Those of us not blessed with a high-octane metabolism already know the battle with fat cells is a miserable trench-warfare slog through the produce aisle. But new research from Tel Aviv University gives us even more reason to be suspicious of those fat cells. Apparently, they are implicated in the transition that surface-level melanoma cells undergo when they metastasize. The… Read more »
Ok, as I was typing that title, I was thinking to myself, didn’t I got to high school with Clark Breslow? But actually, his first name is Nate. Hopefully he never needs to read a blog about melanoma, but if he does – what’s up dude? Still got your skateboard? Anyway, for those of you that actually come to this… Read more »
In my previous post, I talked about the new changes to the guidelines for diagnosing and treating melanoma. One of the changes affects the definitions of melanoma stages. But I realized as I was talking about those changes that some people may not know what all of those letters and numbers mean. To complicate matters further, there are actually a… Read more »
I wrote a post a few weeks back talking about how unsettled I was feeling as a result of people I know either getting diagnosed with their first bout of cancer or a recurrence. At my age, you know that it’s only a matter of time you start hearing news like this. But it doesn’t make it any easier to… Read more »
So, I’m up in Ohio this week to hang out with my mom and try to be helpful for some of the remaining financial and legal tasks from dealing with my dad’s passing. It’s really weird to be in the house and not have my dad here or at least not needing to get going up to the hospital. I… Read more »
I just read an interesting article regarding how early should you think about protecting your skin from the sun. Now, I have some issues with the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force for their lack of recommending annual skin exams; but this time, they are recommending physicians talk to parents of young, fair-skinned children even earlier than previously recommended. Want to know… Read more »
You may have heard of radon. It’s a colorless, tasteless, odorless gas – meaning if it’s around you, you really have no way of knowing it’s there without a detector. Why do you need to be concerned about it? Well, for one thing – it’s radioactive. It’s on par with plutonium in that it releases alpha particles. (I know way… Read more »
Not sure if many of you saw the recent study that shows an increased risk of melanoma for white wine drinkers. I tried to find the least technical article to break down what the study results actually say, and I think this one from Forbes does the trick. In summary, the writer of the article (who’s a professor of biomedical… Read more »
I just read a discouraging article that notes that patients with darker skin tones have a much worse chance of their melanoma becoming fatal. The article references a study performed by Case Western Reserve University (incidentally close to my hometown in Ohio and a very well-respected institution) that found that patients with black skin had the worst survival rates for melanoma…. Read more »
So, it’s just about two years ago that my pink spot made an appearance on my right knee. You know, it’s so funny because when it first sprang out of my skin, I didn’t know that it was some weird form of skin cancer. I didn’t know that it was something that needed to be cut out of my flesh… Read more »