Tag Archives: skin cancer

Where did our love of dairy come from?

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The popularity of the soya latte seems to be on the rise.

A little while ago botanist James Wong tweeted about the myriad types of plant ‘milk’ that are increasingly being offered in coffee shops, none of which are truly milk (in the biological sense).

This generated a huge response, probably rather larger than he was expecting from an off-hand tweet. Now, I’m not going to get into the ethics of milk production because it’s beyond the scope of this blog (and let’s keep it out of the comments? — kthxbye) but I do want to consider one fairly long thread of responses which ran the gamut from ‘humans are the only species to drink the milk of another animal’ (actually, no) to ‘there’s no benefit to dairy’ (bear with me) and ending with, in essence, ‘dairy is slowly killing us‘ (complicated, but essentially there’s very little evidence of any harm).

Humans have been consuming dairy products for thousands of years.

But wait. If dairy is so terrible for humans, and if there are no advantages to it, why do we consume it at all? Dairy is not a new thing. Humans have been consuming foods made from one type of animal milk or another for 10,000 years, give or take. That’s really quite a long time. More to the point (I don’t want to be accused of appealing to antiquity, after all), keeping animals and milking them is quite resource intensive. You have to feed them, look after them and ensure they don’t wander off or get eaten by predators, not to mention actually milk them on a daily basis. All that takes time, energy and probably currency of some sort. Why would anyone bother, if dairy were truly detrimental to our well-being?

In fact, some cultures don’t bother. The ability to digest lactose (the main sugar in milk) beyond infancy is quite low in some parts of the world, specifically Asia and most of Africa. In those areas dairy is, or at least has been historically, not a significant part of people’s diet.

But it is in European diets. Particularly northern European diets. Northern Europeans are, generally, extremely tolerant of lactose into adulthood and beyond.

Which is interesting because it suggests, if you weren’t suspicious already, that there IS some advantage to consuming dairy. The ability to digest lactose seems to be a genetic trait. And it seems it’s something to do, really quite specifically, with your geographic location.

Which brings us to vitamin D. This vitamin, which is more accurately described as a hormone, is a crucial nutrient for humans. It increases absorption of calcium, magnesium and phosphate, which are all necessary for healthy bones (not to mention lots of other processes in the body). It’s well-known that a lack of vitamin D leads to weakened bones, and specifically causes rickets in children. More recently we’ve come to understand that vitamin D also supports our immune system; deficiency has been meaningfully linked to increased risk of certain viral infections.

What’s the connection between vitamin D and geographic location? Well, humans can make vitamin D in their skin, but we need a bit of help. In particular, and this is where the chemistry comes in, we need ultraviolet light. Specifically, UVB – light with wavelengths between 280 nm to 315 nm. When our skin is exposed to UVB, a substance called 7-dehydrocholesterol (7-DHC to its friends) is converted into previtamin D3, which is then changed by our body heat to vitamin D3, or cholecalciferol – which is the really good stuff. (There’s another form, vitamin D2, but this is slightly less biologically active.) At this point the liver and kidneys take over and activate the chloecalciferol via the magic of enzymes.

We make vitamin D in our skin when we’re exposed to UVB light.

How much UVB you’re exposed to depends on where you live. If you live anywhere near the equator, no problem. You get UVB all year round. Possibly too much, in fact – it’s also linked with skin cancers. But if you live in northerly latitudes (or very southerly), you might have a problem. In the summer months, a few minutes in the sun without sunscreen (literally a few minutes, not hours!) will produce more than enough vitamin D. But people living in UK, for example, get no UVB exposure for 6 months of the year. Icelanders go without for 7, and inhabitants of Tromsø, in Norway, have to get by for a full 8 months. Since we can only store vitamin D in our bodies for something like 2-4 months (I’ve struggled to find a consistent number for this, but everyone seems to agree it’s in this ballpark), that potentially means several months with no vitamin D at all, which could lead to deficiency.

In the winter northern Europeans don’t receive enough UVB light from the sun to produce vitamin D in their skin.

In the winter, northern Europeans simply can’t make vitamin D3 in their skin (and for anyone thinking about sunbeds, that’s a bad idea for several reasons). In 2018, this is easily fixed – you just take a supplement. For example, Public Health England recommends that Brits take a daily dose of 10 mcg (400 IU) of vitamin D in autumn and winter, i.e. between about October and March. It’s worth pointing out at this point that a lot of supplements you can buy contain much more than this, and more isn’t necessarily better. Vitamin D is fat-soluble and so it will build up in the body, potentially reaching toxic levels if you really overdo things. Check your labels.

