Does Sunscreen Protect Me From Skin Cancer?

Skin cancer comes in two major types: life threatening and non-life threatening or melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancers (NMSC), including basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). The newest evidence suggests that exposure to UVA light is the main cause of non-melanoma skin cancers. Whereas melanoma is not only caused by UVA exposure but by a lack of UVB exposure (a lack of vitamin D).

Most sunscreens only block UVB light, they do not block UVA. So by using sunscreen, you enable yourself to stay in the sun longer without getting burned. This increases your exposure to UVA, and it stops your body from making vitamin D from the UVB. The statistical data clearly shows an increase in the incidence of melanoma in step with the increase in sunscreen sales. And there is evidence that other cancers have higher incidence in higher economic and higher educated areas. This is thought to be due to the fact that the more money and education someone has, the more likely they are to purchase and use sunscreen as well as consciously limit sun exposure. This likely came about because it was erroneously taught in classes and magazine and newspaper articles, that sun exposure leads to melanoma and, sunscreen helps prevent it.

There are some sunscreens that block UVA waves only, but they don't do a very good job of it as they only block a small portion of the UVA spectrum. The only sunscreen that currently completely blocks UVA is zinc oxide. But zinc oxide is opaque and unsightly to most. It also blocks UVB completely as well, so you can't make vitamin D under it.

UVB creates the precursor of vitamin D from cholesterol on our skin. This precursor then gets absorbed and converted to an intermediate form of D in the liver. Then in large amounts that circulate in the blood by the kidneys and in small amounts for local use by every cell in the body, the active form of vitamin D is formed.

UVB is also what makes us get a sunburn if overexposed to it. So if a sunscreen keeps you from getting burned, it has to block UVB. UVB is good for you to the extent that it makes vitamin D for us and to the extent that vitamin D prevents cancer, especially melanoma.

There is conflicting information about where a tan comes from. According to skincancer.org, UVA is the "dominant tanning ray." And at many tanning salons, their beds have light bulbs which produce mainly UVA light waves (something like 80-90% UVA and 10-20% UVB). But according to Edward Gorham, M.P.H., Ph.D., professor at UCSD department of Family and Preventive Medicine ( http://www.ucsd.tv/search-details.aspx?showID=15770 ), it is UVB that causes tanning. From my own experience with sunscreen use, I don't tan when I use it. Also, when touring a tanning salon, I was shown a bed called a high pressure bed. It had bulbs which emitted 100% of its rays in the UVA spectrum. When I asked about its use, I was told that it will not make you tan, but once you have a tan, it will help the tan "deepen." When asked the definition of "deepen" there was no clear answer. According to the salon keeper, the "high pressure" 100% UVA bed doesn't darken the tan, it doesn't prolong the tan, and you still have to use beds with a little UVB in order to keep your tan. Hmmm.

Dr. Joseph Mercola (developer of the world's largest alternative health email newsletter) sells tanning beds for the purpose of making vitamin D. He sells one bed which produces both UVA and UVB rays, and he sells another bed which produces only UVB rays that he markets as "designed for those of you who want the benefits of the sun without tanning." Hmmm. I've emailed him asking if any of his customers have complained about this bed being "broken" because it is causing them to tan, but I haven't received an answer yet. I'm sure these answers be settled over the next few years as research on vitamin D explodes.

Dr. John B. Campise, D.C.
5035 E. Belmont #D
Fresno, CA 93727
www.campise-chiropractor-fresno.com

How to Use Sunshine to Prevent and Treat Cancer

Cancer Prevention and Treatment with Sunshine
Fresno, CA

As I wrote in my last two blogs, getting enough vitamin D is essential to preventing cancer and it is likely greatly helpful in treating cancer. As you know, we can make vitamin D from sunshine. But, not all sunshine is equal when it comes to making vitamin D.

It is only a very small part of sunshine that we can make D with, it is the UVB part of the spectrum. 99% of the UVB from the sun is filtered out by the ozone layer. And when the sun is on the horizon, the amount of atmosphere the light has to travel through filters out the last one percent. So for the first and last several hours of each day, we cannot make vitamin D from the sunlight that reaches the earth's surface.

Now during the winter, if you live north of the latitude of San Diego, the sun is so low on the horizon all day that no UVB reaches us at all during the winter. We rely on body stores of D from the summer or from our diet. Most illnesses and conditions including cancers get worse or have relapses more often during the winter months than during the summer, and lack of sun leading to low D is now thought to be the reason.

