of pigment or some different types of pigment. Like,
16:40
Speaker 1: we have a couple of types of pigment that we
16:43
Speaker 1: produce us humans. You melanin, that's one. That's the money melanin.
16:47
Speaker 1: Everybody thinks about its like it produces like the browns
16:51
Speaker 1: and everything like that. It gives you your tan if
16:53
Speaker 1: you have brown or dark hair, that's all you melanin.
16:56
Speaker 1: But there's also fail melanin, which is kind of a
17:00
Speaker 1: red yellow pigment producer. And people can have types of
17:05
Speaker 1: albinism where you're producing uh no you melanin whatsoever, but
17:10
Speaker 1: plenty of yellow red pao melanin. So that will adjust
17:15
Speaker 1: the different kinds of skin pigments you have. And sometimes
17:17
Speaker 1: you'll see people with albinism we have like you know,
17:20
Speaker 1: totally pale skin, but like a big shock of yellow
17:23
Speaker 1: gold hair. They're producing plenty of phao melanin. Just no
17:27
Speaker 1: you ma melanin. And those are the different like the
17:30
Speaker 1: different gradiations of of albinism have to do with how
17:34
Speaker 1: much in what type of melanin can escape out into
17:38
Speaker 1: the skin, into the eyes and into the hair. Yeah,
17:41
Speaker 1: And interestingly, birds and mammals are the only living things
17:46
Speaker 1: that have melanostes, which are those cells that produced the melanin.
17:50
Speaker 1: So this is why you're not going to see a
17:53
Speaker 1: lot of bright colored mammals. Like, you're not gonna see
17:56
Speaker 1: a lot of bright green or blue mammals. Uh. And
17:59
Speaker 1: then when its to birds to but you're like, wait
18:01
Speaker 1: a minute, why are humans you know, basically shades of
18:05
Speaker 1: sort of brown? Uh? And why can birds be like
18:09
Speaker 1: pink and orange and red. It's for a lot of reasons.
18:11
Speaker 1: So we talked about some of these before. But one
18:14
Speaker 1: of the reasons is their diet, like in the case
18:17
Speaker 1: of the flamingo, of flamingo is white except uh for
18:20
Speaker 1: their diet, which turns them red or pink. Yeah, they can. Um.
18:25
Speaker 1: They can also produce certain kinds of chains of amino
18:28
Speaker 1: acids that produce blue or green. They can combine some
18:31
Speaker 1: of the pigments they produce with some structural stuff, like
18:35
Speaker 1: in in the way that their feathers are built, to
18:38
Speaker 1: create entirely new colors. Um. There's a lot of stuff
18:42
Speaker 1: you can do, but that's typically birds. And the reason
18:44
Speaker 1: they think that birds are so colorful is because the
18:47
Speaker 1: visual acuity in the bird world is a little more
18:49
Speaker 1: important even in the human world. As important as it
18:53
Speaker 1: is for us. But there's also another thing that that
18:56
Speaker 1: um melanin does is it can provide like structure and
18:59
Speaker 1: toughness UM. Like if you look at the outer layer
19:02
Speaker 1: of fur and like a cold um, like a cold
19:06
Speaker 1: dwelling animal, that's usually gonna be fairly dark UM. And
19:12
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why it's dark is because it's
19:15
Speaker 1: also providing like structure and toughness to that that outer
19:18
Speaker 1: layer for not just you know, UM, preventing U light
19:23
Speaker 1: to get through, UV to get through, right, But then
19:26
Speaker 1: you start scritching underneath, you get to that little baby soft,
19:31
Speaker 1: lighter colored undercoat. Even with my dog Charlie, who's got
19:35
Speaker 1: the longer hair, she's you know, she has an outer
19:38
Speaker 1: coat and an undercoat, and that undercoat is different. It
19:41
Speaker 1: feels a little different, it looks a little different. The
19:44
Speaker 1: exception to that, of course, is polar bears. They're not
19:47
Speaker 1: actually producing any kind of white pigment. I think it's
19:50
Speaker 1: the structure of their um, their hairs, their clear hollow tubes,
19:54
Speaker 1: so they refract light so that all of the light
19:58
Speaker 1: comes back at you. Yeah, just google green polar bear
20:01
Speaker 1: if you want to freak your kids out a little bit.
20:04
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, it sounds sousical. It's kind of a
20:08
Speaker 1: green polar bear. So while we're on that though we talk,
20:13
Speaker 1: you know, I want to talk a little bit about
20:14
Speaker 1: the um sort of social implicate implications of having Albanism.
