As always, incredible article Robyn! It is so fascinating to see all these official "health recommendations" which actually do more harm than good.
"Take the vaccines!"
"The sun is dangerous, do not dare to spend too much time in the sun!"
"Visit doctors frequently to check for cancers, so if we find something, we can treat aggressively, thereby destroy your health and your immune system,, even if the finding would never have caused significant problems or may have reversed with time!"
"Ivermectin does not work and is dangerous!"
"Drink fluoridated water!"
etc. etc. etc.
The list is endless. All these recommendations do more harm than good. Is all that just a coincidence?
Sun exposure helps preventing many diseases and cancers.
"We observed a decreased risk of breast cancer for individuals spending ≥1h/d in the sun during summer months over a lifetime or usual adulthood compared with <1h/d [pooled relative risk (RR)=0.84; 95% CI: 0.77, 0.91]. Spending ≥2h/d in the sun had a similar protective effect as 1 to <2h/d when compared with <1h/d (RR=0.83; 95% CI: 0.75, 0.93 vs. 0.83; 95% CI: 0.78, 0.89). "
Hiller TWR, O'Sullivan DE, Brenner DR, Peters CE, King WD. Solar Ultraviolet Radiation and Breast Cancer Risk: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Environ Health Perspect. 2020 Jan;128(1):16002.
Spending time in the sun increases Vitamin D which reduces Melanoma risks.
"The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency was significantly higher in patients with melanoma than that in controls (odds ratio, 2.115; 95% CI, 1.151–3.885). In terms of prognosis, serum vitamin D levels were significantly higher in melanoma patients with lower Breslow thickness (≦1 vs. >1 mm: SMD, 0.243; 95% CI, 0.160–0.327). Moreover, melanoma patients with lower vitamin D levels had a significantly higher mortality rate (hazard ratio, 1.558; 95% CI, 1.258–1.931).
Vitamin D deficiency is associated with higher Breslow thickness and mortality in melanoma patients."
Tsai TY, Kuo CY, Huang YC. The association between serum vitamin D level and risk and prognosis of melanoma: a systematic review and meta-analysis. J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol. 2020 Aug;34(8):1722-1729.
I also consider this new meta analysis interesting. Prophylactic supplementation of Nicotinamide/Niacinamide, a form of Vitamin B3, may reduce the risk of skin cancers, especially cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinomas. There was also a trend towards lower risk of melanoma, not reaching statistical significance, probably due to the low number of studies and events.
"Results: We screened 4730 citations and found 29 trials (3039 patients) meeting inclusion criteria. Nicotinamide was associated with a significant reduction in skin cancers compared to control (rate ratio 0.50 (95% CI, 0.29-0.85; I 2 = 64%; 552 patients; 5 trials); moderate strength of the evidence)."
Mainville L, Smilga AS, Fortin PR. Effect of Nicotinamide in Skin Cancer and Actinic Keratoses Chemoprophylaxis, and Adverse Effects Related to Nicotinamide: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. J Cutan Med Surg. 2022 May-Jun;26(3):297-308.
It's really getting to the stage where anyone who's 'awake' is going to believe that they should do the opposite of anything that public health authorities recommend. This is understandable but dangerous if it causes some people to start thinking, 'Maybe smoking, drinking during pregnancy and eating processed meat aren't so bad for me after all!'
Those are great references re protective effects of sun exposure on other conditions. The Swedish study that I cited found significant decreases in cardiovascular, and non-CVD, non-cancer mortality, so it's very clear that getting adequate sunshine is protective against a range of conditions.
The nicotinamide connection is quite intriguing. Life Extension Foundation has been advocating nicotinamide as an 'oral sunscreen' for a number of years.
I agree, I observe the same. People tend to extremism. There are a lot of people who believe everything they hear in the media, from the government, from public health etc. is correct and if you dare to disagree about some of these official statements, they will consider you a conspiracy theorist. On the other hand, there are now many people who tend to believe that everything they hear from these official channels and from usual allopathic doctors is fake and wrong. I think the truth is often somewhere in the middle of two extreme sides. Not everything they say is wrong but a lot of what they say is wrong and does more harm than good. I think it is extremely important for humans to understand that they should never limit themselves by driving too far into certain categories of thinking like: "They just want to earn money and kill me and everything they say is fake" or "All informations that they give me are correct and everyone who doubts about it is just a crazy person." Both positions are dangerous and limit ourselves. We have to evaluate each topic individually, always keeping an open mind to the possibilty that a certain official information may be correct (in part) or wrong (in part).