The further away from the equator you live, the longer the time is during the winter where there is no UVB to make D with. Also, the more smog there is, the less UVB reaches the ground level, and of course the more clouds there are, the less UVB. One clear set of data showing evidence for sunshine's role in causing cancer is an overlap of colon cancer incidence rates per region and a map of the amount of sunshine per region. The less the sunshine, the higher the rates of colon cancer. With one nuance, the New England area has a higher rate of colon cancer than should be predicted with the amount of sunshine. But when overlapping the map of the thickness of the ozone, we see that the ozone is unusually thick over New England. This means that more UVB is filtered out in this region than in other regions, even when the sun is shining!

So it's not just sunshine, it is UVB that matters. The amount of UVB reaching the planet is mostly affected by your distance from the equator, but it also depends on time of year, time of day, weather, pollution, and elevation above sea level. The closer to noon, the closer to mid summer, the less the cloud cover (clouds will block at least 20% of the 1% of the UVB that makes it through the ozone), and the higher the elevation, the more UVB is available.

To prevent or treat cancer we need 60-80ng/ml 25OH vit D blood levels. The only way to know your level is to get a blood test (www.grassrootshealth.net). We can make up to 20,000 units of D on our skin in 20 minutes of sunshine exposure at the right time of day and season. But don't wash your skin with soap right away because the D is made on top of your skin, not in it. It needs time to absorb. Soap will wash off some or most of the D if applied too soon after sun exposure. This is one reason cats and dogs lick themselves so much, their D is made from sun shining on oils that have migrated to the tip of their fur. They then lick the vitamin D off their fur and swallow it.

Another variable to making vitamin D from sunshine is skin color. The darker your skin color, the longer you need to spend in the sun to make the same amount of D as a lighter skinned person. The time difference between a dark black person and a fair skinned red head, can be ten times more. In fact, with dark enough skin, it is impossible to get enough D from sunshine for optimal health if you are further than a certain distance from the equator. Again, check your blood levels with a blood test to know for sure.

Dr.John B. Campise, D.C.
5035 E. Belmont #D
Fresno, CA 93727
www.campise-chiropractor-fresno.com

Raising D Levels to Prevent and Treat Cancer

Can getting more sunshine and taking a vitamin really prevent and treat cancer?

In my last blog I talked about the new theory of the cause of cancer, the DINOMIT model. In this model vitamin D deficiency is at the base of this theory. This is good news for cancer prevention because it means that at just a few dollars a month, everyone in the US can afford to reduce their risk for cancer by possibly 70-99%.

The DINOMIT model also has good news for cancer patients seeking treatment because it shows that at ANY stage of ANY cancer, we can halt the growth of the cancer simply by restoring proper intercellular communication by raising blood levels of Vitamin D to optimum 60-80ng/ml. This is done by letting UVB light shine on your skin each day for long enough to tan but not burn, and/or by taking D2 or D3 oral supplements.

The only way to know what your blood levels of D are is to take a blood test. The test to order is "25 OH vit D," not "1-25 OH vit D." Then you can sun bathe or take D supplements and recheck you blood in two weeks to check your progress. Current research is finding that patients undergoing chemotherapy have a very hard time getting their blood levels of D to rise. This may be due to Vit D's role in producing glutathione, a protein used by the liver to rid the body of toxins.

Vitamin D toxicity does not occur until blood levels rise above 200ng/ml, so don't be afraid to take too much D at first. For a typical person, 1000 iu of D3 per day will raise blood levels 7-10ng/ml. But the trick is, you have to take the 1000 iu per day forever to maintain the higher level (unless other sources of D increase such as sunshine). If you are overweight, then it may require 2000-3000 iu of D3 to raise your blood levels of D by 7-10ng/ml. And if you are sick (like have cancer) it may take 2000-3000 iu of D3 per day or if you are toxic (like taking chemotherapy)then it may take 2000-3000 iu per day. So if you are obese, have cancer, and are on chemotherapy, you may need 5000-7000 iu of D3 per day to raise your blood levels by 7-10 points in two weeks. That can add up to a lot of D3 per day compared to the old standard of 400iu being plenty for good health.

The bottom line is that everyone and every case is different. You need to check you blood level regularly to know exactly where you are at and how to proceed.

Cancer
Fresno, Ca

www.campise-chiropractor-fresno.com

www.grassrootshealth.net to order your vit D pin prick blood test

New Theory of the Cause of Cancer from UCSD

Fresno, CA

Natural alternative treatment for cancer?

