Posts Tagged Prevention

Talking about Skin Cancer

March 18, 2009 at 4:42 pm · Filed under Prevention ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Read this! I received this email update a few days ago;

In case you don’t watch the ABC-TV Show Grey’s Anatomy I found this
episode last week very telling.

In July, a magazine reported that the show’s higher ups were considering
killing off popular character Izzy Stevens played by Katherine Heigl
after she withdrew from Emmy contention because she didn’t feel she was
“given the material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination.”

Producer Shonda Rhimes and the writers were reportedly upset with her,
and a source told the press that producers were considering giving her a
brain tumor. It’s their way of screwing with her. She won’t know whether
she’s going to live or die..

Instead the show revealed that the character discovers it’s metastatic
melanoma and it’s spread to her brain. The interns working at hospital
then say “The girl’s pretty much toast, Survival rate is five percent,”

While this is just a TV Show of course it will immediate heighten
awareness as I am sure many fans had no idea what melanoma was before
the show and just how serious it is.

Strange how this is finally getting national attention .

Wow! I didn’t realize that shows could use death as a kind of stab at an actor or actress!! At least one good thing would come of it by raising awareness about sun protection and skin cancer. Skin cancer is 100% preventable and that is something we all should remember. I know I never wore sunscreen as a child. Only when we went swimming because I was told the sun would reflect the worst from the water. Crazy! Right?! So, needless to say every time I smell that sunscreen smell I think of the swimming pool!

Regardless of the reasons behind this decision, it creates a buzz about melanoma. Melanoma and sun protection should be talked about a lot more. Especially to our younger generations.  Now that Journey is three she is asserting her own independence by asking me the “why’s?” of everything with hopes of  changing my mind or just plain saying “No” she won’t do something I ask of her. (How I miss those baby days when she just complied because she didn’t know any better) So, it caught me by surprise a little bit (well, kind of!) when Journey told me she didn’t want to wear her sunscreen the other day.  She flat out said, “No, I don’t want that on me!”

“You have to wear it, it’s not a choice.”

“Whhhy?!

Since I didn’t really know how to explain it to her, I just told her straight and simple.

“Sunscreen protects us from the sun ray’s because they could give us cancer and we could die. So, it is very important we protect ourselves with sunscreen. Even if you are brown–you still wear sunscreen.” (We have already talked on the subject of death–I don’t want you to think that I would say it to her so harshly. I have explained to her that everything lives and dies–it’s the circle of life).

She accepted my answer and allowed me to put her sunscreen on. (Mission accomplished!)

I hope I went about it the right way…So, tell me how you explain sun protection to your kids and family. Do you talk with them about skin cancer? I really would love to hear all of your comments so don’t be shy!

Our giveaway ends today and I will announce the winner tomorrow! If you don’t win this one then come back on Friday for the start of the Ultimate Blog Party hosted by 5 Minutes for Mom. We will be giving away a party favor to one winner! It’s a surprise too. So, be back her on Friday to join in on the party fun!

Comments (4)

How to safeguard yourself against malignant melanoma

January 27, 2009 at 4:41 pm · Filed under Prevention ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

How to safeguard yourself against malignant melanoma
By Samuel Broder

The term malignant melanoma and melanoma describe the most serious form of skin cancer, whose frequency is rising due to increasing sun exposures, especially when intermittent high-dose exposures (sunburns) come into play. Melanomas originate in melanocytes, which are specialized skin cells that make a protective brown pigment (melanin) to shield the skin against the harmful effects of the sun. Melanomas may arise in a mole (nevus). Individuals with a special skin condition called dysplastic nevi are at increased risk, as are people with a very large number (more than 50) of ‘ordinary’ moles.

full article HERE

Leave a Comment

Melanoma cases likely to decline

December 3, 2008 at 10:18 am · Filed under Prevention ·Tagged , , , ,

Article found on stuff.co.nz:

*New Zealand could lose its unenviable reputation as the skin-cancer centre of the world thanks to climate change.*

Extreme levels of ultra-violet (UV) radiation caused by clear skies and bright sunshine kill between 250 and 300 Kiwis a year, giving New Zealand the highest death rate from melanoma in the world.

However, there may be cause for celebration, with some scientists believing that by the second half of this century the rate will be falling.

Scientists think that climate change will speed up a recovery of the ozone layer over much of the world and block out more of the damaging UV rays.

The maximum value of the UV index which at this time of year can reach “extreme” levels of 12 over the South Island and 13 further north would drop by two or more steps under such a scenario.

National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research scientist Greg Bodeker said the peak in the skin-cancer rate was expected about 2040.

Beyond that, increased ozone concentrations were likely to take New Zealand and the rate back to where it was in the 1950s or 60s.