20:19
Speaker 1: And you know, it's interesting that it's much more common
20:23
Speaker 1: in parts of Africa, especially in Sub Saharan Africa, but
20:26
Speaker 1: that's also where you can find some of the most
20:30
Speaker 1: uh stigma and people being ostracized, which is I don't know,
20:35
Speaker 1: it's really kind of sad that it seems like something
20:37
Speaker 1: that is more common might be accepted a little bit more,
20:39
Speaker 1: but that's not really the case, is it. No, it's not.
20:42
Speaker 1: And unfortunately the reason why is because people with Albanism
20:46
Speaker 1: in Africa are in some parts of Africa. We've learned
20:51
Speaker 1: over the years you can't just be like in Africa
20:53
Speaker 1: because it's just so ridiculously different culturally and geographically. But
20:57
Speaker 1: in some parts of Africa, I believe Bigeria, Um parts
21:01
Speaker 1: of Nigeria, if you're if you have alb albinism, you
21:06
Speaker 1: are extraordinarily valuable. I think the body of a person
21:11
Speaker 1: with albinism is worth about seventy five thousand U S
21:14
Speaker 1: dollars in in places where people are living on like
21:18
Speaker 1: six dollars a day is for like medical research. No
21:24
Speaker 1: oh no, no no, no, I know you're talking about for
21:25
Speaker 1: witchcraft and sourcery. They're considered the bone. They there's lower,
21:30
Speaker 1: there's so here's here's the problem. Um. Not only are
21:33
Speaker 1: people with albinism subject to being ostracized and isolated because
21:37
Speaker 1: they're different and they look different the people and people
21:41
Speaker 1: not just in Africa, but in other places where education
21:44
Speaker 1: is less prevalent and less standardized and science is less
21:47
Speaker 1: um relied on. I guess um, there's just a lot
21:53
Speaker 1: of myth and lower surrounding albinism, and so people think
21:58
Speaker 1: that it's like contagious. So you just want to stay
22:01
Speaker 1: away from those people because you don't want to catch it. Um.
22:04
Speaker 1: And then all the way across the spectrum to their
22:06
Speaker 1: bones are made of gold dust. And if you get
22:09
Speaker 1: your hands on the cadaver of an person without albinism,
22:13
Speaker 1: you can you can create potions and sell them to
22:16
Speaker 1: people in in the wholesale market. You can. You would
22:19
Speaker 1: pay seventy five dollars for the the corpse of a
22:22
Speaker 1: person with albinism. And it happens like people get murdered
22:26
Speaker 1: for their bodies because they're they have albinism, and it's
22:30
Speaker 1: just it's it's a despicable practice and trade. But part
22:33
Speaker 1: of it is like figuring out how to get across
22:37
Speaker 1: to like these large groups and populations the science behind
22:41
Speaker 1: all this, and that at the very least it's not
22:43
Speaker 1: contagious and at best their their bones are not filled
22:48
Speaker 1: with gold dust, so please stop chopping them up kind
22:51
Speaker 1: of thing. Yeah, And as far as you know here
22:54
Speaker 1: in the United States, if you know this is like
22:58
Speaker 1: we talked about, you know, kids teasing or stay airing.
23:00
Speaker 1: As as parents and educators, you should be armed, I
23:03
Speaker 1: think with the barest bones of information at least to
23:07
Speaker 1: be able to say, oh, well, you know, that is
23:09
Speaker 1: somebody with albinism and that means their body doesn't produce
23:12
Speaker 1: pigment and so their skin looks different than ours does.
23:14
Speaker 1: And if your parents you can just leave it at that.
23:18
Speaker 1: And that's really all you have to do. Like, if
23:20
Speaker 1: you want to listen to this episode and get into
23:22
Speaker 1: uh Melana sites, knock yourself out, that's parenting plus. But
23:28
Speaker 1: at the very least you should be able to describe it.
23:31
Speaker 1: And like I know when I was a kid and
23:32
Speaker 1: this is not a knock on my parents. They were
23:34
Speaker 1: both smart people and teachers. But but just scared to
23:37
Speaker 1: death of people with albinism. No, no, but they probably
23:40
Speaker 1: would not have known what to tell me. Uh. They
23:43
Speaker 1: probably would have said, oh, that's an albi now full stop,
23:46
Speaker 1: steer clear of them. That's contagious. No, I don't think
23:50
Speaker 1: that either. But I just think we have a duty
23:52
Speaker 1: these days, like to educate ourselves to the to the
23:56
Speaker 1: lowest level of understanding other people, you know, yeah, you know.