I don´t think that these people are awake if they believe everything they hear (including the recommendation to reduce alcohol, red meat, cigarettes etc.) is wrong. In this case I believe they just changed their position to the other extreme side. I think being truly awake means that you understand that everything you hear could or could not (in part or depending on various individual circumstances) be correct or wrong and that if you want to get closer the truth, you have to analyse everything for yourself with an unbiased mind. I know this is extremely difficult, we all have our biases. But we have to ask ourselves. Do we want to know the truth or do we want to follow a certain ideology that we created because we wanted to be part of something... ? The fact that these highly questionable international organisations and agencies which otherwise push toxic vaccines, also promote plant based diets to reduce the climate change etc. is in some way very harmful for us. Too many of the people who woke up to the fact that the vaccines are dangerous, will also dismiss plant based diets with the excuse that these agencies are evil and so everything they say and do is wrong and we have to resist against their plans, "first they want to vaccinate all of us and then they want to take our meat away".... This is exactly what I mean, people have to learn to distinguish. Not everything is wrong and not everything is correct either.
Actually, Vitamin B3 does not only seem to be effective to prevent skin cancers. A deficiency may also be one of the reasons why some people get lung cancer from smoking while others do not. Vitamin B3 seems to prevent DNA damage from the sun, from smoke and probably from other causes. See this study:
"The role of niacin’s metabolite, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), in DNA repair via base-excision repair pathway is well documented. We evaluated if niacin deficiency results in genetic instability in normal human fetal lung fibroblasts (MRC-5), and further, does it leads to enhanced accumulation of cigarette smoke–induced genetic damage? MRC-5 cells were grown discretely in niacin-proficient/deficient media, and exposed to nicotine-derived nitrosamine ketone (NNK, a cigarette smoke carcinogen). Niacin deficiency abated the NAD polymerization, augmented the spontaneous induction of micronuclei (MN) and chromosomal aberrations (CA) and raised the expression of 10 genes and suppressed 12 genes involved in different biological functions. NNK exposure resulted in genetic damage as measured by the induction of MN and CA in cells grown in niacin-proficient medium, but the damage became practically marked when niacin-deficient cells were exposed to NNK. NNK exposure raised the expression of 16 genes and suppressed the expression of 56 genes in cells grown in niacin-proficient medium. NNK exposure to niacin-deficient cells raised the expression of eight genes including genes crucial in promoting cancer such as FGFR3 and DUSP1 and suppressed the expression of 33 genes, including genes crucial in preventing the onset and progression of cancer like RASSF2, JUP, and IL24, in comparison with the cells grown in niacin-proficient medium. Overall, niacin deficiency interferes with the DNA damage repair process induced by chemical carcinogens like NNK, and niacin-deficient population are at the higher risk of genetic instability caused by cigarette smoke carcinogen NNK."
Lohani M, Dhasmana A, Haque S, Dar SA, Jawed A, Wahid M, Mandal RK, Akhter N, Farasani A, Hobani YH, Singh A, Hussain S. Niacin deficiency modulates genes involved in cancer: Are smokers at higher risk? J Cell Biochem. 2019 Jan;120(1):232-242.
Yes. The issue is though we must question everything re public health advice.
Smoking may be the toxins in the treatment of tobacco crops and plastic filter. And I hate to think what e-cigarettes will do.
Too much alcohol is an issue but what about neuro-toxic sweeteners, far worse than the natural sugars they replace even if it is refined.
Processed meat is primarily things like sodium nitrite which I refer to in an earlier comment. If correctly cured with only salt and say fruits for colour and vitamin C, then should be fine in moderation.
Vitamin D is good for all round defense. D for Defense and as I like to say vitamin C for Cure.
If it looks the way it did when it was hanging off a tree or a vine, or growing under the ground, it's probably OK! Everything else should be treated with utmost suspicion.
Thanks for this fascinating take on the diagnostics. As someone who is pretty much outside of the the health care sphere (I have coverage but have not needed to go to a doc in many years), I self-diagnosed some unusual spots on my face and used petty spurge (Euphorbia sp.) topically. the spots reddened, blistered, scabbed, then eventually fell off, leaving no evidence of melanoma or 'weird' spots. I get outdoors daily, have also spent a life working outdoors. These days, I wear a hat and long sleeves for part of the day, but feel like I do get pretty consistent D3. I don't think it requires hours in the sun to get it. I wondered about those 'free skin checks' in Australia and wondered if I was missing out when visiting there for several months.
Anecdotally, I've had many people report to me that applying fresh aloe vera gel to actinic keratoses causes them to scab up and fall off. I suspect that a number of plants have this effect.
You are completely correct that it doesn't require hours of daily sun exposure to get your vitamin D (and other photoproducts). Depending on your skin tone, it may be wise to cover up for part of the day; once your skin has reached its limit for photoproduct production, any more exposure is probably just going to contribute to accelerated aging.