Oily fish is an excellent source of vitamin D.

But what about a few thousand years ago, before you just could pop to the supermarket and buy a bottle of small tablets? What did northern Europeans do then? The answer is simple: they had to get vitamin D from their food. Even if it’s not particularly well-absorbed, it’s better than nothing.

Of couse it helps if you have access to lots of foods which are sources of vitamin D. Which would be…  fatty fish (tuna, mackerel, salmon, etc) – suddenly that northern European love of herring makes so much more sense – red meat, certain types of liver, egg yolks and, yep, dairy products. Dairy products, in truth, contain relatively low levels of vitamin D (cheese and butter are better than plain milk), but every little helps. Plus, they’re also a good source of calcium, which works alongside vitamin D and is, of course, really important for good bone health.

A side note for vegans and vegetarians: most dietry sources of vitamin D come from animals. Certain mushrooms grown under UV can be a good source of vitamin D2, but unless you’re super-careful a plant-based diet won’t provide enough of this nutrient. So if you live in the north somewhere or you don’t, or can’t, expose your skin to the sun very often, you need a supplement (vegan supplements are available).

Fair skin likely emerged because it allows for better vitamin D production when UVB levels are lower.

One thing I haven’t mentioned of course is skin-colour. Northern Europeans are generally fair-skinned, and this is vitamin D-related, too. The paler your skin, the better UVB penetrates it. Fair-skinned people living in the north had an advantage over those with darker skin in the winter, spring and autumn months: they could produce more vitamin D. In fact, this was probably a significant factor in the evolution of fair skin (although, as Ed Yong explains in this excellent article, that’s complicated).

In summary, consuming dairy does have advantages, at least historically. There’s a good reason Europeans love their cheeses. But these days, if you want to eat a vegan or vegetarian diet for any reason (once again, let’s not get into those reasons in comments, kay?) you really should take a vitamin D supplement. In fact, Public Health England recommends that everyone in the UK take a vitamin D supplement in the autumn and winter, but only a small amount – check your dose.

By the way, if you spot any ‘diary’s let me know. I really had to battle to keep them from sneaking in…

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The Chronicles of the Chronicle Flask: 2017

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We’ve made it! Not only to 2018 (which was starting to look doubtful earlier in the year), but also to the Chronicle Flask’s 100th post. Which doesn’t seem that many, really, but since posts on here frequently run to 1500 words, that adds up to a rather more impressive-sounding 150,000 words or so. I mean, that’s like… half a Brandon Sanderson novel. Oh.

Anyway, it’s time for a yearly round-up. Here goes!

Last January I began with a post about acrylamide. We’d all been enjoying lots of lovely crispy food over Christmas; it was time to tell us about the terrible dangers of such reckless indulgence. The newspapers were covered with pictures of delicious-looking chips, toast and roast potatoes alongside scary headlines such as:  “Crunchy toast could give you cancer, FSA warns”. The truth was not quite so dramatic. Acrylamide does form when foods are cooked to crispiness, and it is potentially harmful, but the quantities which form in food are tiny, and very unlikely to cause you any serious harm unless you literally live on nothing but burnt toast. The FSA (Food Standards Agency) hadn’t significantly revised their guidelines, it turned out, but were in fact only suggesting that the food industry should be mindful of acrylamide levels in food and seek to reduce them as much as possible. That wouldn’t have made for quite such a good “your food is going to killllll you!” story though, I suppose.

In February the spikey topic of vaccination came up. Again. Vaccines are awesome. They protect us from deadly diseases. No, I don’t want to hear any nonsense about “Big Pharma“, and I definitely don’t want to hear how “natural immunity” is better. It’s not. At best, it might provide a similar level of protection (but not in every case), but it comes with having to suffer through a horrible, dangerous disease, whereas vaccination doesn’t. It ought to be a no-brainer. Just vaccinate your kids. And yourself.

It was Red Nose Day in the UK in March, which brought some chemistry jokes. Turns out all the best ones aren’t gone, after all. Did you hear about the PhD student who accidentally cooled herself to absolute zero? She’s 0K now.

April brought a post which ought to have been an April Fool’s joke, but wasn’t. Sceptics often point out that homeopathy is just sugar and water, but the trouble is, sometimes, it’s not. There’s virtually no regulation of homeopathy. As far as I’ve been able to establish, no one tests homeopathic products; no one checks the dilutions. Since a lot of the starting materials are dangerously toxic substances such as arsenic, belladona, lead and hemlock, this ought to worry people more than it does. There has been more than one accidental poisoning (perhaps most shockingly, one involving baby teething products). It really is time this stuff was banned, maybe 2018 will be the year.

