Light and Circadian Biology #9 - The Truth About Skin Cancer

Did you know that melanoma is a neuroendocrine tumor? Melanoma risk is higher when we have low Vitamin D levels (UVB), low melatonin levels (mtDNA issues), & low dopamine (eye issues) levels. All of these things are associated with poor solar redox due to a lack of UV light

Very few people know that dopamine receptors, mainly D2 receptors, have been also found to be expressed in types of neuroendocrine tumors like the melanomas. This is another reason why artificial light at night (ALAN) is linked to all skin cancers including melanoma.

This paper below demonstrates the link between lower Vitamin D levels in blood linked to increased risk of Melanoma. Titled: “Cutaneous malignant melanoma incidences analyzed worldwide by sex, age, and skin type over personal Ultraviolet-B dose shows no role for sunburn but implies one for Vitamin D3”

  • https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19381980.2016.1267077

Context is very important when it comes to skin cancer and it’s not a short answer. Here’s what we know.

Most of the health-promoting benefits of sun exposure are thought to occur through Vitamin D photosynthesis. There may be other health benefits that have gone largely overlooked in the debate over how much sun is needed for good health [see “Other Sun-Dependent Pathways,” p. A165]. As for what constitutes “excessive” UVR exposure, there is no one-size-fits-all answer, says Lucas: “‘Excessive’ really means inappropriately high for your skin type under a particular level of ambient UVR.”

  • Sunlight triggers the release of a number of other important compounds in the body, not only nitric oxide but also serotonin and endorphins. It reduces the risk of prostate, breast, colorectal, and pancreatic cancers. It improves circadian rhythms. It reduces inflammation and dampens autoimmune responses. It improves virtually every mental condition you can think of. And it’s free.

  • Where did sunscreen come from? One of the first sunscreens, Red Vet Pet (for Red Veterinary Petrolatum) was a thick red petroleum jelly invented in 1944 to protect soldiers in the South Pacific. Only after Coppertone bought the rights and reformulated Red Vet Pet to suit the needs of the new mid-century tanning culture did sunscreen take off. Early sunscreen formulations were disastrous, shielding users from the UVB rays that cause sunburn but not the UVA rays that cause skin cancer. Even today, SPF ratings refer only to UVB rays, so many users may be absorbing far more UVA radiation than they realize. Meanwhile, many common sunscreen ingredients have been found to be hormone disruptors that can be detected in users’ blood and breast milk. The worst offender, oxybenzone, also mutates the DNA of corals and is believed to be killing coral reefs. Hawaii and the western Pacific nation of Palau have already banned it, to take effect in 2021 and 2020 respectively, and other governments are expected to follow.

  • Australia’s official advice – When the UV index is below 3 (which is true for most of the continental U.S. in the winter), “Sun protection is not recommended unless near snow or other reflective surfaces. To support vitamin D production, spend some time outdoors in the middle of the day with some skin uncovered.” Even in high summer, Australia recommends a few minutes of sun a day.

  • Blue light in children stimulates melanogenesis and hyperpigmentation that lowers the ability to handle UV light. It is even associated with more nevi and greater melanoma risk longer term. Certain melanoma cells have a leucine addiction caused by defective adaptive autophagy due to a LACK of solar programming with information quanta.

  • Isolated blue light results in hyper-melanogenesis - Melanocytes sense Blue Light and regulate pigmentation through Opsin-3 (Encephalopsin)

    • https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022202X17327926

  • A diet rich in Omega 6 and 9 seed oils may also reduce the skins ability to capture sunlight photons. Add to this the countless pharmaceutical drugs with side effects impacting the blood and skin surface and you have a biochemical disadvaantage to handle full spectrum sunlight the way we were designed. Added to this biochemical mal-adaptive strategy for natural light, invisible radiation like wireless signals from satelite, cell towers and phones as well as Wi-Fi these dehydrate the body reducing the #1 photoreceptor in the human body, water and disabling our #2 photoreceptor in the human body cholesterol. And we wonder why we get burnt faster at populated beaches with cell phone towers nearby, compared to unpopulated beaches with no visible cell towers…

You must question the logic of modern centralized skin and eye MDs. What they have been taught about the sun is just not correct. Most are ignorant about how light operates in our bodies. Soon enough bio-photonics and biophysics will become mainstream, but until then it’s up to you to avoid being their patient.