Great article. I’ve often tongue in cheek say that I don’t visit the doctor as they might “find something “.
It’s amazing how brainwashed I am, the slip, slop and slap campaign still resonate with me. After listening to a dark horse podcast, I downloaded the dminder app which is pretty good. I do still use a bit of sunscreen and if I remember wear a long sleeve shirts if I’m going to be outside for a long time.
Maybe that’s why there are so many taxes on tobacco, because it might be healthy :)
Spot on. The inimitable H. Gilbert Welch calls them 'incidentalomas'!
The DMinder app is really good for helping people calibrate their 'safe and effective' dose of sunshine. After you've received your dose, covering up or getting under some shade makes perfect sense.
I strongly suspect that it ain't the tobacco in cigarettes that does most of the harm; it's all the other crap that's added to them.
But honestly, it seems like EVERYTHING I was told about 'health' growing up was a bit fat lie.
My mother has had SOOO many skin cancers cut out of her legs. Sure, she's spent a lot of time out in the sun - but now she covers up like she's afraid of the sun!! I have told her that a bit of sun now isn't causing those skin cancers; they're a problem from years ago. And sun is GOOD for you! But she still cowers under long pants, long sleeves & a hat wide-brimmed away from the sun, taking her Vit D drops instead. And of course keeps having skin cancers cut out...
It's very common for older folk in Australia to refer to them as 'sun cancers', but many of them are just like your mother - they've been assiduously avoiding the sun for years, but these skin cancers keep sprouting up anyway. And yet the penny never seems to drop.
Does she get enough Vitamin B3? See this new meta analysis. Prophylactic supplementation of Nicotinamide/Niacinamide, a form of Vitamin B3, may reduce the risk of skin cancers, especially cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinomas.
"Results: We screened 4730 citations and found 29 trials (3039 patients) meeting inclusion criteria. Nicotinamide was associated with a significant reduction in skin cancers compared to control (rate ratio 0.50 (95% CI, 0.29-0.85; I 2 = 64%; 552 patients; 5 trials); moderate strength of the evidence)."
Mainville L, Smilga AS, Fortin PR. Effect of Nicotinamide in Skin Cancer and Actinic Keratoses Chemoprophylaxis, and Adverse Effects Related to Nicotinamide: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. J Cutan Med Surg. 2022 May-Jun;26(3):297-308.
Thankyou so much for that, Max! :-) I shall endeavour to get her to take more B3! She's had a lot of SCCs cut out of her legs...
She's vegetarian, has been for 40 years, but I swear, the way she eats, she barely gets enough nutrients. The supplementation will be good for her in more ways than one!
She takes double the recommended dose of Vit D...but she's already osteopaenic. Now her body won't tolerate any gluten - just a year after her 2nd shot (she only had 2 shots, and she regrets both!), so who knows exactly how her system is coping (not great IMO...). I'm Coeliac, BTW. Found out when I was in my mid-30s.
Not too long ago, before we knew much about Coeliac, the average age of being diagnosed with Coeliac was in people's 60s. Now people know about it so they test much earlier. So she could've had this her whole life and is only finding out now (a malabsorption problem)...or the shots could've caused (or more likely fast-tracked?) issues. Plus her hearing is going downhill as well (each test just shows it's worse and worse). I think it's safe to say that she's just generally on the downhill slide...and after all, she is 75. I'm not sure that a whole pile of B3 & D and everything else are miraculously going to pop her system back up! :-(
TQ. My sister diagnosed with Coeliac in 2021 I think now. Her vit D levels were tested and found to be very low. She now boosts her D.
I question how much Coeliac is related to toxic wheat treated with neuro-toxins, pesticides and the like, and poor gut health. I am very suspicious of it all.
I read that they will use glyphosate to dry grain!
My sister has presumably taken the vaxxes despite my warnings. I have not explicitly asked but...
I am not one to badger but in the context of my father who is in his 80's and on quite a bit of medication as well as vits I did say to her recently that the vaxxes and meds will be doing him no good.
Yeah, there are a lot of problems surrounding wheat. People's guts have too many toxins to deal with these days. And glyphosate is a problem for many people. It doesn't help that wheat gets spliced and diced in the laboratory so it's not exactly what it used to be, genetically.
I used to eat organic wheat pasta from Italy...and it was still a problem. Glyphosate is also on loads of other foods, but I don't have a problem with loads of other foods, mainly just foods containing gluten! And my Vit D levels are good, but I eat plenty of eggs (from our free range chickens who are gluten-free!) & other whole animal proteins and I get lots of sunshine (I pretty well always have).