24:00
Speaker 1: That's something that I've carried with myself for many, many years,
24:03
Speaker 1: is like people didn't explain the why to me, and
24:06
Speaker 1: so there didn't seem to be purposed to anything. I couldn't.
24:09
Speaker 1: I couldn't time to appreciate the things that the reasons
24:13
Speaker 1: why we were doing things, the strategy to football, it
24:15
Speaker 1: was just get out there and make sure that person
24:17
Speaker 1: doesn't get past you kind of stuff, no reason why doesn't.
24:21
Speaker 1: And it's like a stupid example, but it's a good
24:24
Speaker 1: case of it that like nobody stopped and said, here's
24:26
Speaker 1: the grand picture, here's the grand scheme of things. And
24:29
Speaker 1: the more information I would have had, the more I
24:30
Speaker 1: would have appreciated life and probably appreciated other people too,
24:34
Speaker 1: So I agree with you completely. I think that that
24:36
Speaker 1: is that is a part and parcel with making the
24:39
Speaker 1: world a better places is providing more information. Um two
24:43
Speaker 1: kids especially. Yeah, and again this is slightly tangential and soapboxy,
24:47
Speaker 1: but I think in our day, and certainly before our
24:50
Speaker 1: day as kids, there was a lot of just like
24:52
Speaker 1: shut up and don't ask questions sort of attitude. Yeah,
24:55
Speaker 1: that's a terrible thing to do. You should do is
24:58
Speaker 1: ask questions and get questions sort. My lord, it's frustrating
25:02
Speaker 1: the whole like because I said so kind of thing,
25:05
Speaker 1: which is so prevalent when we were kids. As I understand,
25:08
Speaker 1: it's going the way of the dinosaur, which I think
25:10
Speaker 1: is great. It is, but boy, when you accidentally catch
25:13
Speaker 1: yourself saying it, that's apparent you're just like, oh no,
25:17
Speaker 1: i'll be right back. I'm gonna go flog myself. Oh
25:20
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's plenty of parent groups just waiting to
25:22
Speaker 1: flog you outside your door too. Yeah. The because I
25:26
Speaker 1: said so crowd, Yeah yeah, they're like the Guilty Remnant,
25:29
Speaker 1: the Leftovers. They just stand outside your house and smoke,
25:32
Speaker 1: which were two episodes away from finishing by the way
25:35
Speaker 1: that appens tonight. That's great man. Congratulations from from all
25:39
Speaker 1: of the stuff you should know listeners. I just have
25:42
Speaker 1: to say, and I knew this was the show that
25:44
Speaker 1: got progressively better and more bonkers, but boy, what they're
25:48
Speaker 1: thrown down in season three. I am all over it.
25:51
Speaker 1: I don't believe I made it that far. What. Yeah,
25:54
Speaker 1: and I thought you I thought you like said you
25:56
Speaker 1: wish you could go back and do it over again. Yeah, yeah,
25:58
Speaker 1: the first time. I don't think I realized and then
26:00
Speaker 1: kept going after season one. Yeah, yeah, there were three seasons. Okay,
26:05
Speaker 1: well good, I've got some sticks and I gotta reframe everything. Now.
26:09
Speaker 1: I'll watch this on your recommendation. So, Chuck, I feel
26:13
Speaker 1: like we can button this up by saying society has
26:15
Speaker 1: a long way to go toward learning how to treat
26:18
Speaker 1: people with albinism. Equally agreed. Yeah, but let's do that.
26:23
Speaker 1: All right, Let's do that, and let's take a break,
26:25
Speaker 1: and we'll talk a little bit more about what limited
26:28
Speaker 1: amount we know about what causes this right after this
26:39
Speaker 1: as watched by SKA. All right, so we're back. We
26:52
Speaker 1: know and we've talked about this already that it's a
26:55
Speaker 1: recessive gene that causes albinism. But it's it's like, all right,
27:00
Speaker 1: so that's a recessive gene. This is like when you're
27:02
Speaker 1: not off in biology class when I woke up. You
27:06
Speaker 1: wake up and you go, Okay, well, I know the
27:08
Speaker 1: answer is a recessive gene. But how does that happen? Uh?
