What Vitamins Can You Take to Reduce Skin Cancer?
The taking of various supplements—derived from plant or animal—is as old as mankind itself. The ancient Greeks had cures for everything. Earwax, taken from the sufferer of the ailment—but for more efficacy, some texts suggested that the earwax must be extracted from the ear of a freshly executed person! —and applied to treat human bites, […]
Can your Choice of Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc Cause Skin Cancer?
In Greek mythology, Daedalus was an inventor. His inventions—in various iterations from Homer to Pliny—include the axe, plumbline (architectural tool to measure how “plumb” or vertical a line was), glue (fish glue or isinglass, from the floating bladders of fish like sturgeon), and even a colourful dance floor (for Princess Ariadne). However his creative genius […]
Can ants be trained to detect melanoma?
Insects may help in the non-invasive diagnosis of cancers. A few years ago, there was a report about using dogs to sniff out skin cancer. A few patients had reported that their pet pooch had been obsessively sniffing or staring at lumps that turned out to be basal cell cancers or melanomas. The reason cancers […]
Coffee and Skin Cancer
COFFEE: WHAT’S SKIN CANCER GOT TO DO WITH OUR FAVOURITE DRINK? Your coffee habit may determine your skin cancer risk. I have often been quoted as saying, “One cannot have bad skin and good health.” Skin merely reflects what lies beneath. What we eat and drink impacts how our skin looks and feels, but what […]
Happy Pills and Superbugs
Do anti-depressants contribute to superinfections? If one was to consider the marketing billboard of medications, the impact on medical history can be felt in different ways. Some pills literally become pop stars of pills, with global name recognition and hordes of groupies. Towering and life-saving older legends like penicillin originated from a humble mould that […]
The Dermatology of Chocolates
Getting under the skin of Whittaker’s, Lindt, and confectionary A few years ago, I developed the concept of “biodynamic excisional skin tension lines” (BEST lines) essentially to understand skin tension, and to figure out the best way to excise skin cancer and obtain the best results. These BEST lines are now considered the “first major […]
Why do rockstars have long hair?
The answer may give you goosebumps. Brian May (Queen), Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin), Joe Elloitt (Def Leppard) are rockstars famous for their long locks. Contemporary country musicians like Keith Urban sport extended manes, and departed legends of music, Michael Jackson and Kurt Cobain, also had hair down to their shoulders. How many bald men that […]
An orange a day may make your doctor go away.
As a skin cancer expert, and someone with an interest in evolutionary biology, I am often asked to operate on animals or treat skin diseases on amazing creatures. The picture to the left shows me examining a lemur (it had a tumour on its tail). Lemurs—precursors of modern primates—can produce their own vitamin C. In […]
Why buying a Swiss Chalet might be a bad idea!
Looking back in time brings back mixed feelings: Should we have bought that house? Sold the piano nobody played? What about the lives of our great-great grandparents devoid of modern luxuries? We can treasure moments in time, balance the baggage of our past against our dreams for the future, but we cannot escape time itself. […]