Sorry to hear your sister & Dad are probably vaxxed to the hilt :-(
UVB is required to make vitamin D, and there's only sufficient UVB when the sun is relatively high overhead. But sunlight at every time of day has benefits, whether it's for synchronising our circadian rhythm, stimulating nitric oxide synthesis, or any of the other myriad benefits.
Way back when I was an occupational therapy student doing my honors thesis, I shan't say how many years ago, I discovered that the rates of spinal / back surgery were directly proportional to the number of surgeons in any particular region. I guess that is the actual root of my mistrust in medical systems. All systems actually. Specialists will create their own business, regardless of actual need. I also discovered that back surgery made no difference to long term outcomes (I suspect the benefit was negative) and the real resolution simply came with time! That sound distrust has stood me in excellent stead the past 3 years. I suspect I shall be one of the long-term survivors!
Funny you should mention that. There's a comment left by a doctor on the JAMA Int Med article that I based this post on, as follows:
"Years ago, I worked as a part time JCAHO surveyor. A rural county over a two year period saw a doubling in the incidence of prostate cancer. It turned out the reason was not "something in the water;" rather the one hospital in the county had recently recruited its first urologist."
I have no idea what a JCAHO surveyor is, but you get the point.
I guess scepticism is SuperSally's superpower ;-).
My husband had a melanoma removed from his left earlobe. We put the cause down to the use of his mobile phone. He mainly uses his phone in speaker mode now.
Thanks for the great article Robyn. Would you say there is difference in rates of diagnosis between melanoma and Basal Cell Carcinoma, I was recently diagnosed with a BCC on my nose. It was definitely something as it would keep scabbing over and would not heal.
If you are able to find Petty Spurge (it's a common weed in Australia, New Zealand, and I have found it in British Columbia and growing in an alley in Seattle, you pinch off a piece and put the milky substance that oozes out of the stem onto your nose. Even a BCC can be removed. The petty spurge attacks the malignant cells, however deep they go. There used to be a website, pettyspurg.org several years ago with hundreds of personal stories and photos of cancers removed naturally. Sorry to say, the website seems to be gone. Before going to surgery, I highly recommend this plant.
Speaking as a retired GP- BCC is much more common. It can be locally destructive if neglected, but is rarely invasive. It is strongly related to ongoing sun exposure- as in farmers.
Totally. The age-standardised mortality rates of non-melanoma skin cancers are just 3.3 deaths per 100,000 population males and 1.2 deaths per 100,000 females. So they're unlikely to kill you, but they can be terribly unsightly and are obviously harder to remove if they've been allowed to progress. As I mentioned in the article, any spot that shows concerning characteristics should be checked by a competent doctor. There's an enormous difference between screening and diagnosis.
Excellent article, thank you very much. Cancer industry is of course a scam. I only really understood this in 2020 when given, believe it or not, a diagnosis of melanoma in my parotid gland in my neck.
I had no superficial melanoma issues and was offered immuno-therapy which I took for 9 sessions in as many months before I worked out what was going on. It was in fact sodium nitrite (E250) poisoning via food I ate. I explain it in part here.
I have also written about sunshine here as well. I realised that vitamin D via the sun if we do the right things protects us from the harm that the sun's radiation can do as well as healing us.
I understood that clear skies with no vapour trails etc. better than cloudy or overcast days, so bizarrely perhaps better to cover up more in the latter. I wrote this about my thoughts and experience.
I consider most doctors the lowest of the low. They misdiagnosed me and are pig ignorant of the basics of disease. The information has been out there for decades yet they largely ignore it. Despicable.
In the UK this is far worse because we pay huge amounts for public so-called health care yet so much is utterly useless if not harmful.
I found it so bizarre that Brits were urged to 'save the NHS' throughout the scamdemic. Funny, I thought the NHS was supposed to be there to save you, the poor taxpaying public who pay for it.
As always, incredible article Robyn! It is so fascinating to see all these official "health recommendations" which actually do more harm than good.
"Take the vaccines!"
"The sun is dangerous, do not dare to spend too much time in the sun!"
"Visit doctors frequently to check for cancers, so if we find something, we can treat aggressively, thereby destroy your health and your immune system,, even if the finding would never have caused significant problems or may have reversed with time!"
"Ivermectin does not work and is dangerous!"
"Drink fluoridated water!"
etc. etc. etc.
The list is endless. All these recommendations do more harm than good. Is all that just a coincidence?
Sun exposure helps preventing many diseases and cancers.
