Posts Tagged ‘Should’

8 Reasons the U.S. Surgeon General Should Announce UV Tanning Causes Skin Cancer

AURORA, Colo. (PRWEB) April 08, 2015

A July 2014 Call to Action to Prevent Skin Cancer by acting Surgeon General Dr. Boris Lushniak points out that indoor tanning is “strongly associated with increased skin cancer risk,” but stops short of reporting that tanning causes cancer. A University of Colorado Cancer Center opinion published today in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine points out that UV tanning meets the same criteria as smoking as a cause of cancer and argues that announcing the causality could save lives.

“In 1964 when the Surgeon General finally reported that smoking causes lung cancer, awareness and policy followed. Smoking rates declined and lung cancer rates have too. It’s time for the Surgeon General to say the same thing about UV tanning,” says Robert P. Dellavalle, MD, PhD, MSPH, investigator at the CU Cancer Center, associate professor of dermatology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, and the study’s senior author.

There are nine criteria used to determine a causal relationship in disease, developed in the context of smoking and lung cancer in 1965 by British epidemiologist Sir Austin Bradford Hill. Smoking and UV tanning both meet eight of the nine criteria, as follows:

1. Strength of Association

How much more likely is skin cancer in people who have used tanning beds? Numbers vary, but Dellavalle and colleagues point to analyses of large populations of people showing that skin cancer risk is about 16 percent more likely in people who report ever having used a tanning bed. The strength of the association between smoking and lung cancer is even stronger, with smokers being 35 percent more likely than non-smokers to get lung cancer, but in terms of epidemiology, the 16 percent increased risk of skin cancer in ever-users of UV tanning remains strong.

2. Consistency of Association

Dellavalle and colleagues point out that the link between UV tanning and skin cancer isn’t limited to a specific population or nationality. The association is consistent in all studies.

3. Specificity

A cause that leads to many effects is trickier to pin down than a cause that leads to one effect. The one-to-one relationship of UV radiation to skin cancer is long established.

4. Temporality

This may seem obvious, but in order for cause and effect to be true, the cause must happen before the effect. With UV tanning and skin cancer, we see that ever-use of tanning beds precedes increased risk for skin cancer.

5. Biological Gradient

The more an individual smokes, the more likely they are to contract lung cancer. And the more one uses UV tanning beds, the more likely they are to get skin cancer. Specifically, Dellavalle points out that, “Each additional tanning bed session per year confers a 1.8 percent increase in melanoma risk.”

6. Plausibility

Is there a plausible way that UV tanning could cause skin cancer? Sure. UV rays from tanning beds penetrate the skins epidermal layer and may induce DNA alternations that promote the formation of cancer.

7. Coherence

The data of lab experiments and population studies is coherent, meaning that data from both sources point toward a similar conclusion.

8. Experiment

Scientists have used UV radiation to cause skin cancer in animal models. But, just as it is unethical to encourage people to smoke in order to see if smoking causes lung cancer, it is unethical to encourage people to tan in order to see if tanning causes skin cancer. Dellavalle points out that lack of ability to test the effect of UV tanning on cancer in a randomized control trial is “a primary advantage for the tanning industry, which claims that there is lack of true science behind cancer-causing claims.”

9. Analogy

People with skin types that burn easily have higher rates of skin cancer. It’s analogous to tanning as a whole: the more burned someone gets, the higher their risk.

Dellavalle points out that most cancers are seen as the result of random, genetic mutations that unluckily allow cells to act cancerous. “But skin cancer and lung cancer are preventable types of cancer – reduce smoking and you reduce lung cancer; reduce UV exposure and you reduce skin cancer,” he says.

“It’s much easier to help people understand that indoor tanning causes cancer than it is to message something more convoluted about ‘association’,” Dellavalle says. “Tanning beds cause skin cancer. It is time to now more openly announce this causality.”