A study from a University in Japan from 2023 they experimented on mice by irradiattting them with either blue, white, green or red light to determine which would cause skin cancer. They irradiated the entire body of the mice for 10 minutes per day, every day for 1 year.

  • First Group: Was irradiated with blue light (479nm LED).

  • Second Group: Were irradiated with White LED

  • Third Group: Were irradiated with Green (538nm LED)

  • Fourth Group: Were irradiated with Red (629nm LED)

Conclusion: Skin cancer was induced only in the mice exposed to the Blue LED Light! Long-term blue light irradiation also increased the migration of neutrophils and macrophages involved in carcinogenesis in the skin. The mechanism for this, they explaiened, involved Neutrophil NETs and type 1 macrophages play an important role in the induction of skin cancer.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

HIGHER MELANOMA RISK -> LOW MELATONIN + LOW DOPAMINE + LOW VIT D LEVELS ~ This is evidence of low sunlight exposure and thus weaker bioenergetics and weaker mitochondrial redox power.

High Risk Category: Red Hair and Light Skin – Skin Cancer

  • The adaption to have light coloured skin was an excellent idea until LED’s and CFL’s were invented. These then began to destroy these people’s photoreceptors greatly as well as they are more sensitive to UV light burns.

  • Northern Haplotypes may need to be a lot more careful with arterial light and sun exposure than equatorial haplotypes. Their skin type with predominant pheomelanin is ill-suited in strong sun and light environments. Pheomelanin is nature's answer to humans moving north. She totally did not expect to have to deal with strong visible lights from LEDs as well as ease of backwards transcontinental migrations. Pheomelanin is exquisitely sensitive to light. This photosensitivity works well in northern latitudes, but if you move them under stronger lights, artificial or natural, pheomelanin will generate ROS and downstream damages at the drop of a hat. That is why the incidence of melanoma in fair skin (red heads) is the highest.

  • "In Fitzpatrick skin type 1 individuals with light skin and red hair, >80 percent bear a dysfunctional variant in both MC1R alleles. MC1R signaling upregulates tyrosinase, whose strong enzymatic activity results in synthesis of brown/black eumelanin. In contrast, loss-of-function MC1R variants produce lower cAMP and tyrosinase levels which induce formation of pheomelanin pigment. Pheomelanin not only lacks efficient ultraviolet (UV) shielding capacity, but it (or its biosynthetic intermediates) actively induce formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) as well as DNA damage"

  • Light-at-night theory – in the small body of research so far, it appears artificial light may indicate an increased risk of developing cancer

  • Isolated artificial blue light raises blood sugar faster than eating cheese cake.  

  • So how can full spectrum sunlight give you cancer if 42% of it is infrared A and 9% is red which both act to activate/stimulate antioxidants to counteract any free radical (ROS and RNS) damage, and 4% is UVB light which generates Vitamin D which lowers all-cause mortality and 6% is UVA which raises nitric oxide which may reduce blood pressure and generally improve cardiovascular health protecting from cancer?

Meanwhile here in Australia our government still scares people into fearing the sun. Whilst this permeates the average person’s beliefs, the obvious signs are written on the wall. My local “Skin Cancer Center” here in the Gold Coast is completely toxified by artificial lights predominantly in the blue wavelength which we now know promotes uncontrolled melanogenesis from chronic exposure. It’s no wonder the Australian Anti-cancer council changed it’s name to the Cancer Council. It’s a place where cancer thrives and the measures they suggest are clearly not working due to the increased rates. Most of our modern day epidemics …Autism, cancer, etc… which are popping up seemingly at random or out of nowhere are thriving at the time our planet is being polluted with artificial light and wireless radiation. So, we haven’t made the scientific definite link yet because it’s not being funded to do so yet. Why look in the closet when you know there’s a boogyman inside? Better to leave the door closed and accept the scares during the night, says mainstream science. Well I’m calling it out and now that you know better, it’s your job to call it out when you see it too.

One of my friends prompted me to write this to provide clarity around sunlight and skin cancer. She called it sun cancer, which triggered me to the point that I needed to write this whole section for anyone who actually believes that phrase makes any sense whatsoever. It does not. One of the most important aspects of learning new things is to begin with a beginners mindset and notice where your held beliefs arise to resist what you are reading. Often these feelings are good BS detectors and serve a purpose, but sometimes it's wise to question where they come from and why you took on the belief in the first place. When you enquire into the belief that just popped up, can you find a strong reason why you believe it to be true? For example, you read a sentence of mine such as there is no such thing as sun cancer and notice a belief pop up saying, 'well yes there is. I have relatives in my life who had melanoma and they were in the sun occasionally over the years and UV radiation is cumulative meaning the more exposure the more likely you will be to get a melanoma. And also the government warns everyone about the sun and Australia has some of the highest rates of skin cancer and sunscreen and sunglasses protect us. Plus every time I go to the beach, people put on sunscreen and are perfectly healthy and have no skin cancer.'