"We observed a decreased risk of breast cancer for individuals spending ≥1h/d in the sun during summer months over a lifetime or usual adulthood compared with <1h/d [pooled relative risk (RR)=0.84; 95% CI: 0.77, 0.91]. Spending ≥2h/d in the sun had a similar protective effect as 1 to <2h/d when compared with <1h/d (RR=0.83; 95% CI: 0.75, 0.93 vs. 0.83; 95% CI: 0.78, 0.89). "
Hiller TWR, O'Sullivan DE, Brenner DR, Peters CE, King WD. Solar Ultraviolet Radiation and Breast Cancer Risk: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Environ Health Perspect. 2020 Jan;128(1):16002.
Spending time in the sun increases Vitamin D which reduces Melanoma risks.
"The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency was significantly higher in patients with melanoma than that in controls (odds ratio, 2.115; 95% CI, 1.151–3.885). In terms of prognosis, serum vitamin D levels were significantly higher in melanoma patients with lower Breslow thickness (≦1 vs. >1 mm: SMD, 0.243; 95% CI, 0.160–0.327). Moreover, melanoma patients with lower vitamin D levels had a significantly higher mortality rate (hazard ratio, 1.558; 95% CI, 1.258–1.931).
Vitamin D deficiency is associated with higher Breslow thickness and mortality in melanoma patients."
Tsai TY, Kuo CY, Huang YC. The association between serum vitamin D level and risk and prognosis of melanoma: a systematic review and meta-analysis. J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol. 2020 Aug;34(8):1722-1729.
I also consider this new meta analysis interesting. Prophylactic supplementation of Nicotinamide/Niacinamide, a form of Vitamin B3, may reduce the risk of skin cancers, especially cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinomas. There was also a trend towards lower risk of melanoma, not reaching statistical significance, probably due to the low number of studies and events.
"Results: We screened 4730 citations and found 29 trials (3039 patients) meeting inclusion criteria. Nicotinamide was associated with a significant reduction in skin cancers compared to control (rate ratio 0.50 (95% CI, 0.29-0.85; I 2 = 64%; 552 patients; 5 trials); moderate strength of the evidence)."
Mainville L, Smilga AS, Fortin PR. Effect of Nicotinamide in Skin Cancer and Actinic Keratoses Chemoprophylaxis, and Adverse Effects Related to Nicotinamide: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. J Cutan Med Surg. 2022 May-Jun;26(3):297-308.
It's really getting to the stage where anyone who's 'awake' is going to believe that they should do the opposite of anything that public health authorities recommend. This is understandable but dangerous if it causes some people to start thinking, 'Maybe smoking, drinking during pregnancy and eating processed meat aren't so bad for me after all!'
Those are great references re protective effects of sun exposure on other conditions. The Swedish study that I cited found significant decreases in cardiovascular, and non-CVD, non-cancer mortality, so it's very clear that getting adequate sunshine is protective against a range of conditions.
The nicotinamide connection is quite intriguing. Life Extension Foundation has been advocating nicotinamide as an 'oral sunscreen' for a number of years.
I agree, I observe the same. People tend to extremism. There are a lot of people who believe everything they hear in the media, from the government, from public health etc. is correct and if you dare to disagree about some of these official statements, they will consider you a conspiracy theorist. On the other hand, there are now many people who tend to believe that everything they hear from these official channels and from usual allopathic doctors is fake and wrong. I think the truth is often somewhere in the middle of two extreme sides. Not everything they say is wrong but a lot of what they say is wrong and does more harm than good. I think it is extremely important for humans to understand that they should never limit themselves by driving too far into certain categories of thinking like: "They just want to earn money and kill me and everything they say is fake" or "All informations that they give me are correct and everyone who doubts about it is just a crazy person." Both positions are dangerous and limit ourselves. We have to evaluate each topic individually, always keeping an open mind to the possibilty that a certain official information may be correct (in part) or wrong (in part).
I don´t think that these people are awake if they believe everything they hear (including the recommendation to reduce alcohol, red meat, cigarettes etc.) is wrong. In this case I believe they just changed their position to the other extreme side. I think being truly awake means that you understand that everything you hear could or could not (in part or depending on various individual circumstances) be correct or wrong and that if you want to get closer the truth, you have to analyse everything for yourself with an unbiased mind. I know this is extremely difficult, we all have our biases. But we have to ask ourselves. Do we want to know the truth or do we want to follow a certain ideology that we created because we wanted to be part of something... ? The fact that these highly questionable international organisations and agencies which otherwise push toxic vaccines, also promote plant based diets to reduce the climate change etc. is in some way very harmful for us. Too many of the people who woke up to the fact that the vaccines are dangerous, will also dismiss plant based diets with the excuse that these agencies are evil and so everything they say and do is wrong and we have to resist against their plans, "first they want to vaccinate all of us and then they want to take our meat away".... This is exactly what I mean, people have to learn to distinguish. Not everything is wrong and not everything is correct either.
