Getting sun when you have skin Cancer might

[BERIGAN]

You Won't Believe What Prevents Cancer

Exposure to sunlight is known as a major risk factor for the potentially fatal skin cancer melanoma. But a new study from the University of New Mexico shows that sunlight may also help melanoma victims survive the disease, something that the researchers admit is totally counterintuitive, reports The Associated Press.

In addition, a second study from Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden shows that sunlight may reduce the risk of getting cancer of the lymph glands.

Warning: Do not go outside and sunbathe. "Sunlight, particularly ultraviolet radiation, is a very well established human carcinogen. Nothing in these papers should in any way detract from this message," Dr. Kathleen M. Egan told AP. While she was not involved with either study, she is a melanoma expert and associate professor of medicine at Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville, Tenn.

In this five-year study of 528 melanoma victims, the researchers found that increased sun exposure led to increased survivability, even though sunshine has long been viewed as the No. 1 cause of malignant melanoma. "It's totally counterintuitive, and we're trying to investigate it," lead study author Marianne Berwick told AP. She is now doing a similar study of 3,700 melanoma patients worldwide. "It's really strange, because sunburn seems to be one of the factors associated with improved survival, and that doesn't make much sense, so we think sunburn's a proxy for the kind of sun exposure that leads to melanoma. But there's so much we need to know," she admitted to AP.

The new research shows scientific clues as to how sunlight may slow or stop some types of cancer.

Clue No. 1: Vitamin D. Our skin makes this vitamin in response to sunlight. It's an essential vitamin in that it helps regulate cell growth and helps cells stop unneeded growth through a process called apoptosis.

Clue No. 2: Sunlight may help victims survive melanoma through something called solar elastosis, which is a response to sunlight that breaks down collagen in the skin. Or put more simply, this is the same process that causes sun-related wrinkling. "It may be something in solar elastosis itself. It may be that some physical barrier created by this breakdown of collagen keeps the melanoma from getting into the blood and lymph system," Berwick explained to AP.

Sunshine may prevent non-Hodgkin's lymphoma

A research team led by Karin Ekstrom Smedby of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden studied 3,000 people who had lymph cancer and another 3,000 who did not. The results? Increased exposure to ultraviolet radiation through sunbathing and sunburns resulted in a reduced incidence of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, reports AP. The experts agree that it's likely the sunlight itself is not the explanation; instead, it's the vitamin D that acts as the protective agent against cancer. What's really interesting is that doctors think non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is caused in a similar way as skin cancer.

"It's long been known that vitamin D is a critically important agent in bone health," Vanderbilt's Egan told AP in an interview. "More recently it has become increasingly obvious that vitamin D has important regulatory functions in the cell, in terms of cell division."

Let's hear it for the new miracle vitamin.

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/package.j...ight&floc=wn-np

[Guest ariceffron]

THIS IS ABOUT A STEP ABOVE THAT DOCTOR IN S. CAROLINA WHO INJECTED HYDROGEN PEROXIDE INTO HIS PATIENTS AS A GENERAL CURE TO MANY THINGS. THIS IS COMPLETE BS AND IF THOSE WERE THE TRUE RESULTS THEY GOT, THEY SMUDGED SOME OF THE RESEARCH SOMEWHERE DOWN THE LINE