“It’s a good story, absolutely. We are already seeing ozone recovery over New Zealand,” Bodeker said.

“Skin-cancer rates of today are caused by UV exposure 20 or 30 years ago.

“All the indications are that climate change will accele-rate the recovery of the ozone levels.”

Some people were concerned that if UV radiation levels fell lower than so far experienced that might lead to vitamin D deficiencies, but that seemed unlikely, he said.

Leave a Comment

New cancer cases decline; melanoma on rise

December 1, 2008 at 11:50 am · Filed under Prevention ·Tagged , , ,

Lauran Neergaard ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wednesday, November 26, 2008

The rate of new cancer cases finally may be inching down – cautiously optimistic news but a gain that specialists worry could be derailed by economic turmoil.

Death rates from cancer have been dropping slowly for years, thanks to earlier detection and better treatments. But preventing cancer is the ultimate goal, and Tuesday’s annual “Report to the Nation” on cancer also shows a small but encouraging change: The rate of new diagnoses among men dropped 1.8 percent a year between 2001 and 2005.

For women, the dip was just over half a percent a year.

Also, the cancer death rate among men and women continued to drop, by an average of 1.8 percent a year through 2005, said the report published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The improvements are due to gains against some leading cancers – prostate, colorectal, breast and, for men, lung cancer. But numerous other types still are on the rise, including melanoma and kidney cancer.

Full story at: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/nov/26/new-cancer-cases-decline-melanoma-on-rise/

Comments (1)

How We Fight Summer Heat

July 10, 2008 at 11:21 am · Filed under Prevention ·Tagged , ,

By: Stefan Anitei, Science Editor
http://news.softpedia.com/

The summer is coming and our thermo-regulation system will be once again pushed to the limits. Did you know that the human body is more resistant to cold than it is to heat? The fact is that we have physiological mechanisms more effective for combating the cold than the heat.

Temperature is a parameter characterizing the heating stage of a physical system while heat represents the energy transferred from one body to another via a thermal process.
In other words, we have a constant temperature of about 37o C, which we maintain by losing or gaining heat, depending on the case and necessities.

How do we lose heat? Physically, thermoregulation consists of conduction (heat transport and its transfer to colder systems), convection (the transfer of gas with different temperatures), radiation (the loss of heat via infrared radiation, depending on the surface of the body) and evaporation via sweating. At room temperature (20o C), the first three factors dominate. At higher temperatures, sweating turns into the main cooling mechanism.

The skin is packed with sweat glands. On a square centimeter of skin, there are 6 million cells, 5,000 receptors, 15 sebaceous (oil) glands, 200 pain detecting nervous terminations (making a total of 4 m or 13.3 ft), 10-25 touch and thermal receptors, 1 m (3.3 ft) of blood vessels and over 100 sweat glands. And to think that the skin has 1.5 square meters (15,000 square cm).

The sweat glands are of two types: eccrine and apocrine. Eccrine glands have three segments: a twisted sector, resembling a kidney glomerulus, a sweat excretory canal, and a sweat route. The higher the amount of blood that has reached the glomerulus, the higher the amount of sweat.

Heat receptors located in the skin, viscera and brain can detect temperature variations of less than 0.1o C. The brain has thermo-sensitive neurons in the hypothalamus. They detect variations of temperature in the blood, and if they are too drastic, the blood is directed towards the skin where the sweating will be intensified, cooling the organism. The sweat is actually an ultra-filtered blood, containing not just water, but also sodium chlorine, potassium, ammonia (that gives it the urine like scent), uric acid and others.

Normally, we produce a little over 0.5 liters of sweat in 24 hours. In the desert, we can sweat over one liter of water per hour. The apocrine glands develop at puberty and are much more complicated than the eccrine sweat glands. For long, it was thought that only animals produce pheromones. Recent researches proved that the apocrine glands produce human pheromones.

The sweating is effective as long as the air is not too humid (that is, too charged with water vapors). In a dry environment, the human body can stand temperatures of up to 130o C by sweating, while in a wet environment 49o C are too much to stand even if only for a few minutes. 100% humidity of the air means the maximum water vapor amount that can be contained in the air without the vapors turning into a rainfall.

The evaporation of 2 grams of water is enough to decrease by 1o C the rest of 998 grams of water in a liter. Besides the nervous control of the thermoregulation, there is also the hormonal control, via the hypophysis, thyroid and adrenal glands.

Thermoregulation itself is very complex. For example, the hypothalamus makes us eat more at lower temperatures than at higher temperatures. Turns out the patrons of restaurants who provide a nice and refreshing coolness in their placement are really smart guys…

Leave a Comment

« Newer Posts · Older Posts »
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 30 other followers