There is a new hypothesis on the cause of malignant cancer. It is called DINOMIT (pronounced dynomite). Natural selection on the cellular level is the basis of the new theory (based on new scientific biochemical discoveries). It goes kinda like this: each cell in our bodies has it's own drive to survive by harvesting nutrients from it's environment. On one level, all the cells around it compete for the same nutrients. Cells have a lot of weapons at their disposal for survival because each has a complete copy of instructions to create every function that exists in the entire organism (DNA). The most effective means of competing with your neighbors is for the cell to replicate or clone itself over and over so that it and it's clones will physically outnumber and thus out-compete it's neighboring cells for nutrients.

But, since every cell has this ability to clone itself rapidly, each cell then has to try to prevent the cells around it from doing so. The way cells inhibit their neighbors from replicating themselves too much (cancer) is by sending chemical messengers to the cells around them which turn off the genes which enable them to replicate too much. These messengers travel through connections between the cells called gap junctions.

New research is showing that the gap junctions that allow chemical communication between cells is dependent on vitamin D. When vitamin D levels drop, gap junctions between cells begin to decline. Without gap junctions, cells can no longer stop surrounding cells from replicating themselves in order to compete for nutrients. This is the new theory of the cause of all cancer.

D = Disjunction of cells (caused by blood levels of Vit D below 40-80ng/ml)
I = Initiation (type and location of cancer depends on genetic variation)
N = Natural Selection (cells trying to compete for nutrients with neighboring cells)
o = Overgrowth
M = Metastasis (break away of cells, setting up colonies of cells in distant tissues)
I = Involution (Cancer slows down)
T = Transition (Cancer becomes chronic)

Chemicals known as carcinogens (cancer causing) will change the DNA of cells so that they are more likely to replicate too much (cancer), but only if there is a loss of the inhibitory signals from it's neighbors through a loss of the gap junctions which connect them.

Recent evident strongly suggests that at any stage of the above DINOMIT process, cancer can be stopped by restoring the gap junction communication between cells. This happens by raising blood levels of vitamin D above 40-80ng/ml.

Even if you have late stage cancer, theoretically, if you can raise your blood levels of vit D to the appropriate level, the cancer will halt. It won't ever go away, but it will stop progressing. If your vit D levels ever drop again too low, the cancer will start growing again.

Fresno, CA
www.campise-chiropractor-fresno.com

www.grassrootshealth.net

You are invited!

You are invited to meet Dr. Campise at the next Special Report!

Come learn why you may benefit from the alternative natural holistic chiropractic, vitamin, herbal, emotional, cleansing, hyperbaric treatments that we offer at Dr. Campise's clinic here in Fresno.

The next Special Report is:

Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 6 pm until 7 pm.

The office address is 5035 E. Belmont #D, Fresno, CA 93727

Bring a loved one with you. There is no charge for attending a Special Report.

www.drjohnusa.com

Hyperbaric treatments offered in Fresno

At our clinic here in Fresno, we offer hourly low pressure hyperbaric treatment at the clinic, and we offer chambers for lease so you can have more lengthy daily treatments at home for the fastest, most cost-effective recovery possible.


Our at home rental hyparbaric chambers are limited in number. There is currently a waiting list. To put your name on the list, please email us at hyperbaric@drjohnusa.com.

What are the differences between the types of hyperbaric treatments available on the market today?

High pressure hyperbarics are chambers that pressurize to 6 psi or above. These generally are made of metal and are located in hospital settings. This type of treatment is needed for scuba divers suffering from the “bends,” for burn victims, gangrene, diabetic ulcers, bed sores, certain cancer patients, for stroke and head injury victims within the first few weeks or months of the stroke or injury, and carbon monoxide poisoning.

Low pressure or “mild” hyperbarics are chambers that pressurize to 6 psi or below. These generally are made of soft vinyl and are portable. This type of treatment is better suited for all chronic conditions, sports performance enhancement, workout recovery, mild to moderate wound healing, and morning sickness during pregnancy.

Concentrated or pure oxygen breathed by patients while under pressure is a good idea for the people who also need high pressure hyperbarics. However, pure or concentrated oxygen is a drug and it can have undesirable side effects. Pure oxygen overdose can lead to blindness, seizures, spasms, or general worsening of your condition. Pure oxygen used in conjunction with hyperbarics makes the possibility of oxygen overdose much easier. The use of pure oxygen with hyperbarics should be limited to 1-2 hours per day and limited to the time it takes to see moderate resolution of symptoms or to 6 weeks, whichever comes first.

Ambient air (normal air from the atmosphere without concentrated oxygen) breathed by patients while under pressure is all that is needed for most conditions and is the safest way to undergo hyperbarics. When using ambient air, there is no time limit to the therapy. We find best results for chronic conditions come from using low pressure hyperbarics with ambient air on a daily basis for 6-8 hours per day. The only way to achieve this amount of care for most is to rent a chamber and sleep in it at night in the comfort of your own home.

