Interracial marriage and physiology..this is for a paper

[nvsmom]

I have been looking all over the net for sources regarding interracial marriage and physiology. I'm supposed to create a paper on this and don't really know where to start because I can't find anything. Only stuff I find is on social or psychological things.

Can anyone PLEASE help.

I mean maybe I can talk about blood mixture or something but I am not finding any sources. The paper has to be 5 pages long only.

[twinmommy+2, ADN, BSN, MSN]

I am also in an interracial marriage and we have no physiological problems in our relationship (attempting to answer a difficulty question).

As for "blood mixing" I would think you are thinking about blood types, which can be found in all different races. Here is a good website I found regarding this. Modern Human Variation: Distribution of Blood Types

Sickle cell disease would be a problem if parents either come from african or mediteranian areas (called by different names but both basically the same disease if I remember correctly). Such as my husband has the sickle cell trait but I don't, and being that I am a white female without ancestors coming from a place like Greece, it won't be a problem until my children try to have children and then they will have to be tested for the trait as well. (I may be rambling, sorry).

But other than these very small differences in very small portions of certain populations, there really arn't any physiological differences.

[MInurse.st]

What a difficult topic. The first problem is who defines what a "race" is. And in the US, despite what "race" a person claims to be, almost all of them are mixed ancestry. African americans who were not born in Africa may have native american, caucasian, and even Hispanic relatives in their background. In other words, they're likely not "pure bred" of that race. The race "caucasian" is a misnomer because it can apply to anyone with lighter skin -- describing people all the way from Iceland to Russia... or to the lighter skinned of Spain and Italy. Knowing that people have been mixing from the middle east to southern Europe to norther Europe since Roman times -- who decides who is "caucasian" and who is not???

My gut reaction is that your professor doesn't understand what an outdated term "race" is, when it comes to medicine. Or perhaps he's still promoting racism is by teaching students to classify people into race pigeonholes? Debating with him probably won't help though. So if it were me, I'd just BS something about recessive genetic diseases. Good luck to you!

This is what I was thinking earlier, just wasn't very articulate at 2am.

[sharpeimom]

what a difficult topic. the first problem is who defines what a "race" is. and in the us, despite what "race" a person claims to be, almost all of them are mixed ancestry. african americans who were not born in africa may have native american, caucasian, and even hispanic relatives in their background. in other words, they're likely not "pure bred" of that race. the race "caucasian" is a misnomer because it can apply to anyone with lighter skin -- describing people all the way from iceland to russia... or to the lighter skinned of spain and italy. knowing that people have been mixing from the middle east to southern europe to norther europe since roman times -- who decides who is "caucasian" and who is not???

my gut reaction is that your professor doesn't understand what an outdated term "race" is, when it comes to medicine. or perhaps he's still promoting racism is by teaching students to classify people into race pigeonholes? debating with him probably won't help though. so if it were me, i'd just bs something about recessive genetic diseases. good luck to you!

this is what i was thinking earlier, just wasn't very articulate at 2am.

this is the very same thought i was trying to articulate through my sleep-fogged brain last night as i typed by last response. some people get certain ideas in their heads and they never seem to get knocked loose and replaced by a more updated ones, as time passes. sometimes the very best you can hope for is to get a decent grade is to read then mostly regurgitate what you know they want to hear.

you simply aren't going to be able to open or change a musty closed mind.

[RetRN77]

Actually, what I am inclined to think is that the purpose of the paper may be to educate the student on the issue - LOL, novel idea. :) That through research, the student is possibly to come to the conclusion that due to recessive gene differences, there is a physiologic advantage to mixed-race marriages?

[Bobbkat]

Hmm, I'm an interracial person married to someone who is a completely different race than either of mine (did that make sense?). The only thing that comes to mind for me is that when I was pregnant with our child we pretty much skipped all of the genetic testing that is offered to people of certain racial backgrounds, because we were both unlikely to carry the genetic proponents to cause the problems they were looking for. Sickle cell is a good example. My husband is Black, so he could be a carrier, but I am not, so I'm not likely a carrier. At the same time, I am half white, so I could be a carrier for CF, but since my husband is not white, he is not likely to be a carrier.

[HealthShepherd]

Dittos to what others have said about the ambiguity of "race". But the other problem I have is that this assignment seems to treat marriage as synonymous with reproduction.

Besides the obvious naivete of this - you can make a baby without being married, and vice versa - it's also a politically sensitive assumption in terms of the same-sex marriage debate.

[HealthShepherd]

It's a bit of a reach, but I can think of one possible angle that's about marriage, not reproduction: nutrition.

Married couples tend to share pantries and meals, rather than each being responsible for their own food. However, since different ethnic groups having varying risk levels for diet-related diseases, their nutritional needs/priorities may be different.

For example, a native person has a higher risk of developing diabetes than a white person. So the white person may be able to "get away with" more sugar in their diet than the native partner can, so their differing physiological needs may be an issue in their marital custom of communal cooking/shopping.

And I may be wrong, but: don't black people need more dietary vitamin D than non-blacks, because their high levels of melanin mean they don't get as much from sunshine? If that's correct, then again there's an example of two partners who have different dietary needs but are eating the same food.

This is a stretch, though. I think it's much more likely that the professor was really talking about reproduction, not marriage.

[heron, ASN, RN]

Or perhaps s/he's trying to get you to examine the physiological basis for "race" divisions and consider whether they are valid or even exist?

The genetic angle sounds fruitful, too.

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

I think I would take on the genetic angle too and develop it into the diseases that are more race-prevalent: ie sickle cell, cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs, maybe even go into dwarfism?

[nvsmom]

OMG, thanks everyone! I think I'm getting somewhere now. I'm going to look up more sources having to do with genes and diseases including nutrition. If there are any more recommendations/suggestions..please, do share!

[SuesquatchRN, BSN, RN]

Race has use in forensics. People's phenotypes express in their bone structure and race can be extrapolated. Of course, it has limitations but it helps.

It is useful in helping to identify certain conditions. For example, whites don't generally get rickets because the lack of melanin allows for ample vit D synthesis even in the absence of strong sun - which is why whites lost the melanin and blacks retained it. However, whites are far more likely to get skin cancer than blacks, or even more specifically and within the same race an Irish girl is more likely to get it than a Sicilian one.

[sharpeimom]

maybe you could work in somehow, what thoughtless, if well intentioned, remarks well-meaning people make sometimes.

my parents had several miscarriages and stillbirths before they had me. my father had the typically very fair skin and the very very blue eyes and white blond hair that many people of swedish descent have, while my mom had

dark eyes and olive skin and blue black hair. she was of western european background. i remember when i was little, complete strangers would comment, "how nice it was that you were fortunate enough

to have been given a little blonde baby when you adopted her." huh?

by that point, after losing so many babies, what i looked like, mattered not one tiny bit.

i guess the point of my musings would be that i suspect that either your prof is interested in making you

(as a class) broaden your minds, dig deeper into genetics, or s/he is just an old fart who remains mired in a decade/century gone by.

this sounds more like a grad level course topic anyway.