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5 Reasons Why You Should Take Vitamin, Mineral And Antioxidant Supplements

There is a vitamin, mineral and antioxidant supplement store in almost every shopping mall in the United States. We can also find vitamin, mineral and antioxidant supplement shelves in almost every super market. More and more people are taking food supplements today.

But there are quite a few people who still refuse to take vitamin, mineral and antioxidant supplements. They think that their diet is good enough and that they do not need to take any supplements. Theoretically what they are saying may be true, but in reality it is not possible to obtain all your nutritional needs from just the food you consume.

Here are 5 reasons why vitamin, mineral and antioxidant supplements are necessary in our daily life:

1. Eating a healthy and well-balanced diet every day is a difficult task.
The USDA Food Consumption Survey discovered that only 3 % of those surveyed actually ate healthful and balanced diets. And no one met the RDA (Recommended Dietary Allowances – which are set by the U. S. government about daily intakes.) consumption of vitamins and minerals.

2. The food you eat now does not contain the same amount of nutrition as it did in the past.
The nutrients in a soil have been exhausted over the years and the vegetables and fruits grown on the farm have been loosing its nutritious values. Therefore, the same amount of broccoli, for instance, contains less calcium and vitamin C than it did 50 years ago.

3. The over processed and preservative added food removes important nutrients.
Consuming even a very good diet is not sufficient if most of the nutrients, vitamins and minerals in our food are diminished by over processing and adding preservatives.

4. The RDA is only the lowest level of nutrient intakes that will prevent deficiencies in apparently healthy human beings.
The RDA was developed originally to help people reduce the rates of contracting severe nutritional deficiencies, like scurvy, rickets, beriberi and so forth which are rarely seen in our modern world. Instead, what we should be concerned with in this industrialized world are the degenerative diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, osteoporosis and so forth. In order to prevent the degenerative diseases, we need to consume every day the optimal level of nutrients, beyond the RDA recommended level.

5. Complete nutritional intake is necessary for optimal health.
Using scientifically researched, complete and balanced, and quality nutritional supplements assures the necessary dietary intake for optimal health.

Choosing the quality vitamin, mineral and antioxidant supplements with safety, balance, completeness and potency in mind will help apparently healthy people stay healthy while lowering the provability of contracting degenerative diseases and enjoying a healthier and longer life.

Should You Ask Your Doctor About Natural Remedies?

Should a person who wants to try natural healing remedies ask their doctor about natural healing? While most people would not hesitate to consult a doctor about natural remedies, there are some who are skeptical about getting the opinion of a practitioner of modern medicine about natural healing methods. Would your doctor give you statements that will simply discourage you from trying natural remedies?

There are doctors who believe that a combination of natural and conventional medicine is good for a person who wants to achieve a healthy lifestyle.  Such doctors will not mind giving advice on the kind of natural remedies that could be used to promote health and combat illnesses.  When asking a doctor about natural remedies, you are actually giving him an idea about the kind of person you are, that is, someone who truly cares about his health. Doctors know that there are things that are beyond their control and illnesses that cannot be cured by conventional medicine. In such cases, they may very well recommend the use of alternative medicine, like natural remedies, which can be the key to your recovery.

If you are planning to ask a doctor about natural remedies, you should ask about the pros and cons of using the natural remedies in comparison to conventional medicine. Doctors who are open minded and who are honest enough to admit that there are indeed some benefits to be gained from the use of alternative medical treatments will most likely tell you the advantages and disadvantages of the natural remedies you are considering.  Sometimes, when asking a doctor about natural remedies, you may get negative answers that seem to be false. This may be due to the fact that some doctors do not want to lose their patients, since the patients will not consult them anymore if they find a natural remedy that works.

Despite the fact that some doctors may mislead you with vague answers to your questions for fear of losing a patient, you should not hesitate to ask a doctor about natural remedies. There are some things you may not understand about the concept of natural healing, and since doctors know there are natural remedies that work, you may get a professional opinion about certain natural remedies and natural living trends that are widely used. Who knows, you may even be the person to help open up a doctor’s mind to natural healing methods when asking a doctor about natural remedies.

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