Did you know that melanoma kills 1 American every hour? That’s about 9,000 deaths in a year!
The worst part? Melanoma is making more victims than ever. In the past 30 years, the number of melanoma cases kept rising up. Young women have it worst. Maybe it’s because we like to tan, but we’re melanoma’s fave victims.
How do you keep yourself safe from it? The first step is sunscreen. The second is knowledge.
Yep, knowledge. Cos you can’t protect yourself from melanoma if you keep believing all the myths around it. Like, tanning beds are safer than outdoor tanning or melanoma only appears as a black mole. These are BS.
So here they are, 4 melanoma myths busted:
Melanoma Myth #1. If You Avoid The Sun, You Won’t Get Melanoma
If only it were that easy! It’s true that prolonged and unprotected sun exposure increases your chances of getting melanoma. Even one bad sunburn as a child is enough.
But melanoma is a cancer and cancer doesn’t discriminate. Every know and then, it chooses a victim that carefully avoided sun exposure all her life.
Let’s say you avoid the sun like the plague. Well, if one of your relatives had melanoma, you’re still more at risk of getting it, too. Heck, if ANY type of cancer runs in your family, you’re more at risk of melanoma.
That explains why anyone, at any age, can get melanoma. Or why melanomas show up in areas that aren’t usually exposed to the sun. Like the inside of the mouth, the eye, and even the vagina!
Still, this is not a good reason to spend hours outdoors without sunscreen. If anything, it’s a good reason not to carelessly increase your chances of getting it!
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Melanoma Myth #2: Tanning Beds Are Safer Than Outdoor Tanning
There is no such thing as a safe tan. I repeat, there is no such thing as a safe tan.
Do you know what a tan really is? It’s your body’s natural self-mechanism against UV rays.
Here’s how it works: as harmful UV rays hit your skin, your body produces more melanin to lessen the damage. If you see your skin’s getting darker, it means some of the damage has already happened.
Your body is telling you, “get out of here, now before things get worse and I get wrinkles or cancer!” Listen to it!
Your body doesn’t care if UV radiation comes from the sun or a tanning bed. Both damage your skin and leave you at risk of developing melanoma.
I know what you’re going to say: “But, Gio, everyone knows you can’t burn in a tanning bed. That makes them safer, right?”
Nope. You can’t burn in a tanning bed because UVB rays give you sunburns. Tanning beds emit mostly UVA rays, the ones responsible for premature wrinkles and dark spots.
Both UVA and UVB rays, though, give you cancer. So even if you’re ok with swapping sunburns for wrinkles, you’re still at danger of skin cancer. Avoid!
Related: 5 Tanning Beds Myths Busted!
Melanoma Myth #3: Melanoma Only Appears As An Ugly Black Mole
I wish! It’d be so much easier to diagnose.
It’s true that a lot of melanomas look like ugly black moles. But melanoma can appear in any brown or tan shades. It can even develop in moles that have hairs.
So how can you tell if you’re dealing with melanoma or just a harmless mole? Easy: keep an eye on any mole different from the others on your body or that has changed overtime.
Better yet, go to a doctor for a full body exam once a year. Sure, it’s embarrassing but it can save your life.
Melanoma doesn’t have to be deadly. If caught in time, you can expect a fully recovery.
Melanoma Myth #4: Sunscreen Can Prevent Melanoma
This isn’t false, but it’s not 100% true either. Hear me out:
Sunscreen can help prevent melanomas by shielding you from UV radiation. But as we’ve seen in myth 1, even people who don’t spend too much time in the sun can get melanoma.
You see, like any cancer, melanoma begins when one or more genes in a cell are mutated. This mutation can have several causes. Sometimes, it happens because you’ve spent too much time in the sun without sunscreen. Or because you’re a smoker. Or you simply live in a polluted city.
Other times, the culprit is more insidious. You can get cancer, including melanoma, simply because your parents passed “bad, mutated genes” to you.
That’s why even healthy people who do everything right – eat plenty of veggies and no sugar, exercise daily, don’t smoke and wear sunscreen – can get cancer, including melanoma. Sometimes, your genes are stacked against you.