27:13
Speaker 1: And the secret to it all is a little protein
27:15
Speaker 1: called tirasinase. Right, how would you pronounce it? I just
27:21
Speaker 1: exactly like that taraskay, those tyros sinase. But that's how
27:28
Speaker 1: it's spelled tyrosinas. But tarrasin is surely is the way
27:31
Speaker 1: that you'd say, right, I think probably. So, So that's
27:34
Speaker 1: the one that's the one that is like the the
27:37
Speaker 1: catalyst for basically everything that comes after to create melanin. Right,
27:43
Speaker 1: whether it's you melanin or phao melanin doesn't matter. Tarrasse
27:47
Speaker 1: is like the beginning of it. And so in that
27:50
Speaker 1: O C A one A, the type of albinism where
27:53
Speaker 1: you just utterly lack of pigmentation altogether, tarrasinse um is
27:59
Speaker 1: an impacted. So when your terracins is impacted, your melanin
28:03
Speaker 1: production just doesn't happen. In your melano sytes and therefore
28:06
Speaker 1: you have O C A one A albinism. That's right. Uh,
28:11
Speaker 1: And if that happens early on, that whole chain reaction
28:16
Speaker 1: is going to shut down, and that's when you're going
28:18
Speaker 1: to have the complete lack of pigmentation. In the other forms,
28:22
Speaker 1: it might affected at different stages along the way of
28:25
Speaker 1: that melanin creation. So that's why you might you know,
28:28
Speaker 1: not be totally absent of pigmentation. Yeah. And again, like
28:31
Speaker 1: there's different slightly different processes that produce you melanin and
28:35
Speaker 1: other processes that produce FO melanin, so um any any
28:39
Speaker 1: one of those things. It's a very like complex intricate
28:42
Speaker 1: production to to create melanin. And so that means that
28:45
Speaker 1: there's a lot of different points where that that process
28:48
Speaker 1: can break down. It's just I just find that extremely fascinating.
28:52
Speaker 1: And then also one other thing I find fascinating when
28:55
Speaker 1: you talked about um autosomal recessive traits, did you mention
28:59
Speaker 1: that means that two parents can both have the gene
29:05
Speaker 1: for albinism, but neither one have albinism, but they're considered
29:09
Speaker 1: carriers and so they can pass it along or not
29:12
Speaker 1: pass it along to their kids. Well, yeah, because I mean,
29:17
Speaker 1: and I think this is something that you would often
29:19
Speaker 1: see is two parents without albinism have a child with albinism,
29:23
Speaker 1: and someone might just be like, well, how does that work. Well,
29:25
Speaker 1: it's just very easy because you have to have both parents,
29:28
Speaker 1: and if obviously these parents didn't have both of their
29:32
Speaker 1: parents that had that genetic mutation, then they're not gonna
29:34
Speaker 1: have it. But it's interesting. It's one of those things
29:37
Speaker 1: where you sort of like the sharks sharks bumping in
29:41
Speaker 1: the night. Did you say sharks first? I think I
29:45
Speaker 1: did say sharks. That's a whole different problem. That's bumping
29:48
Speaker 1: in the night. H sharks bumping in the night. It's like, uh,
29:53
Speaker 1: you wouldn't know this. You probably wouldn't know this about
29:56
Speaker 1: yourself if you only had one, if you were just carrier,
30:00
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, right, So you probably wouldn't
30:03
Speaker 1: find this out until you had a kid exactly. And
30:05
Speaker 1: that was that's one reason why there's a lot of
30:07
Speaker 1: lower and myth around um albinism in less educated areas,
30:11
Speaker 1: like there's like a question of paternity, like this can't
30:14
Speaker 1: possibly be my kid um that kind of thing. But
30:18
Speaker 1: then on the same token too, as far as passing
30:21
Speaker 1: it along Uh, if you have albinism and you fall
30:26
Speaker 1: in love and reproduce with a person who doesn't have albinism,
30:29
Speaker 1: but it also is in a carrier of albinism, your
30:32
Speaker 1: children won't have albinism. Have both those parents. You gotta
30:36
Speaker 1: have both those parents that have passed along both those things,
30:39
Speaker 1: because again, you can have siblings that don't have albinism.
