OTC Vitamin Lowers Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer Risk

/

Can a simple vitamin taken in conjunction with sensible sun protection significantly lower the risk of common, non-melanoma skin cancer in high-risk patients?

A recent study completed at the University of Sydney and Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Australia supports this claim. Senior author and professor of dermatology Dr. Diona Damian found evidence that skin cancers may be reduced with a year of treatment of nicotinamide.

A type of vitamin B3, nicotinamide is considered to be safe and affordable and is available in most countries as an over-the-counter drug. The study showed that nicotinamide was very well tolerated with no difference in adverse events, blood results, or blood pressure.

Nicotinamide differs from nicotinic acid and niacin, two other forms of vitamin B3. Nicotonic acid commonly causes headaches, flushing, and low blood pressure, but these side effects are not seen with nicotinamide.

Previous studies suggest that nicotinamide enhances the repair of DNA in skin cells damaged by sunlight. Additionally, nicotinamide appears to protect the skin's immune system from UV radiation by providing skin cells an extra energy boost when they are in repair-mode after sun exposure.

Skin cancer is known to be the most common form of cancer in fair-skinned populations in the world and it is considered to be four times as common as all other cancers combined. More than half of the population of Australia is affected by non-melanoma skin cancer.

Non-melanoma skin cancer is caused by sun exposure. The 386 participants involved in Dr. Damian’s study had a history of skin cancer, increasing their risk for additional skin cancers.

The patients were asked to take the pill twice-daily pill for a period of 12 months. Nicotinamide reduced the incidence of new non-melanoma skin cancers by 23%, relative to placebo controls, and cut the incidence of pre-cancerous sun spots by around 15%.

The average number of actinic keratoses (pre-cancerous sun spots) in the nicotinamide group was consistently lower during treatment, ranging from an 11% reduction at three months, to a 20% reduction at nine months.

Dr. Damian hopes that these findings can be immediately translated into clinical practice. However, she adds that people who are at high risk of skin cancer still need to practice sun safe behavior, use sunscreens, and have regular check-ups with their doctors.

More about this on: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151021185104.htm

Daniel J. Ladd Jr, DO - Tru-Skin Dermatology In Austin, Texas

/

Tru-Skin Dermatology, formerly known as Austin Skin, is building a nationwide network based on the "Business Concept Franchise Model".

Austin, Texas Dermatologist Dr. Daniel J. Ladd, Jr.

Name: Dr. Daniel J. Ladd, Jr.
Clinic: Tru-Skin Dermatology
Location: Austin, TX
Website: tru-skin.com

Dr. Ladd is a man of action, an energetic person with various interests and enjoys telling jokes. Aside from founding The Shade Project, Dr. Ladd is a Board Certified Dermatologist and Mohs Surgeon who has seen far too much skin cancer. Committed to help prevent it, he has started a local sun safety dialogue with the Dr. Dan Radio Show. 

The show welcomes guests from all areas of medicine and the non-profit world alike. Listeners can become informed on the many aspects of wellness, healthy skin, skin cancer prevention, and current events on a local, regional and national basis.

Is there anything that is unconventional or uncommon from the average clinic in any way? How do you separate yourself from your competition?

Tru-Skin Dermatology is an industry leading, board certified, state of the art fully integrated dermatology practice; surgical, medical and cosmetic, composed of skin cancer experts and MOHS surgery specialists. Our brand offers patients a dependable, predictable patient centered experience in a clean modern office facility where they will receive expert care. Our affiliation with The Shade Project sets us apart from other clinics. A portion of every service, patient visit and product purchase at Tru-Skin Dermatology is donated to The Shade Project to help skin cancer prevention efforts. The Shade Project is a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing skin cancer through education, community outreach and building shade structures where children and families play.

You’re using video in your waiting room to market to your patients. How effective is that? 

We've begun a concerted effort to promote cosmetic services available at our practice through internal marketing. We're using a customized waiting room video from Frontdesk that has proved effective for awareness of additional services available. Having the videos in our waiting room has allowed patients to feel comfortable bringing up a procedure they saw on the video with the provider during their appointment. The folks at Frontdesk were very easy to work with and responsive to our questions and needs for customization unique to the Tru-Skin Dermatology brand...

