eli5: Why does black skin almost never suffer from skin cancer ? Isn’t melanin being present mean anyone could be affected?
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I think you’re thinking of a melanoma as being “caused” by melanin. But it isn’t. Melanomas, like all cancers, are a result of cells multiplying out of control, usually as a result of damage to their DNA. In this case, it comes from over-multiplication of *melanocytes*, the cells that produce melanin in the skin. But the production of melanin is not, in itself, the problem.
Melanin is in the skin in the first place to absorb the ultraviolet light that would otherwise cause DNA damage. It’s the whole reason most people who live in the sunny tropics are dark-skinned in the first place (or rather, why all humans were until *light* skin evolved later in less-sunny areas).
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