How does hyperbaric therapy work?

When you are inside the chamber, we pump air into it to increase the air pressure around you. When the air pressure increases, it's as if the oxygen molecules get smaller, which allows more of them to enter your blood vessels in your lungs as you breathe. And these “smaller” oxygen molecules can then more easily find their way into injured or sick areas that don't have good blood circulation. The oxygen also saturates your brain and spinal cord fluid more readily, making healing brain injuries of any kind more likely than without hyperbaric therapy.

An analogy to understand this better is to imagine oxygen being a tennis ball and a blood vessel as a firehose. You can fit a certain number of tennis balls into the fire hose. But if you could shrink the tennis balls to the size of a marble, then you could fit many more into the fire hose. Hyperbaric does just this, it allows many more molecules of oxygen to dissolve into your blood plasma, cerebral spinal fluid, and all your tissues than is possible at normal atmospheric pressure. This increased availability of oxygen to your body tissues allows the enzymatic processes of healing to speed up.

Why isn't breathing pure oxygen the same as hyperbarics?

Breathing pure oxygen will increase the concentration of oxygen in your lungs, but the oxygen molecules are still the same size. You can only fit so many of them into your blood. But with hyperbarics, the molecules effectively become “smaller” so that many more of them can squeeze into your blood with each breath. In the above example, breathing pure oxygen is like trying to use a wheel barrel full of tennis balls to make more balls fit into the fire hose. Just because you have more of them doesn't mean that more will get into the hose. The same is true for pure oxygen, just because you have more oxygen in your lungs, doesn't mean that more is dissolving into your blood plasma. You need to effectively make the oxygen smaller with hyperbarics in order to get more in.

Can you feel the pressure?

No. But you can feel the pressure changing in your ears like when driving up into the mountains. Your ears will “pop” as the pressure is changing. Once you reach treatment pressure, your ears stop popping and there is no noticeable difference while under pressure.

Is hyperbarics safe?

Chambers that pressurize to 5 lbs or less without the use of concentrated oxygen (like the ones we use at our Fresno office and offer for lease) are perfectly safe as long as your ears are “clearing” okay. The only danger would be a bruised ear drum if your ears were not clearing and you tried to “tuff it out” by continuing to allow the chamber to climb in pressure despite the early warning signs of pain. This is why it is important to wait until any head colds or sinus or ear congestion goes away before being treated with hyperbaric therapy. If on rare occasion you feel any pain in your ears while pressurizing, by simply lowering the pressure of the chamber the pain will immediately subside.

Why would a patient want to rent a chamber for use at home?

Many chronic conditions helped by low pressure hyperbaric therapy require hundreds of hours of time spent under pressure. In order to achieve this, it would take months or years by only logging one hour per day at a doctor's office. By renting a chamber at your house you can sleep in it at night for 6-8 hours, thus cutting down the time of completing the necessary treatments by 6-8 times. Instead of spending months or years in therapy, it would only take you weeks or a few months.

Also, the cost of renting a chamber by the week or month is far less expensive than paying for treatments by the hour. Renting effectively lowers the cost of treatment to just a few dollars per hour. And if there is more than one person in your household who need hyperbarics, you can cut the cost down even further by sharing the rental. And this doesn't count the time and money savings from having to drive to and from the clinic daily.

Visit our website at www.campise-chiropractor-fresno.com

Upcoming self bodywork class with Maida Sensei in Fresno

Self Bodywork class with

Ki Principles

Sunday March 7, 2010

12:30pm to 4:30pm

Location: Aikido of Fresno Dojo, 1130 N Wishon Ave., Fresno, CA 93728

Instructor: Pietro Yuji Maida, 7^th Dan

Self Bodywork with Ki Principles

This seminar will provide the participant with study and practice of methods developed by the teachers of Maida Sensei: Kiatsu from Koichi Tohei and Zentherapy from Dub Leigh and Tanouye Tenshin Rotaishi.

Kiastu is the part of Aikido that focuses on the healing of injuries. It involves the application of pressure with the fingers while maintaining coordination of one’s mind and body and staying actively relaxed.

Zentherapy® contains aspects of the deep tissue work of Rolf, the neuro-muscular re-education of Feldenkrais and the Ki training of Zen Master, Tanouye Tenshin Rotaishi.

“Self Bodywork” is a way, which Maida Sensei has developed, to use the above techniques and principles by applying them to yourself, in other words, self treatment.

The benefits of self bodywork include:

1. Learning to take greater responsibility for your own health.

2. Being able to treat your body daily.

3. You know your body better than anyone so you can also know better where to apply pressure, how much pressure, and for how long.