If you have a genetic risk of developing melanoma, wearing sunscreen every day doesn’t guarantee you won’t get it. But it can reduce your chances your genes will get triggered – and that’s when cancer happens.
Reduce isn’t the same as eliminate but I’ll still take it. When your genes are stacked against you, doing everything right is even more important.
Do you know any other melanoma tips that need busting? Share them in the comments below.
Naturopathic doctors are finding out that melanoma is really a vitamin D deficiency. So many people believe their doctors and dermatologists on everything (Did you know that doctors have virtually zero courses on nutrition? They are just indoctrinated by Big Pharma.), and all they have mostly learned is to stick people on drugs and radiate them to death as a “cure”. It is no wonder to me that more and more people are getting melanoma. I find the fact very ironic that more and more people are wearing sunscreen daily but, melanoma and skin cancer rates have increased. Hmmm…and dermatologists just scratch their heads wondering and trying to come up with good reasons why. Other cultures who spend a lot of time in the sun don’t have nearly as high of rates of melanoma as Americans, and we still say melanoma is related to “too much sun exposure”. Infact the FDA doesn’t even stand behind the claim that chemical sunscreens prevent cancer (I believe that they help cause it.). They say, though, research suggests that chemical sunscreens may prevent to more “minute” cancers like squamous cell, there is not much evidence that it prevents the really bad skin cancers. The FDA has concluded on their website that there is no proof that their sunscreens do indeed prevent skin cancer. You should look that up.
Infact, I have had something on my leg called Granules Annular. The dermatologists just wanted to pump me up on drugs and steroids to help get rid of it (but they also say nothing really helps much). Guess what? I got rid of it with apple cider vinegar, collodial silver, coconut oil, tea tree and oregano!
H, I agree with you that doctors are often poorly trained and focus more on treating symptoms with drugs than prevention with good lifestyle habits. I’ll look up your thesis about melanoma being a vitamin d deficiency. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.
Check out this article below that I have posted a link to. It is interesting. It doesn’t really mention melanoma, but the article’s sole purpose is to give you a good idea about vitamin D and how much time in the sun we need. Doctor Mercola has other articles on sun exposure you may want to check out. This is a good article for those who would like to know how much time they need, even if they aren’t comfortable going without sunscreen the rest of the time.
Man, I have a hard time getting over that a lot of cases of melanoma happen in places that are well protected from the sun, like even your vagina!
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/10/29/how-much-sunshine-does-it-take-to-make-enough-vitamin-d-perhaps-more-than-you-think.aspx
H, take everything Dr Mercola says with a grain of salt. He’s a quack. Here are just two examples of why you shouldn’t trust him:
http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/mercola.html
https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/9-reasons-to-completely-ignore-joseph-mercola-and-natural-news/
Hmmm.. well of course the pharmaceutical industry wants to bash him. They’re all for the money. Over 100,000 people die EACH year from “approved safe” pharmaceutical drugs. You know the use of DDT being banned for use of insecticide in the 60’s? They use it in cancer drugs. I don’t get the state of America’s health system today. They think it will “cure” cancer by dumping all this crap in our bodies and radiating it. Oh! and I forgot !(sarcasm) outside of oncologist’s offices they have candy. Sugar is a root of multiple health problem, and feeds cancer cells. Like just the perfect thing to give a sick person (sarcasm). A sick person should be put on a strict diet of fruits and veggies, and should extremely try AVOID sugar, to starve the cancer cells. Fruits and veggies do have some sugar, but they are DIFFERENT types. The sugar in fruits and veggies is NOT fructose. Did you know that some of the drug companies like Bayer were around during WWII? They actually helped Hitler and his Nazis by providing the chemical gasses for the concentration camp’s gas chambers and the drugs that were used for “experiments” in the concentration camps on like pregnant women who couldn’t work. Hmm.. it’s a wonder that they weren’t forced to shut down at the Nuremberg trial after the U.S. won. The problem with how modern medicine works is they try to “mask” the problem instead of destroying the root of it. A big problem with that is even if they give you drugs,- and they may for a time get rid