Light treatment clears psoriasis as it boosts vitamin D levels

(NaturalNews) According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) about 7.5 million Americans suffer from the chronic, autoimmune skin disease called psoriasis that causes irritated, flaky and thick patches of red skin; some forms of psoriasis are also associated with joint pain. Most medical treatment for the often painful and quality-of-life robbing disease center around controlling symptoms with medications like cortisone. But now research just published in the August issue of the Archives of Dermatology indicates there’s a non-drug way to clear and maybe cure the disease naturally — exposure to vitamin D boosting UV-B light. Comprising the “tanning rays” from the sun that are blocked by sunscreen and long feared for supposedly causing wrinkles and “age spots”, UV-B light, it turns out, actually promotes health by increasing levels of vitamin D. Now a team of scientists from St. Vincent’s University Hospital in Dublin, Ireland, have found that treatment with narrow-band UV-B rays greatly increases serum levels of vitamin D in the wintertime. And they’ve shown how adequate exposure to UV-B light therapy can clear psoriasis. In fact, the new finding is powerful evidence that a lack of the “sunshine” vitamin is involved in the development and worsening of this skin condition. The researchers studied 30 consecutive patients with psoriasis who were treated with narrow-band UV-B light three times per week between October 2008 and February 2009. The research subjects’ psoriasis cleared and their serum vitamin D levels (which were measured before the study, after four weeks of treatment and after the treatment was finished) were compared with those of 30 control patients who also had psoriasis but did not have any UV-B therapy. The researchers also assessed the severity of the patients’ psoriasis symptoms and their skin disease-related quality of life before and after treatment. The results showed that levels of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D, which is considered the most accurate measurement of vitamin D levels in the body, had increased significantly among individuals receiving UV-B therapy — rising from about 23 nanograms per milliliter to 59 nanograms per milliliter at the end of treatment. However, there was no change in the control group. “At the end of the study, all patients in the treatment group were vitamin D sufficient, but 75 percent of the control group had vitamin D insufficiency,” the authors wrote in their paper. What’s more, the control group’s skin condition didn’t improve at all. And in the group treated with UV-B light exposure, their psoriasis severity scores decreased dramatically — from 7.1 at the beginning of the study to only 0.5 after light therapy. For more information: http://www.naturalnews.com/Vitamin_D.html www.psoriasis.org

Vitamin D deficiency linked to more aggressive lymphoma

(NaturalNews) Lymphoma patients with vitamin D deficiency are twice as likely to die from their cancer than patients with sufficient blood levels of the vitamin, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Mayo Clinic and presented at a meeting of the American Society of Hematology. Researchers took blood samples from 374 patients between 2002 and 2008 who had been recently diagnosed with a cancer of the white blood cells known as diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. The average participant age was 62. Approximately 40 percent of all lymphomas are of the diffuse large-B cell type. The disease mainly affects people over the age of 50. The researchers found that roughly 50 percent of all participants suffered from vitamin D deficiency at the beginning of the study, defined as having blood levels below 25 nanograms per liter. Over an average of three years of follow-up, patients with vitamin D deficiency were 50 percent more likely to have their cancer worsen and twice as likely to die as patients with vitamin levels above 25 nanograms per liter. Researchers have known for a long time that vitamin D helps regulate calcium absorption and thus plays a crucial role in bone and dental health. Recent research suggests that the vitamin may also help regulate the immune system, and that higher levels can help prevent against chronic diseases such as Alzheimer’s, cancer, diabetes and dementia. Some researchers are making the case that for these benefits, vitamin D levels must be maintained at a level closer to 40 nanograms per liter. The Mayo Clinic researchers used the 25 nanogram per liter cutoff because that is the level at which the body begins to leach calcium from its own bones, and is therefore a well-defined deficiency threshold. Prior research has suggested that vitamin D deficiency may worsen the prognosis for patients with breast, colon and throat cancers. Sources for this story include: www.sciencenews.org.

Prostate Cancer Screening: 50 Percent False Positives

(NaturalNews) As many as 50 percent of all prostate cancer diagnoses may be cases of over-diagnosis, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal . Over-diagnosis refers to the detection of a cancer that, if left untreated, would never have any negative effects on a person’s life. This happens with cancers that grow slowly and do not spread to other organs, so that a patient dies of other causes before ever experiencing any symptoms. Because prostate cancers tend to be very slow growing, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has recommended against screening men over the age of 74 for prostate cancer. Treatments for the disease can have severe side effects, including impotence and incontinence, and may even increase the risk of early death. Another paper, published in the same issue of the journal, found that the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test commonly used to assess prostate cancer risk cannot reliably predict this risk in most cases. The PSA is a marker of prostate inflammation, which in turn is believed to be a risk factor for prostate cancer. Yet in a study on 1,540 Swedish men, researchers found that PSA levels were not correlated with prostate cancer risk. The only exception was levels below 1 nanogram per mililiter, which suggest a prostate cancer risk of almost zero. The British National Health Service recommends referral for cancer screening such as biopsies for men between the ages of 50 and 59 who have a PSA level of 3 nanograms per mililiter or higher, and for older men who have levels of 5 nanograms per mililiter or higher. Another recent study found that regular PSA screenings did not decrease men’s risk of dying from prostate cancer. The British Parliament has been considering promoting more regular PSA screening, but so far has declined to do so. According to general practitioner James Kingsland, a member of the government advisory group on prostate cancer risk management, the new studies lend support to this decision. “It is using a test for something which it was never designed for, which is always dangerous,” he said. Sources for this story include: news.bbc.co.uk.