4. Since the patient does the healing, not the practitioner, self bodywork can be more effective than trying to let someone else “do the work” for you.

Pietro Yuji Maida Sensei, the Chief Instructor of the Northern California Ki Society, is one of the highest-ranking Ki instructors in the United States.

His studies began with Koichi Tohei Sensei in the 1970’s while living in Japan, where he studied Aikido, Zen, and other traditional cultural arts. Upon his return to the U.S. in 1980, he became a professional Aikido Instructor.

He has extensive experience in Rinzai Zen meditation (as a student of Tanouye Tenshin Rotaishi), Japanese Swordsmanship (under Takahashi Eiichi), and Zentherapy® (with Willliam "Dub" Leigh).

Maida Sensei continues to train under the direct guidance of Tohei Sensei, Kashiwaya Sensei and other senior instructors of Ki Society.

For more information or to RSVP:

Contact Dr. John Campise:

email: drc@drjohnusa.com

cell: (559) 930-1034

For more info on Dr Campise visit :www.drjohnusa.com

For more info on Maida Sensei and Ki-Aikido visit : www.kiaikido.org

Vitamin D

Vitamin D has been known to be an essential nutrient since we discovered that its absence leads to the bone disease called Rickets in the early 1900s. But not until epidemiological studies over the last 2-5 years have we known the unusually wide impacts vitamin D has on the human organism.

The following are now known to be caused in large part by vitamin D deficiency: Cardiovascular disease; all cancers; autoimmune diseases including diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatism; osteoporosis; autism; arthritis; obesity; and lowered immunity such as chronic colds, flus, and bronchitis, and chronic sinus, bladder, and vaginal infections.

As you can see, a simple vitamin supplement or a simple behavior change of going out in the sun with exposed skin may be able to prevent most of the top 10 causes of death in the U.S. Imagine if in 50 years the #1 cause of death is old age where people die in their sleep, just from adding a single nutrient to our diets!

Change #1:
Don't be afraid of the sun causing skin cancer. Those who use sunscreen are at greater risk of melanoma. It is still not a good idea to get sunburned, so either slowly increase your sun exposure so you build a tan to prevent burn, or if you can't tan, then cover up with clothes or go back indoors to prevent burning. If you are very fair skinned and don't tan, then you likely make more D in your skin from sun per minute than the rest of us so the amount of time you need to spend in the sun is less than most anyway.

Change #2:
Those north of San Diego cannot make vitamin D from the sun in the winter. Supplementing with D or eating D rich foods is a must. Foods such as wild salmon and other wild fatty fish have enough D for the day per serving. But that means you would have to eat fish every day all winter. So a vitamin supplement is the most efficient and effective method for most in the winter.

Change #3:
Testing your blood levels one to two times per year is a must. It is a hundred times more important than most any other test your doctor may want to perform on you including cholesterol level. You will not know if your sun exposure or supplements are keeping your D levels in optimal range unless you check. Go to www.grassrootshealth.net to mail order a home test.

Change #4:
Dosage. The old recommended dosage was 400 IU per day. Now it is closer to 4000 IU per day! A ten fold increase. Pregnant women should take 6000 IU per day through pregnancy and until the child is weaned. Children under the age of one should take 1000 IU per day and those between 1 and 13 should take 2000 IU per day.

Change #5
Blood levels. The old minimum blood level was 20 ng/ml. Now it is 80-100 ng/ml. To raise your blood levels 10 ng/ml take 1000 IU per day. So if your blood test shows 30 ng/ml then you need to take an additional 5000 IU per day on top of what you are already getting from the sun and diet and pills, in order to reach 80 ng/ml. But, if you are obese or if you are ill then you may need twice this dose until you become well. The bottom line is check your blood levels and keep upping the dosage of D until your blood level rise to 80-100. No toxic changes occur in the literature until blood levels reach 200 ng/ml.

Change #6
Skin color. Those at greatest risk of the above mentioned diseases happen to be those living in northern climates with dark skin. The darker your skin, the longer you need to be in the sun to make vitamin D. It is now thought that a black person living in Chicago cannot physically make enough D for 9-10 months out of the year by the sun alone. So without frequent tanning bed visits, blacks living in the north need to supplement with vitamin D more than anyone. It's a matter of life and death, or at least a matter of a healthy life or an ill life. This may explain why blacks in the U.S. have a higher incidence of many diseases than whites.

-Yours in Health

Dr. Campise, D. C. Fresno
Visit us at www.drjohnusa.com
or call (559) 930-1034 to make an appointment