Actually, Vitamin B3 does not only seem to be effective to prevent skin cancers. A deficiency may also be one of the reasons why some people get lung cancer from smoking while others do not. Vitamin B3 seems to prevent DNA damage from the sun, from smoke and probably from other causes. See this study:
"The role of niacin’s metabolite, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), in DNA repair via base-excision repair pathway is well documented. We evaluated if niacin deficiency results in genetic instability in normal human fetal lung fibroblasts (MRC-5), and further, does it leads to enhanced accumulation of cigarette smoke–induced genetic damage? MRC-5 cells were grown discretely in niacin-proficient/deficient media, and exposed to nicotine-derived nitrosamine ketone (NNK, a cigarette smoke carcinogen). Niacin deficiency abated the NAD polymerization, augmented the spontaneous induction of micronuclei (MN) and chromosomal aberrations (CA) and raised the expression of 10 genes and suppressed 12 genes involved in different biological functions. NNK exposure resulted in genetic damage as measured by the induction of MN and CA in cells grown in niacin-proficient medium, but the damage became practically marked when niacin-deficient cells were exposed to NNK. NNK exposure raised the expression of 16 genes and suppressed the expression of 56 genes in cells grown in niacin-proficient medium. NNK exposure to niacin-deficient cells raised the expression of eight genes including genes crucial in promoting cancer such as FGFR3 and DUSP1 and suppressed the expression of 33 genes, including genes crucial in preventing the onset and progression of cancer like RASSF2, JUP, and IL24, in comparison with the cells grown in niacin-proficient medium. Overall, niacin deficiency interferes with the DNA damage repair process induced by chemical carcinogens like NNK, and niacin-deficient population are at the higher risk of genetic instability caused by cigarette smoke carcinogen NNK."
Lohani M, Dhasmana A, Haque S, Dar SA, Jawed A, Wahid M, Mandal RK, Akhter N, Farasani A, Hobani YH, Singh A, Hussain S. Niacin deficiency modulates genes involved in cancer: Are smokers at higher risk? J Cell Biochem. 2019 Jan;120(1):232-242.
Bingo. Critical thinking skills are what is required to extricate ourselves from this trap of all or nothing thinking.
Yes. The issue is though we must question everything re public health advice.
Smoking may be the toxins in the treatment of tobacco crops and plastic filter. And I hate to think what e-cigarettes will do.
Too much alcohol is an issue but what about neuro-toxic sweeteners, far worse than the natural sugars they replace even if it is refined.
Processed meat is primarily things like sodium nitrite which I refer to in an earlier comment. If correctly cured with only salt and say fruits for colour and vitamin C, then should be fine in moderation.
Vitamin D is good for all round defense. D for Defense and as I like to say vitamin C for Cure.
If it looks the way it did when it was hanging off a tree or a vine, or growing under the ground, it's probably OK! Everything else should be treated with utmost suspicion.
V. Good, TQ
Thanks for this fascinating take on the diagnostics. As someone who is pretty much outside of the the health care sphere (I have coverage but have not needed to go to a doc in many years), I self-diagnosed some unusual spots on my face and used petty spurge (Euphorbia sp.) topically. the spots reddened, blistered, scabbed, then eventually fell off, leaving no evidence of melanoma or 'weird' spots. I get outdoors daily, have also spent a life working outdoors. These days, I wear a hat and long sleeves for part of the day, but feel like I do get pretty consistent D3. I don't think it requires hours in the sun to get it. I wondered about those 'free skin checks' in Australia and wondered if I was missing out when visiting there for several months.
Anecdotally, I've had many people report to me that applying fresh aloe vera gel to actinic keratoses causes them to scab up and fall off. I suspect that a number of plants have this effect.
You are completely correct that it doesn't require hours of daily sun exposure to get your vitamin D (and other photoproducts). Depending on your skin tone, it may be wise to cover up for part of the day; once your skin has reached its limit for photoproduct production, any more exposure is probably just going to contribute to accelerated aging.
Great article. I’ve often tongue in cheek say that I don’t visit the doctor as they might “find something “.
It’s amazing how brainwashed I am, the slip, slop and slap campaign still resonate with me. After listening to a dark horse podcast, I downloaded the dminder app which is pretty good. I do still use a bit of sunscreen and if I remember wear a long sleeve shirts if I’m going to be outside for a long time.
Maybe that’s why there are so many taxes on tobacco, because it might be healthy :)
Spot on. The inimitable H. Gilbert Welch calls them 'incidentalomas'!