of what they are diagnosed with-with certain things like cancer it’s only a matter of time ’till it comes back. Besides not dealing with the root of problem, the drugs and radiation for cancer don’t just hurt the tumor. It effects the rest of the body tissue and cells and ends up destroying them. Infact, have you ever been near one of those energy power boxes that provide power to a building? They have a warning on them that says radiation causes cancer, so to keep your distance. You may say,” well that’s a big source of radiation.” Well, chemotherapy is a huge one. Did you know that even things you’d think are small sources of radiation have to have a warning on them? For example; cell phones. In the instruction pamphlet that comes with them in very teeny-weeeny print there is that warning. In Europe, there are bill boards that say cell phones cause cancer, and there and cell phone-free zones. It’s a proven fact that radiation causes cancer so why would you use it to treat cancer? It will help break down the cancer it’s being targeted at, but it will also grow other cancers. Then it’s just a circular cycle ’till the most likely outcome of death. Surgery, to try to cut out the cancer only risks spreading the cancer further, but also doesn’t address what is causing the cancer. Infact, most donations to societies (like the Pink Ribbon) that say “they are researching a cure for cancer” don’t even reach the research. Most of it is just is lining the pockets of the higher ups. One of my close friends had deadly brain cancer. The doctors said there wasn’t much more they could do and that it would take a miracle. Guess what? She seeked out alternative cancer treatment and was cured, to the shock of the oncologists! (Who by the way are the real quacks!). That was six years ago and she was cured in a matter of months with no side effects.
I’ve had a similar experience with a dermatologist. I had something called granuloma annular. They want to put you on steroids for it and other drugs (but admit nothing much helps). I followed through with a natural cure and it got rid of it. Pictures of granuloma annular:
https://www.google.com/search?q=pictures+of+granuloma+annulare&safe=strict&biw=1904&bih=977&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjyrMn_6bTKAhVJxWMKHaomCiQQ_AUIBigB
The drug companies are out of control . They went after the famed Dr. Oz. after after he spoke truth that they didn’t want to hear because they would lose money if people listened. LOOK: http://www.naturalnews.com/049464_Doctor_Oz_biotech_front_group_backfire.html http://www.naturalnews.com/045619_Senator_McCaskill_campaign_contributions_pharma_money.html http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/shocking-drug-company-secrets-pt-1
Alert: I don’t agree with everything he says but I respect him for the above.
Here’s another article to show how the FDA is out of control: http://www.healthy-holistic-living.com/fda-goes-dr-bronners-magic-soaps-health-benefits-coconut-oil.html
Look at these documentaries, especially those interested in alternative cancer treatment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK_sX5ko8SE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR8SQzCJK0Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBynLGwEV98
There’s more. But I just copied and posted a few. Here’s a link to the channel of documentaries: https://www.youtube.com/user/thetruthaboutcancer
P.S. President Regan went after alternative cancer treatment.
Thank you for the links. They were the reason why your comments automatically went into my moderation queue, by the way, in case you were wondering. Spammers commonly put lots of links in comments, which is why I decided to have these comments moderated.
I agree with you that there’s a lot wrong with the pharmaceutical industry. I just emailed you a ted talk by Lissa Rankin, a doctor who agrees that we are treating the symptoms rather than the underlying causes of the illnesses. This, of course, creates a vicious circle that prevents people from fully recovering.
I believe that, so far, some diseases can only be cured with drugs. Others are treatable with natural remedies too, so it’s up to the individual to make up their mind about the therapy they want to pursue. Unfortunately, we’re not often given a choice, just prescribed a pill. I also believe that more natural approaches should be investigated in the future, but sadly there just isn’t the monetary interest to do so. But, that doesn’t mean that all drugs are bad. Sometimes, they’re the less evil.
I’m glad to hear your friend fully recovered from cancer. I heard other stories from people who beat cancer after changing their diet and going vegetarian, if not vegan. I’m not sure if this approach would work for everyone, but a healthy diet will definitely help, and it’s certainly something doctors and researchers should study more as a treatment.