Read More

Tanning Industry Calls Warnings A "Sun Scare" Conspiracy By Doctors

/

If you're a dermatologist or physician who has warned patients about the dangers of tanning, you've been been labled part of "the Sun Scare people" who are "just like Big Tobacco, lying for money and killing people".

The tanning indusrty is changing the debate, moving the discussion from tanning's risks to a "deadly epidemic of vitamin D deficiendy and positioning itself as the more trustworthy source of information on tannings health effects.

Evidently the tanning indusrty is taking a page out of the big tabacco's book and now targeting physicians as part of a conspiracty out to protect their own financial interests, as well as using a few willing doctors to tout their own position.

Fairwarning.or has posted an article that you can read here: Burned By Health Warnings, Defiant Tanning Industry Assails Doctors, 'Sun Scare' Conspiracy

In the video, Levy is explicit about what salon employees are allowed to say at work and what they should say on their own time. He encourages the D-Angels to follow what he calls the “Clark Kent/Superman” model. Inside the salon, employees should be Clark Kents who refrain from making health claims about vitamin D and direct clients to industry websites that make pro-tanning claims that are carefully calibrated to stay inside legal bounds. Beyond salon walls, however, employees can spread their wings, becoming superheroes who expose the lies of sunscreen manufacturers and dermatologists and share the vitamin D gospel. “Outside the salon, you can be a D-Angel,” Levy says in the video. “You can promote a message to your friends and neighbors that the Sun Scare people are just like Big Tobacco, lying for money and killing people.”

Read More

Sun Exposure & Sunblock: Great Info For Your Patients

/

Importance of Sunscreen/Sunblock

I reviewed a Special Report insert in the April 2011 The Dermatologist journal that was very informative about the need and use of sun protection. It details the difference in effects of UVA vs UVB rays. I will summarize the main points. It is critical to educate patients about the following information.

UVA and UVB are the rays that are important in skin disease and aging. UVA comprises 96.5% of UV radiation and UVB comprises only 3.5%. (Remember that SPF only tells you how much of the UVB is blocked, although UVB is important in damage to the skin). UVA can penetrate glass and reach the skin’s dermis, while UVB cannot. UV radiation causes DNA damage, immunosuppression, and sunburn.

After UV exposure, melanin (pigment) synthesis is a mechanism to combat UV damage. Melanin blocks UV and scatters UV radiation to prevent damage. This is why darker skinned individuals do not sunburn as easily and do not show as much sun-induced aging and skin disease/cancer. UV-induced immunosuppression is associated with increased risk of skin cancer.

Read More

Sun Protection

/
“But I love the sun!” ….is a phrase I hear in my office all too often - especially this time of year. My usual reply: “well, the sun doesn’t love you…” Skin cancer rates are on the rise. During the recent past, doctors have become increasingly aware of the increase in the rates of skin cancer in the United States, and have stressed the importance of the need for protection from ultraviolet (UV) radiation. The harm caused by UV includes premature aging (such as wrinkling and age spots), skin cancer, and permanent, sometimes blinding, damage to eyes. Doctors everywhere agree that education is critical to stopping the epidemic of sun related diseases - especially skin cancer. As to the actual physiological effects of UV radiation on the skin, I’ll spare the scintillating details. Suffice it to say that the sun ages our skin undoubtedly more than any other environmental factor. So, just in time for the summer, let’s come with and implement a sun safety program.
Read More

A Team Approach Works Best for Skin Cancer Care

/

skin medical spa md

Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the United States with one in five Americans developing some form of skin cancer during their lifetime. 

Fair-skinned, blond, or red-haired people with blue or green eyes are most at risk.  In fact, if you are fair skinned and live to age 65, you have a 40%-50% chance of having at least one skin cancer. 

Read More

The Cancer No One Takes Seriously

/

Last month, honor of National Melanoma Cancer Awareness Month, Healthy Aging interviewed a dozen folks who have been diagnosed with skin cancer. I digitally recorded their stories, and our photographers took lifestyle photographs. Their voices and images tell their story in the following slideshow.


 
Surprisingly, I noticed something different in these cancer survivors than other people I had interviewed with other types of cancer, such as breast cancer. The survivors' attitude upon diagnosis was almost systematically laissez faire at first.
 
While the diagnosis of any type of cancer is so difficult that generations of people still whisper the word or refer to it generically as "C," most people I interviewed were more intrepid about treatment. Their thoughts weren't on radiation or chemo.