Ok. Well this is a strong belief and seemingly justified. But as you will see this lies on shaky ground and in fact is so superficial and mainstream that the trees have been lost by the illusion of a forest. UV light 'causing' skin cancer was originally claimed when in the early 1900's children receiving UV light actinotherapy for their retinal hypoplasia resulted in a couple children developing ocular melanoma. This treatment had been conducted without this outcome many times before as it was somewhat standard practice, but some children with likely sensitive eyes and who were clearly not very healthy developed an adverse reaction to the treatment. This was tested further after discovery and scientists found that UV light can damage DNA strands and lead to harmful DNA damage. This put a halt on UV light treatment of many conditions including its successful treatment of tuberculosis, jaundice and rickets.  Solutions for all these diseases were replaced by pharmaceuticals controlled, regulated and monetised by Big Pharma as stated in the Flexner Report in 1915. Needless to say, the scientific community began fearing UV light and since UV light was present in sunlight so began the fear campaign against sunlight. And after several years, very few questioned the fact that we have evolved under sunlight forever and that if it caused any fatal disease that our biology would have created an adaption to this by now to ensure life still thrived in our living conditions here on Earth.

It's important to note here that only 3% of all skin cancers are the deadly Melanoma and 97% are the non-deadly squamous cell carcinoma or basal cell carcinoma.

As the chinese whispers continued about the harms of sunlight, entrepreneurs saw an opportunity to build billion dollar industries on clothing, sunglasses, eye glasses, intraocular lenses, contact lenses, creams, oils, lotions and tattoos stating the benefits of purchasing a product which reduces the amount of UV light exposure to the body's skin and eyes. Companies even began engineering food which would have an internal UV light protecting ability. Soon enough countries like Australia had become sun-phobic and brainwashed consumers into hiding themselves from sunlight, especially during the middle portion of the day where the healthy UV light was the strongest.

When the solar spectrum is isolated into individual wavelengths such as delivering UVB at 312 nm or UVA at 365 nm it may pose harmful effects because our bodies have never been exposed to these isolated wavelengths throughout our evolutionary history and are being asked to adapt to them immediately which always poses complications. Our sun always delivers UV light in a package with visible light (purple, blue, green, yellow, orange and red) and infrared. This full solar spectrum which reaches earth has sculpted our biology to utilise all of its wisdom together as a package. Much like when you eat an only vegetable diet, or an only meat diet, eventually you become unbalanced, when you avoid sunlight or only go out in the sun during certain times of the day and miss others, you miss out on the balance of solar nutrients and end up with a problem. Ask any vegan, carnivore, regular shift worker, airline hostess, night owl or early morning crossfitter and you will find imbalance in their health at a fundamental level. But getting back to sunlight. infrared light acts to scavenge free radicals, boost energy production in the mitochondria, charge separate water to create free electrons and build the body's solar callus via filaggrin protein synthesis. Red light boosts ATP production in the mitochondria by improving electron transport redox reactions and does not suppress the release of melatonin to any significant extent. Green light signals balance within the body and blue light excites the body to an alert state. Violet light within sunlight acts to stimulate higher consciousness in the body and ultraviolet light acts to power key neurotransmitters, hormones and signallers such as dopamine, serotonin, melatonin, norepinephrine, acetylcholine, nitric oxide, thyroid hormone and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) for example. When delivered by our sun as a package, cancer is not the outcome unless something else in the biologic system is broken at a deep level, usually as a result of long-term inconsistent exposure to sunlight.

As this fear of UV light continued, autoimmune conditions, cancers including melanoma, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and many other deadly diagnoses were increasingly being dished out like our post trucks dish out mail. It was fast becoming a normal part of life to take sick days from work each month, keep a box of tissues on the table in every room in the house and office, and have a parent, friend or child with some form of chronic disease. Life for many slowly became a health gamble with a great divide between those who choose to believe they can control their health and those who believe it's bad luck if you get sick and good luck if you stay well. All of these beliefs resting on faulty ground layered with lise on top of lies on top of lies.

