For a lot of countries, a lack of babies is a big worry.The so-called birth dearth is starting to cause problems across much of Asia. With fewer children born, populations in many Asian countries are aging and shrinking rapidly. China reports that it population will be halved by 2060 and the Japanese government are concerned 90 percent of its centuries old population will be gone by 2100.That presents a number of increasingly thorny problems, such as how to sustain economic growth with a declining working-age population; how to pay for rising health care costs for seniors; and questions in some nations about being able to maintain military capacity.
By 2025, the United States will be the only white majority nation with more people under 20 than over 65 — and the only one with a working-age population that will continue to grow.Ironically the majority of people under 20 in the US have been BIPOC since 2020!Part of the problem is Women are marrying later and having fewer children — if they have any. Half of the world's women are now having less than two children in their lifetime, even in countries such as Iran, Burma and Vietnam that historically and culturally revered large families.
Nations including Hungary and South Korea are seeing unprecedented numbers of women staying single into their 30s — up from a handful a generation ago to 30 and 40 percent, respectively. In places like Germany and Japan, the number of women who end up having no children at all is already above 30 percent. By 2050, the number of children under age 5 is expected to fall by 50 million worldwide, while the number of people over 65 will go up by 1 billion. Japan has been aging so rapidly that the government has actually predicted the date when the last Japanese baby is expected to be born.
Yet even as all this is made public knowledge and causes nations great concern, demand for skin whiteners is going up globally, and in some regions the demand has doubled from 10 years ago especially in Asia, despite multiple health concerns. A recent study found that more than half of 1,992 men and women surveyed about product use in India had tried skin whiteners, and close to half (44.6%) felt the need to try such products due to media such as TV and advertisements. Globally, the demand for whiteners is climbing, projected to reach $32 billion by 2024.(According to a CNN report 6/6/2022)
Routine skin whitening routinely exceeds over 40% use in China, Malaysia, the Philippines and South Korea, according to the World Health Organization. But when it comes to these products, the Asia-Pacific market is the most lucrative region, making up more than half of the global market. The use of hydroquinone-containing skin lightening preparations for those seeking a pregnancy is not recommended. Where occupational exposure is unavoidable, precautions should be taken to ensure that exposure is well within the recommended exposure limits and not associated with toxic symptoms. People who use bleaching products may end up being infertile, damaging the fetus, or causing damage to the internal organs of the mother and unborn child as well as other pregnancy threatening problems such as fibroids, and pelvic inflammatory disease.
Phthalates found in many lightening products are known to cause infertility in both the males and females. It is sometimes advised for the people working in beauty salons for hours to take precautionary measures.Corticosteroids are a form of steroid hormones that cause skin lightening. Side effects include allergic contact dermatitis, and one study showed steroids can cause decreases in sperm counts and motility. Females who use steroids may have problems with their menstrual cycles because steroids can disrupt the maturation and release of eggs from the ovaries. This can cause long-term problems with fertility.Steroids, including anabolic steroids and corticosteroids (cortisone, prednisone) are made from testosterone and could have a serious effect on female fertility. In particular, steroids may prevent the release of hormones needed for ovulation and menstruation.
Melanin, a pigment found in most organisms, is the main determinant of human skin color (it is also found in hair and specific eye tissues). Melanin has two primary forms: red- or yellow-colored pheomelanin and brown- or black-colored eumelanin. Melanin is a natural protector against the ultraviolet (UV) rays of the sun. The sperm of a man and the egg of a woman both are layered with melanin.So when the sperm penetrates the egg, there is a melanin explosion. This helps to formulate the fetus. This fetus is literally coated with this melanin substance. It then begins to form the brain and the central nervous system.
What does this mean? This shows that every human being begins with a melanin explosion. Even when describing the eye of an embryo you will note the eye is black. Disrupting the role of melanin in your body is harmful to future generations the less melanin you have the less likely you are to have healthy births. The quest for an aesthetic that is counterproductive to the encouragement of life is causing a global demographic change over 200 hundred years in the making. Scientists discovered decades ago that scrotal melanin protects mature sperm from UV damage, and from oxidative damage in species with male sperm storage. Melanin is produced as a defense mechanism. Sunlight is the major cause of increased melanin production because sunlight has the potential to destroy DNA!