30:43
Speaker 1: Because like I think, you have a chance of getting
30:46
Speaker 1: albinism or of being passed along to you, you have
30:49
Speaker 1: a fifty percent chance or seventy chance of it not
30:52
Speaker 1: being passed along, But there's a different combination of what's
30:55
Speaker 1: not passed along. Yeah. Yeah. What I also thought was
30:59
Speaker 1: interesting was um when Ed towards the end started talking
31:03
Speaker 1: a little bit about in the animal kingdom, and you
31:06
Speaker 1: know the fact that it's for sure a disadvantage if
31:09
Speaker 1: you're living in the jungle and you're an animal, because
31:13
Speaker 1: coloration is a big part of your camouflage and survival,
31:17
Speaker 1: blending into your natural habitat as both the predator and
31:20
Speaker 1: a prey. So if you are, you know, an alligator
31:24
Speaker 1: or a guerilla with albinism, you're definitely in a disadvantage
31:28
Speaker 1: in the wild. Um. I don't know that it's you know,
31:33
Speaker 1: it's definitely in the wild, because he said, if you
31:35
Speaker 1: have like a bunch of lab rats just sort of
31:37
Speaker 1: doing their thing, then it's really not going to affect
31:40
Speaker 1: them much at all. But you know, we talked a
31:42
Speaker 1: little bit in the Cave Dwellers episode about these organisms
31:47
Speaker 1: and I think reptiles that live deep in these caves
31:50
Speaker 1: that are essentially I have no pigment and in there
31:54
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter, and in fact, some of the
31:56
Speaker 1: vision stuff might be an advantage. Yeah, like the fact
32:00
Speaker 1: that you don't have pigments like bouncing light and refracting
32:04
Speaker 1: it off. UM. I guess basically keeping it from bouncing
32:07
Speaker 1: around means that you should be able to get more light,
32:11
Speaker 1: more visual information in very low levels of light, So
32:15
Speaker 1: that would be an advantage for sure. Yeah, I think
32:18
Speaker 1: it's pretty interesting. It is interesting. So I guess before
32:21
Speaker 1: we go chuck um, we should we should talk about
32:24
Speaker 1: there's a lot of other um conditions that can happen
32:28
Speaker 1: that have to do with pigmentation melanin um that really
32:31
Speaker 1: don't have anything to do with albinism, which really kind
32:35
Speaker 1: of goes to show you, like just how complex melanin
32:38
Speaker 1: production actually is you know. Yeah, and we talked recently.
32:43
Speaker 1: I don't know why, but we did mention viddle igo recently. Um,
32:47
Speaker 1: this is not the same thing as albinism. This is
32:50
Speaker 1: when you have these sort of very defined areas of
32:52
Speaker 1: your body that have no melanin. Uh. It is similar
32:55
Speaker 1: because it has to do with melanin, but not albinism. No.
32:59
Speaker 1: They think that, um, there's either some sort of uh,
33:02
Speaker 1: really bad sunburn mechanical insult, like something happened to your
33:08
Speaker 1: milana sites, uh, you know, mechanically, or you might have
33:13
Speaker 1: had like some sort of chemical reaction and that whatever
33:16
Speaker 1: trauma happens to the milana sites, it triggers your immune
33:20
Speaker 1: system to target them as foreign invaders. So they think
33:23
Speaker 1: now that viduligo is some sort of autoimmune disorder. That's right.
33:28
Speaker 1: What else is there? There's poliosis, which I looked and no,
33:32
Speaker 1: it does not have anything to do with polio. They
33:35
Speaker 1: should they miss titled this one. I think they really
33:38
Speaker 1: did because it has nothing to do with it. But
33:41
Speaker 1: that's the one where someone will have like just a shock,
33:43
Speaker 1: like a little patch of white hair, just totally pigment
33:47
Speaker 1: free hair. Yeah. I know a couple of people that
33:49
Speaker 1: have that the little h like the white schwa. Sure like.
33:55
Speaker 1: Um remember John Henson from Talk Soup. Uh, yeah, he
33:58
Speaker 1: had the white schwa RT example of that guy living
34:02
Speaker 1: with poliosis. That's right. Uh. Emily calls any kind of
34:05
Speaker 1: hair thing like that a schwa. I don't know why
34:08
Speaker 1: it makes sense. I've heard it before, but I don't
34:10
Speaker 1: know what it means. I think it means exactly what
34:13
Speaker 1: it means, right, I don't. I think she just means
34:16
Speaker 1: what like if I poof my hair up in a
34:17
Speaker 1: with a big like like a pompadour, she would call
34:20
Speaker 1: that a schway. Okay, I got you. It's very I
34:24
Speaker 1: think no one outside my household really understands what it means.