The DMinder app is really good for helping people calibrate their 'safe and effective' dose of sunshine. After you've received your dose, covering up or getting under some shade makes perfect sense.
I strongly suspect that it ain't the tobacco in cigarettes that does most of the harm; it's all the other crap that's added to them.
Great article. Im writing this as i sit nxt to my dying husband. .. get the suspicious ones dealt with fast. They will kill you
I'm so very sorry to hear about your husband. I hope he is not in too much pain.
And yes, the suspicious ones need immediate attention, as I stressed in the footnote.
Fascinating reading, thank you!!
But honestly, it seems like EVERYTHING I was told about 'health' growing up was a bit fat lie.
My mother has had SOOO many skin cancers cut out of her legs. Sure, she's spent a lot of time out in the sun - but now she covers up like she's afraid of the sun!! I have told her that a bit of sun now isn't causing those skin cancers; they're a problem from years ago. And sun is GOOD for you! But she still cowers under long pants, long sleeves & a hat wide-brimmed away from the sun, taking her Vit D drops instead. And of course keeps having skin cancers cut out...
It's very common for older folk in Australia to refer to them as 'sun cancers', but many of them are just like your mother - they've been assiduously avoiding the sun for years, but these skin cancers keep sprouting up anyway. And yet the penny never seems to drop.
Does she get enough Vitamin B3? See this new meta analysis. Prophylactic supplementation of Nicotinamide/Niacinamide, a form of Vitamin B3, may reduce the risk of skin cancers, especially cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinomas.
"Results: We screened 4730 citations and found 29 trials (3039 patients) meeting inclusion criteria. Nicotinamide was associated with a significant reduction in skin cancers compared to control (rate ratio 0.50 (95% CI, 0.29-0.85; I 2 = 64%; 552 patients; 5 trials); moderate strength of the evidence)."
Mainville L, Smilga AS, Fortin PR. Effect of Nicotinamide in Skin Cancer and Actinic Keratoses Chemoprophylaxis, and Adverse Effects Related to Nicotinamide: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. J Cutan Med Surg. 2022 May-Jun;26(3):297-308.
Thankyou so much for that, Max! :-) I shall endeavour to get her to take more B3! She's had a lot of SCCs cut out of her legs...
She's vegetarian, has been for 40 years, but I swear, the way she eats, she barely gets enough nutrients. The supplementation will be good for her in more ways than one!
If she is vegetarian and avoids sun her D levels would be way down. Are the D drops sufficient to make up the short fall?
She takes double the recommended dose of Vit D...but she's already osteopaenic. Now her body won't tolerate any gluten - just a year after her 2nd shot (she only had 2 shots, and she regrets both!), so who knows exactly how her system is coping (not great IMO...). I'm Coeliac, BTW. Found out when I was in my mid-30s.
Not too long ago, before we knew much about Coeliac, the average age of being diagnosed with Coeliac was in people's 60s. Now people know about it so they test much earlier. So she could've had this her whole life and is only finding out now (a malabsorption problem)...or the shots could've caused (or more likely fast-tracked?) issues. Plus her hearing is going downhill as well (each test just shows it's worse and worse). I think it's safe to say that she's just generally on the downhill slide...and after all, she is 75. I'm not sure that a whole pile of B3 & D and everything else are miraculously going to pop her system back up! :-(
Still, she can but try.
TQ. My sister diagnosed with Coeliac in 2021 I think now. Her vit D levels were tested and found to be very low. She now boosts her D.
I question how much Coeliac is related to toxic wheat treated with neuro-toxins, pesticides and the like, and poor gut health. I am very suspicious of it all.
I read that they will use glyphosate to dry grain!
My sister has presumably taken the vaxxes despite my warnings. I have not explicitly asked but...
I am not one to badger but in the context of my father who is in his 80's and on quite a bit of medication as well as vits I did say to her recently that the vaxxes and meds will be doing him no good.
Yeah, there are a lot of problems surrounding wheat. People's guts have too many toxins to deal with these days. And glyphosate is a problem for many people. It doesn't help that wheat gets spliced and diced in the laboratory so it's not exactly what it used to be, genetically.
I used to eat organic wheat pasta from Italy...and it was still a problem. Glyphosate is also on loads of other foods, but I don't have a problem with loads of other foods, mainly just foods containing gluten! And my Vit D levels are good, but I eat plenty of eggs (from our free range chickens who are gluten-free!) & other whole animal proteins and I get lots of sunshine (I pretty well always have).
Sorry to hear your sister & Dad are probably vaxxed to the hilt :-(
Sunshile exposure is better away from midday- UV is lower but infrared (which is helpful) remains higher.