In May I turned to something which was to become a bit of a theme for 2017: alkaline water. It’s not so much that it doesn’t do anything (although it really doesn’t), more the fact that someone is charging a premium for a product which you could literally make yourself for pennies. It’s only a matter of dissolving a pinch of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) in some water.

June brought a selection of periodic tables because, well, why not? This is a chemistry blog, after all! And now we’ve finally filled up period seven they do have a rather elegant completness. 2019, by the way, has just been announced as the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements, to coincide with IUPAC’s 100th anniversary and the 150th anniversary of Mendeelev’s discovery of periodicity (his presentation, The Dependence Between the Properties of of the Atomic Weights of the Elements, was made on 6th March 1869). Looks like 2019 will be an exciting year for chemists!

In July it was back to the nonsense of alkaline diets again, when Robert O. Young was finally sentenced to 3 years, 8 months in custody for conning vulnerable cancer patients into giving him large sums of money for ineffective and dangerous treatments. Good. Moving on.

August brought me back to a post that I’d actually started earlier in the year when I went to a March for Science event in April. It was all about slime, and August seemed like a good time to finally finish it, with the school holidays in full swing – what could be more fun on a rainy day at home than making slime? Slime was a bit of a 2017 craze, and there have been a few stories featuring children with severely irritated skin. But is this likely to be caused by borax? Not really. Turns out it’s actually very safe. Laundry detergents in general, not so much. In short, if you want to make slime the traditional way with PVA glue and borax, fill your boots. (Not really – your parents will be uninpressed.)

In September it was back to quackery: black salve. A nasty, corrosive concoction which is sold as a cancer cure. It won’t cure your cancer. It will burn a nasty great big hole in your skin. Do not mess with this stuff.

October carried on in a similar vein, literally. This time with a piece about naturopaths recommending hydrogen peroxide IVs as a treatment for lots of things, not least – you guessed it – cancer. Yes, hydrogen peroxide. The stuff you used to bleach hair. Intraveneously. Argh.

The puking pumpkin!

The end of the month featured a far better use for hydrogen peroxide, that of the puking pumpkin. Definitely one to roll out if, for any reason, you ever find yourself having to demonstrate catalysis.

November brought us, somewhat unseasonally, to tomatoes. Where is the best place to store them? Fridge or windowsill? Turns out the answer involves more chemistry than you might have imagined.

And then, finally, December. Looking for a last-minute Christmas gift? Why not buy a case of blk water? I mean, other than it’s an exorbitantly priced bottle of mysterious black stuff which doesn’t do any of the things it claims to do, and might actually get its colour from coal deposits, that is.

And that, dear friends and followers, is it for 2017! Happy New Year! Remember to be sceptical when the inevitable “deadly food” story appears in a few weeks….

Like the Chronicle Flask’s Facebook page for regular updates, or follow @chronicleflask on Twitter. All content is © Kat Day 2018. You may share or link to anything here, but you must reference this site if you do.

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Black Salve BS

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Historically, people weren’t always careful in the sun.

Summer is fast disappearing in the Northern hemisphere and with it, the sunshine. Which is sad, as we all love a bit of sun, don’t we? Even if it doesn’t always love us, particularly those of us with fairer skin. Sunburn is no fun, but these days we also understand that it’s worse than a couple of days of painfully peeling skin: too much sun exposure can cause cancer.

Unfortunately there’s a whole generation – indeed more than one – who didn’t grow up with parents constantly slathering on the factor 50 (easy-to-use transparent sunscreens with very high SPFs didn’t appear on the market until the 1990s). For some sunburn was a regular part of summer, and those people need to be particularly vigilant for changes which might signify something nasty is going on.

On the plus side, these types of cancer are very treatable, and the outlook is hopeful. Often, the growth can be removed by surgery or even cryotherapy with very little scarring. Even the most dangerous kind of skin cancer, malignant melanoma, has a ten-year survival rate of around 90% with appropriate treatment.

But there’s the key: appropriate treatment. If you notice changes in your skin, especially a mole which is changing in colour or shape, you must see a qualified doctor as soon as you can.

What you should absolutely not do is visit the Black Salve page on Facebook (which I am not linking to for reasons which will be come obvious). This page, so Facebook tells me, is followed by nearly 17,000 users. It features a cheery cover photo of a family holding a canoe over their heads, and its profile picture is a pretty white and yellow flower.