So now here we are in 2023 and all western populations still believe that the sun causes cancer and actively live their lives in fear or misunderstanding of the sun and continue to brainwash their children perpetuating the false belief. And nearly every day there is a child who grows up afraid of the sun, avoiding it like the plague and is diagnosed with melanoma. And if they or their parents have any smarts, they'll realise that the anti-cancer hormone Vitamin D is synthesized in the human body from the interaction of ultraviolet B (UVB) radiation with the body's skin surface containing cholesterol sulfate, and notice that their child is Vit D deficient, hence the presence of cancer metabolism in their/their child's body. Maybe this motivates them enough to search a little deeper and discover this blog tearing down another nuanced rebuttal to this argument which goes something like this 'but it's not UVB, but UVA which is implied in causing skin cancer...' wrong again. UVA sunlight between 320 nm and 400 nm when delivered with full spectrum sunlight is not only protective of human physiology but actually stimulates an increased production of Melatonin whilst we sleep that night. We know this because the light storage amino acid which turns ingo Melatonin, tryptophan has an absorption spectrum throughout this entire range of ultraviolet light. UV-A portion of sunlight -> excites the benzene rings in tryptophan -> turns into melatonin -> is released during sleep to regenerate -> controlling the key cellular programs of autophagy/mitophagy and apoptosis. So UV-A light allows apoptosis (programmed cell death) of cancer cells. What else does UVA and UVB wavelengths of sunlight create when delivered from our sun? Melanin. One of melanin's primary functions is to act as the body's primary sunscreen, absorbing UV light and preventing any DNA damage as a result. Dr. Alexander Wunsch has shown us that it does this with nearly 100% efficiency when present in the skin. So that means the more tanned you are the less likely you will be to have skin cancer. And yes, this is backed up in the literature with indoor workers having a higher incidence of melanoma than outdoor workers. And what else? Neuropsin, the UV light photoreceptor in our eye and skin absorbs light as a secondary controller of our circadian rhythm among other critical functions. Our circadian rhythm governs the fundamental sleep/wake cycle and thus if neuropsin does not receive UV light then our circadian rhythm will be off along with a great deal of internal biochemistry and gene expression. So is a false belief about the sun worth this consequence? Rhetorical answer. The list goes on but I will leave it at this for now and you can always ask me more when you see me in person.

Ok, so what about sunburn? Another perpetuated false belief. This one is even stronger because people are so averse to pain, that they will do anything not to feel the pain of a sunburn and fear laident consequences. But a skin burn from overexposure to the sun or otherwise called erythema is ultimately nothing to worry about unless you are concerned about faster aging skin. When you burn your skin, your body needs to replace those cells using stem cells from your reserve. So if you burn once a month, this is no different to exfoliating or dermarolling once a week. Either way the skin ages more rapidly than it would if left alone. If you do not exfoliate, dermaroll, aggressively skin brush or sun burn because your solar callus is strong,m then you are likely on your way to a young looking appearance as you age. Dermatologists will have you believe that the sun exposure you received as a child contributed to your skin condition now or your skin cancer, now, 30 years later. Yet what they will not tell you, which is written in their literature, is that the majority of skin cancers are in places which have the lightest pigment skin on your body. The only time where this is not true is when you need to go a little deeper and begin asking questions about why the skin cancer is on your face when your butt is lighter skin than your face...? Now you need to look into the science of artificial blue light and its biologic impact on the accelerated stimulation of production of melanin called melanogenesis. Blue light from your phone, computer, tech screen, kitchen lighting, office lighting, sunlight behind a tinted or untinted window, or any other artificial source resulting in unbalanced overpowered blue light will result in hyper or hypopigmentation of the skin. The solar spectrum is equally balanced blue and red throughout the day but when blue is unaccompanied by red, it causes problems. Not acutely because as many cosmetologists will have you know blue light can be used for acne treatment or jaundice with short term exposures, but that would be less than 10 minutes per treatment, how long would you say your face receives artificial light from your indoor lighting, phone screen, computer screen and other sources in a single day. That's right. This adds up and can lead to destruction of the blue light photoreceptor Melanopsin and a myriad of disastrous collateral effects on the cellular and mitochondrial level. You should now start to think about melasma, alopecia, eczema, dermatitis, psoriasis and acne very differently. And if you want to keep going to your dermatologist and have him provide solutions from a likely false belief standpoint, then go right ahead, but you'll end up where you started as confused and lost as you were before you entered their office and layed eyes on their white coat. If they are open minded, bring this information to them so they can be educated. And if they actually care about helping people, they will listen and read and actually help empower patients as part of their screening.