UVB is required to make vitamin D, and there's only sufficient UVB when the sun is relatively high overhead. But sunlight at every time of day has benefits, whether it's for synchronising our circadian rhythm, stimulating nitric oxide synthesis, or any of the other myriad benefits.
Way back when I was an occupational therapy student doing my honors thesis, I shan't say how many years ago, I discovered that the rates of spinal / back surgery were directly proportional to the number of surgeons in any particular region. I guess that is the actual root of my mistrust in medical systems. All systems actually. Specialists will create their own business, regardless of actual need. I also discovered that back surgery made no difference to long term outcomes (I suspect the benefit was negative) and the real resolution simply came with time! That sound distrust has stood me in excellent stead the past 3 years. I suspect I shall be one of the long-term survivors!
Funny you should mention that. There's a comment left by a doctor on the JAMA Int Med article that I based this post on, as follows:
"Years ago, I worked as a part time JCAHO surveyor. A rural county over a two year period saw a doubling in the incidence of prostate cancer. It turned out the reason was not "something in the water;" rather the one hospital in the county had recently recruited its first urologist."
I have no idea what a JCAHO surveyor is, but you get the point.
I guess scepticism is SuperSally's superpower ;-).
First rate again Robyn, bravo!
Thank you! Please share, especially if you know people who are avoiding any sun exposure for fear of cancer.
My husband had a melanoma removed from his left earlobe. We put the cause down to the use of his mobile phone. He mainly uses his phone in speaker mode now.
Wow, that's intriguing. I haven't heard of a link between EMF and melanoma but it does exist for other tumour types.
I suspect the links tie in with body chemistry too, so if poor then one will be more susceptible to EMF and not heal so quickly.
Yes sure.
Thanks for the great article Robyn. Would you say there is difference in rates of diagnosis between melanoma and Basal Cell Carcinoma, I was recently diagnosed with a BCC on my nose. It was definitely something as it would keep scabbing over and would not heal.
Oh yes, and as you know, NMSCs are much more common than melanoma, especially in a sun-drenched country like Australia.
If you are able to find Petty Spurge (it's a common weed in Australia, New Zealand, and I have found it in British Columbia and growing in an alley in Seattle, you pinch off a piece and put the milky substance that oozes out of the stem onto your nose. Even a BCC can be removed. The petty spurge attacks the malignant cells, however deep they go. There used to be a website, pettyspurg.org several years ago with hundreds of personal stories and photos of cancers removed naturally. Sorry to say, the website seems to be gone. Before going to surgery, I highly recommend this plant.
Speaking as a retired GP- BCC is much more common. It can be locally destructive if neglected, but is rarely invasive. It is strongly related to ongoing sun exposure- as in farmers.
Totally. The age-standardised mortality rates of non-melanoma skin cancers are just 3.3 deaths per 100,000 population males and 1.2 deaths per 100,000 females. So they're unlikely to kill you, but they can be terribly unsightly and are obviously harder to remove if they've been allowed to progress. As I mentioned in the article, any spot that shows concerning characteristics should be checked by a competent doctor. There's an enormous difference between screening and diagnosis.
Hello from the UK
Excellent article, thank you very much. Cancer industry is of course a scam. I only really understood this in 2020 when given, believe it or not, a diagnosis of melanoma in my parotid gland in my neck.
I had no superficial melanoma issues and was offered immuno-therapy which I took for 9 sessions in as many months before I worked out what was going on. It was in fact sodium nitrite (E250) poisoning via food I ate. I explain it in part here.
https://alphaandomegacloud.wordpress.com/2022/11/19/sodium-nitrite-e250-the-poison-in-your-food-and-how-to-remedy-it/
I wrote this on cancer.
https://alphaandomegacloud.wordpress.com/2022/02/04/world-cancer-day/
I have also written about sunshine here as well. I realised that vitamin D via the sun if we do the right things protects us from the harm that the sun's radiation can do as well as healing us.
I understood that clear skies with no vapour trails etc. better than cloudy or overcast days, so bizarrely perhaps better to cover up more in the latter. I wrote this about my thoughts and experience.
https://alphaandomegacloud.wordpress.com/2021/07/22/sunshine-sunburn-and-sunstroke/
I consider most doctors the lowest of the low. They misdiagnosed me and are pig ignorant of the basics of disease. The information has been out there for decades yet they largely ignore it. Despicable.
In the UK this is far worse because we pay huge amounts for public so-called health care yet so much is utterly useless if not harmful.
Many thanks again.
I found it so bizarre that Brits were urged to 'save the NHS' throughout the scamdemic. Funny, I thought the NHS was supposed to be there to save you, the poor taxpaying public who pay for it.