Sanguinarine is a toxic salt extracted from the bloodroot plant. It’s infamous for its ability to destroy animal cells.

It’s all very suggestive of a homely, traditional remedy. The sort of thing your grandma had in her medicine cabinet. Very safe and “natural“. But while black salve might be a traditional remedy, it is anything but safe. Most preparations contain bloodroot, a source of the toxin sanguinarine, which kills animal cells.

Applying bloodroot to the skin destroys tissues and causes the formation of a large, black lump of dead flesh. Eventually this mass, called an eschar, falls off, leaving varying degrees of damage behind (internal use is also not recommended: consuming bloodroot can cause vomiting and loss of consciousness).

Bloodroot is easy to buy. Back in May this year the Good Thinking Society reported that eBay had removed “listings for dangerous cancer ‘cure’” following an investigation. Those listings were for black salve, and this was, of course, very positive news. Except for one thing: whilst listings for black salve were removed (and remain absent), listings for bloodroot were not. At the time of writing, a quick search reveals several bloodroot preparations still for sale.

At the time of writing, bloodroot is easy to find on eBay. The listing confirms that this is prepared from the “rhizome of certified organically grown Sanguinaria conadensis plants”.

Why is this such a bad thing? Because it’s easy to find recipes for making homemade black salve with bloodroot online, and using such mixtures can have truly horrific consequences. Last year the story of a woman who applied it to a basal cell carcinoma on her nose was widely reported. The black salve paste she used did so much damage that she ended up with a large hole in her nose through which she could actually draw air. Photos and video are available online (be warned: it’s gruesome).

Many patients turn to black salve as an alternative to what they imagine will be disfiguring surgery to treat their cancer. But, as in this woman’s case, the paste can do so much damage that far more extensive, reconstructive, surgery is ultimately needed.

Black Salve usually contains bloodroot and, sometimes, zinc chloride – another skin irritant.

It won’t surprise anyone to learn that dermatologists don’t recommend black salve. It can do enormous damage to the surface of the skin, resulting in scarring and a high risk of infection, and it does kill cancer cells along the way. But there is no guarantee that all of the cancerous cells deep within the skin will be destroyed. As a result, patients who’ve attempted to cure themselves may end up with cancerous tissue hidden, and growing, beneath a scar.

In fact, exactly this happened to an otherwise healthy 76 year-old woman in 2006. Her case is described in detail in the journal Dermatology Practical Conceptual – in summary, she refused surgery on a small melanoma on her leg. Instead, she bought black salve on the internet and applied it. A few years later the cancer had spread to her lungs, liver and lymph nodes.

Some people even recommend using black salve on breast cancers but this is, if possible, even worse. It’s highly unlikely that the salve will reach the entirety of a tumour which is beneath the skin. It is likely to do some horribly painful and disfiguring damage along the way, though.

Black salve is particularly popular in Australia, which of course has some of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world. But it’s available in the UK too. One online “herbal medicine” site is openly selling various formulations at prices ranging from £25-£100. Ironically, they describe their “Herbactive” product as “chemical free” (it isn’t, nothing is) and then go onto boast that it “now has a stronger concentration of bloodroot”. Fantastic.

They also sell a product which contains zinc chloride along with bloodroot. They claim zinc chloride is safe. It isn’t. It’s well-known to be a skin irritant, and should never be left in contact with skin.

The Black Salve Facebook page is full of anecdotes and testimonials, but light on evidence.

The Black Salve Facebook page is packed full of anecdotes and testimonials from people who claim to have used these mixtures safely. It’s all interspersed, of course, with the usual “Big Pharma” conspiracy theories. Namely, that the “truth” is being suppressed because there’s “no money in it for the pharmaceutical [industry].”

The irony is that reconstructive surgery is incredibly expensive, and the antibiotics, painkillers and other drugs that are inevitably needed to treat black salve victims aren’t free, either.

Given that Facebook’s community standards page states that: “We remove content, disable accounts and work with law enforcement when we believe that there is a genuine risk of physical harm or direct threats to public safety.” one has to wonder why the Black Salve page is still there. People are actually posting pictures of physical harm. What more does Facebook need?

Please, don’t be tempted to use black salve, or anything containing bloodroot. If you think you have a skin tumour see a properly qualified doctor and follow his or her advice.

It might literally save your life.

Like the Chronicle Flask’s Facebook page for regular updates, or follow @chronicleflask on Twitter. All content is © Kat Day 2017. You may share or link to anything here, but you must reference this site if you do.

All comments are moderated. Abusive comments will be deleted, as will any comments referring to posts on this site which have had comments disabled.