Further to this, wearing or applying makeup, moisturiser, skin lotions, get a tattoo, wear contact lenses, fake tan or applying treatments to generate melanin without UV light exposure, also creates a barrier between your surface and the sun leading to an altered spectral perception shifting your biochemistry and metabolism in an unfavourable way. Is it not enough that wearing clothes does reduce your ability to have sunlight signal your biochemistry optimally, but to add tattoos and contact lenses to this equation, this does not have a happy ending either.

With all this in mind, you now have more information for which you can form a new opinion, belief or idea from. Then in 6 months I want you to revisit your new understanding and question it again as you begin to experience life differently. What more dogma can you extract from this explanation and take my ideas further. How can you question the knowledge here to find out a deeper truth for yourself and then if you do find something, how will you open others eyes to even more half-truths which have been stated before. Question as much as you can until you are satisfied, and then give yourself time to digest the information and live in line with your new learnings and then question again.

The message is simple, enjoy the full spectrum sunlight, build up your exposure progressively so you can capture a whole day of sunlight without burning and then watch your biochemistry and metabolism upshift towards optimal!

Enjoy a beautiful day outside with the people that you love!

 Nathan

 

Bonus Reading:

Sunglasses, Glasses and Blue Blockers

  • When the UVB spectrum is blocked, the signal for nitric oxide release is blocked in the eye which inhibits the body’s ability to create melanin. A lack of nitric oxide affects melanin production. Melanin is created from tyrosine and phenylalanine. T3 and T4 is also made from tyrosine. This is how wearing sunglasses links to Hashimoto’s. What does this mean? If you wear sunglasses, you will sunburn faster and this increases the risks of thermal and non-thermal damage, especially melanoma. When you wear sunglasses, you precondition your skin for skin cancer. The lenses block UV which normally stimulate Nitric Oxide (NO) release protecting your skin from cancer, but in the case of sunglasses NO is blocked, affecting alpha-MSH (Melanocyte Stimulating Hormone) via POMC over time leading to melanogenesis.

  • Highest Risk People: White skin people who wear sunglasses. Such as Aussies, British, American’s, Russians, Northern Europeans and so on…

  • Reference: John Ott – Health and Light

  • Albert Schweitzer’s daughter completed several studies in Africa to do with modernisation. She specifically noted when sunglasses were introduced cancer become very prominent.

  • Egyptians and Chinese used quartz lenses in the past.

  • The lens of the eye doesn’t block all UV, it lets through approximately 1% UVB and 3% UVA. This small stimulus of this UV light leads to non-linear changes. Which means, just a small amount of this highly powered light has lead to much complexity in our species.

  • Red/IR-A light between 600nm and 1,000nm offsets the ROS created by the UV light in the form of antioxidant action. This red/IR-A light also helps to offset artificial lighting, especially blue light. When sunglasses are worn 100% of UV is blocked and approximately 60% of Red/IR is blocked through the lenses. This leaves a much greater proportion of blue light to enter the eye. Unfettered blue light stimulates melanocytes which is where Melanoma comes from. Let me reiterate. Nitric oxide stimulated by UVA sunlight protects the body from melanoma when accompanied by infrared and visible light as is present in the sun. When the spectrum of sunlight is altered in any way (clothing, sunscreen, tattoos, coconut oil, body lotion, sunglasses, contact lenses, intraocular lenses, or any other way) the effects from the sun can lead to disease. So, as you can see, it’s not the sun that’s deadly, it’s our lack of understanding which can turn it against us.

  • Nitric oxide leads to autophagy in the eye. This means the cells are turning over the damaged photoreceptors and replacing them with highly functioning new ones. Nitric oxide slows the electron transport chain to the mitochondria whilst inhibiting energy production from ATP, whilst Red/IR light keeps ATP spinning optimally so that energy can still be produced functionally. This is why you use UV and Red/IR together.

  • Light through the eye controls how you assimilate light through the skin.

  • Wearing sunglasses destroys the skin’s ability to make melanin.

  • Wearing sunglasses lowers dopamine in the brain and Beta-endorphin which may link to exogenous opioid addiction or addictive behaviour.

 

Nathan Siles#skincancer, #sunlight, #foundationalhealth, #tan, #vitamindComment