There may be reasons why people don't take skin cancer so seriously. For one, the two most common types of skin cancer are generally not lethal.

Skin cancer is the number one diagnosed cancer in the United States. In fact, more than one million people are diagnosed with basal cell or squamous cell (non-melanoma) carcinoma annually. Given the high numbers, we all likely know someone who had a skin cancer removed. However, basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma are slow growing and are most often not lethal. For example, less than 1,000 people die from non-melanoma cancer annually.

Melanoma is what you do need to worry about and why we need to seek out dermatologists, who are trained to recognize all types of skin cancer.

Most recent statistics estimate that 68,720 new cases of melanoma will have been diagnosed in 2009. That's far less than breast cancer (194,280), colon cancer (106,100) and lung cancer (219,440). But there's one noticeable difference:

We have the tools necessary (our eyes and a hand mirror) to detect possible problem areas. Our follow-up with a dermatologist annually can ensure the cancer is simply removed, before it spreads to our lymph nodes. 

"It's so easy," Elizabeth Encarnacion says, after being diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma at 32. "It's not even like you have to get a mammogram or a colonscopy, you just have to go and have someone look at your skin."

The good news is when melanoma is caught early, it is highly curable, boasting 90 percent to 95 percent survival rates. 

On the other hand, malignant melanoma, when caught later, is a cancer with few effective treatments. The median number of people who are diagnosed with advanced stage melanoma, for example, don't live a year, according to the Melanoma Research Foundation.

And while many say ignorance is bliss; denial can kill.

"The best thing you can do, if you have any doubt, is go and get it checked," says Schilling. "The last thing you want to do is lose your life to something you have been looking at."

Read the rest of this article

Marci A. Landsmann is managing editor of Healthy Aging. She can be reached at mlandsmann@advanceweb.com.

Submit a guest post to Medical Spa MD and be heard.

Skin Cancer? Yep.

/

We'll, I've got skin cancer again. Not Melanomia fortunately but some other little nasties are replicating uncontroledly. One on my forhead above my brow and on on my shoulder. A little MOHS surgery should get the rascals under control. My back is starting to look like I'm a accident prone suicide bomber.

I can't say that I was overly impressed with the exam I got from my dermatologist. While I'd arranged an appointment for a spot on my back, I was never even given a once-over or asked if I had any other irregularities. It was only on a follow-up visit that I pointed out what I thought was an actinic keratosis. But no, my luck in skin cancers is not that good.

Note to self. Point out everything and ask a lot of questions.

Sunbeds & Skin Cancer

/

Via CNN: Study: Sunbeds as harmful as cigarettes

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) had previously classified sunbeds as being a "probable" cause of cancer.

However, the agency is now recommending that tanning machines should be moved to "the highest cancer risk category" and be labeled as "carcinogenic to humans".

It followed a review of research that concluded that the risk of melanoma -- the most deadly form of skin cancer -- was increased by 75 percent in people who started using sunbeds regularly before the age of 30.

The IARC also says there is evidence of a link between melanoma of the eye and the use of sunbeds.

In an article in medical journal The Lancet, WHO oncology expert Dr Fatiha El Ghissassi said: "The use of UV-emitting tanning devices is widespread in many developed countries, especially among young women.

"Analysis concluded that the risk of skin melanoma is increased by 75 percent when use of tanning devices starts before 30 years of age.

"Studies provide consistent evidence of a positive association between the use of UV-emitting tanning devices and ocular melanoma -- skin cancer of the eyelid.

If you have any holiday complaints then speak to Holiday Claims today and find out what your next move should be.

Dermatologist Bernard Ackerman likes a tan.

/

"Working on a tan" is like training muscles: "Both, if done in moderation and reasonably, serve a worthwhile purpose." Sunburns, including blistering ones, "have not been shown to have anything to do with the development of melanoma," Ackerman says.

...But Ackerman says the number of melanomas hasn't changed; rather, more diagnoses are being made because of heightened vigilance. Dr. Gregory Daniels is an expert in melanoma at the Moore Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego. He believes there probably is a link between sun exposure and melanoma. "The danger is we think we understand it."

"Why is it that melanoma went from something that happened to one in 5,000 people in the 1930s, to one in 50?" Daniels says. "What is that? What changed? Fluorescent lights? We're now staying indoors more. We just don't know. The problem is we don't know, but we think we do.

Read More