Healthy melanin is important in an area affected by extreme weather caused by climate change.
Research shows that hot weather causes a fall in birth rates nine months later. Evidence suggests that this decline in births is due to hot weather harming reproductive health around the time of conception. Birth rates only partially rebound after the initial decline. Moreover, the rebound shifts births toward summer months, harming infant health by increasing third trimester exposure to hot weather. Skin lightening is hardly a new practice: the first documented treatment dates back to 4,000 BC, in ancient Kemet/Egypt When the Greek intermarried and influenced the Ptolemaic Dynasty popularizing it. The lead and arsenic in the skin lighteners and makeup might have caused more harm than good and been responsible in some part for Kemet’s/Egypt’s decline.
At the height of Ottoman Empire Barbary coast slave trading in North Africa, slave owners used bleaching to lighten enslaved European peoples' skin after extended sun exposure. The practice has persisted and even flourished, due to a global culture of “colorism,” discrimination against people with dark complexions. For centuries, Black and Brown women have been forced to conform to Eurocentric beauty standards. Today, these damaging ideals are perpetuated throughout mass media; music videos and cosmetic advertisements that feature European aesthetics of beauty rather than other phenotypes.
Scientists have recently uncovered that sunlight modulates human lifespans and fertility.
A Norwegian University of Science and Technology study used data collected from a church for over 100 years and found surprisingly that increased UV radiation can have an effect on human fertility over generations. On average, the lifespan of Norwegian children born in years that had a great deal of solar activity was 5.2 years shorter than other children. Children who were born in years with lots of sunshine and who survived were also more likely to have fewer children, who in turn gave birth to fewer children than others. The finding shows that increased UV radiation during years of high solar activity had an effect across generations.
UV radiation can have positive effects on human vitamin D levels, but it can also result in a reduction of vitamin B9 (folate)especially in people who are pheomelanin dominant ie Caucasians and lighter skinned Asians. It is known that low folate levels during pregnancy are linked to higher child mortality(deaths).Both climate change and variability in the ozone layer are expected to increase the amount of UV radiation reaching the Earth in the future.Scientists are particularly concerned about people with light skin who move to warmer climates with lots of sun.The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) study can be found at "More sun means fewer children, grandchildren, Norwegian study finds." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9 January 2015.This studies findings were supported my another more recent study in Maine.
The authors used the vital statistics of 320,247 Maine citizens over a 29-year period to show that those born in 3-year peaks of 11-year solar cycles live an average of 1.5 years (CL 1.3-1.7) less than those born in non-peak years. Males are more sensitive than females to this phenomenon, which is statistically demonstrable well into adult life, showing the effect of probable UVR on the early human embryo despite superimposed adult lifetime hazards. The authors also show that changes in seasonal light modulate lifespan differently in males and females and that the genome and environment must be tightly interactive early after conception. Published literature supports the hypothesis that UVR suppresses the maternal immune system by producing cytokines in circulating lymphocytes that probably affect the fetal genome. The intermittent and incompletely predictable solar cycles periodically stress the genomes of all life producing genetic changes which may be harmful or adaptive. The evidence presented in this study indicates that solar cycles, particularly the most irradiant which have occurred over the past 65 years, are fundamental engines of evolution, even underlying natural selection, and we bear their marks even to the end of our lives.
What was even more telling about recent studies on this is that the sun's impact on melanated or those eumelanin dominant people was the opposite of those with fair skin! The impact of sun exposure on a person with naturally dark pigment as pertaining to longevity was relatively small. Even those with the greatest sun exposure only benefited from an extra 7 months to 2 years.The reason why more sun exposure might prolong life or prevent heart disease deaths could not be determined by the study. But researchers hypothesize the sun’s UV light triggers chemical reactions in the skin that lead to the production of vitamin D. It's possible that vitamin D is responsible for the health benefits of sun exposure described in this study. And that could mean vitamin D supplements would promote longer life free of heart disease, even without sun exposure. Which is why vitamin D is added to milk and enriched flour although prior studies have not been able to conclusively prove this.
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