34:26
Speaker 1: It's a tuft of hair. Yeah, it's a tough Okay.
34:30
Speaker 1: I don't think I realized that's what poliosis was. Yeah,
34:33
Speaker 1: that's that's what it is. What do you think it was?
34:35
Speaker 1: You thought I had to do with polio, didn't you?
34:37
Speaker 1: I totally did. Actually I did too until I confirmed. Nope,
34:41
Speaker 1: just terribly named. There's also Wardenburg syndrome. Uh. This is
34:48
Speaker 1: abnormality with the pigment and the hair and skin and eyes.
34:51
Speaker 1: But this is a congenital disease also not have anything
34:55
Speaker 1: to do with albinism, right, um, and I think that's
34:59
Speaker 1: about it. There's piebald is m. You know the kind
35:01
Speaker 1: of piebald horses where there's a big um white patch,
35:05
Speaker 1: usually a like a large one sometimes on the chataful.
35:09
Speaker 1: It's the type of horse. It's actually a condition um
35:13
Speaker 1: that that humans can have as well. It's just that
35:16
Speaker 1: they bred a certain type of horse. They selected it
35:20
Speaker 1: in a certain type of horse called the piebald horse. Uh.
35:24
Speaker 1: You know, I have a tuxedo catos. I'm kind of
35:26
Speaker 1: curious about how that happens. I'm gonna look into that.
35:29
Speaker 1: That's classy. Yeah, classy tuxedo cat. That's right. Well that's
35:34
Speaker 1: it for albinism. Huh. That's it. If you want to
35:38
Speaker 1: learn more about albinism, you should go out and do that.
35:41
Speaker 1: There's a lot to learn, um. And you could do
35:43
Speaker 1: worse than starting at um Frontiers for Kids on their
35:47
Speaker 1: Albanism article, because it's a pretty good one, and then
35:49
Speaker 1: just go from there. Uh. And since I said just
35:52
Speaker 1: go from there, it's time for a listener mail. Yeah.
35:57
Speaker 1: This is short and sweet. We got called out on
36:00
Speaker 1: something and whenever we get something wrong, we certainly like
36:03
Speaker 1: to uh and and not just a correction on a
36:06
Speaker 1: fact or something. But when we get something wrong that
36:08
Speaker 1: we shouldn't have gotten wrong, then we like to call
36:10
Speaker 1: attention to it and we try and do better. Uh.
36:13
Speaker 1: This is from Natalie from California. I wanted to start
36:16
Speaker 1: out with saying a big fan of the show, found
36:18
Speaker 1: it during lockdown and made a big difference from my
36:20
Speaker 1: boredom level as levels while working from home. But I
36:23
Speaker 1: was a bit disappointed guys listening to the child chillibus
36:25
Speaker 1: kidnapping as multiple times you guys implied that not being
36:30
Speaker 1: able to spell means that you're not smart. Uh. And
36:33
Speaker 1: you're totally right, Natalie. I didn't even think about that,
36:36
Speaker 1: but Uh, Natalie says, I'm an adult with dyslexia and
36:40
Speaker 1: I cannot spell, but save my life, in spite of this,
36:42
Speaker 1: I'm a highly intelligent and successful adult. Uh. And it's
36:46
Speaker 1: fairly able us to correlate ability to spell with overall
36:48
Speaker 1: intelligence and I expect more. And Natalie, you are totally right,
36:52
Speaker 1: and that is on us and big apologies. We uh
36:56
Speaker 1: did not think that one through. No, indeed, we definitely
37:00
Speaker 1: we weren't trying to throw any shade on people with
37:01
Speaker 1: dyslexia at all, of course not. But you know, it's
37:05
Speaker 1: another thing like we all learn as we go through life,
37:08
Speaker 1: and when you learn on the air, it can be
37:11
Speaker 1: a little embarrassing sometimes. Just that's what we do as
37:15
Speaker 1: a job and so we we take that. Yeah, so
37:17
Speaker 1: was that from Natalie. Yeah, yeah, thank you for for
37:20
Speaker 1: that one, Natalie. We appreciate it. And if you have
37:23
Speaker 1: something you want to call us out on, we'll we'll
37:26
Speaker 1: take it and you can address it to stuff podcast
37:31
Speaker 1: at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is
37:37
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my
37:40
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
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