Blog 25 - Cancer and sunburn

Blog 25 - Chemotherapy and Radiotherapy fall out with Sunshine

Sunshine is radiation. Radiotherapy is radiation. What’s radiotherapy for? To damage cells. Sunshine damages cells. If you’re having radiotherapy, you need your energy to repair cells, so avoid sunshine. (Cancer turns off cell repair in those cells that it has attached to, so irradiated cancer cells die, which is how we get rid of cancer, and the body replaces cells with new ones where it can, which is how we recover, after a while). Overexposure to the sun causes sunburn which is when cells in the base of the skin are killed (basal cells). When these cells rise to the surface of the skin, the skin turns red. If sunburn continues, more cells die and rise to the surface, which will flake, or blister or suppurate.

Why can some people take more sunshine than others? Because of the level of photo-sensitivity of the cells in their body. The repair rate of damaged cells and the tolerance of cells to damage (photo-sensitivity) – is governed by the number and quantity of up to 30 different proteins in the body. The more the better. If you are photosensitive, you probably have fewer proteins. You need to know your own tolerance to sunlight, measured in your own garden on a sunny day. 5 minutes to burn or 20? The SPF factor of a sun-cream tells you how many times longer you can stay exposed to the sun. (SPF. Sunburn Protection Factor, actually UVB protection factor – see later).

Chemotherapy, short term, and radiotherapy, longer term, can increase the level of photo-sensitivity of cells, and so you will not be able to spend as long a time in the sun as you used to. You should increase the SPF factor of your sun-cream accordingly (what the heck does accordingly mean!) – or experimentally if you want to try getting sunburn first.

Chemotherapy drugs that cause photosensitivity are dacarbazine, fluorouracil (by injection or applied to skin), masoprocol (applied to skin), methotrexate, mitomycin, and vinblastine. Alitretinoin applied to the skin may make your skin sunburn more easily.

Radiation therapy can cause radiation enhancement or radiation recall with some chemotherapy drugs, such as bleomycin, dactinomycin, daunorubicin, liposomal daunorubicin, doxorubicin, liposomal doxorubicin, fluorouracil, hydroxyurea, and methotrexate. Radiation recall can also occur with etoposide, idarubicin, interferons, paclitaxel, or vinblastine.

(Other literature also include tamociten, femara and arimidex)

Other factors related to cancer may cause or heighten photosensitivity including:

      Changes in your physical appearance because of cancer or cancer treatment. Hair loss can make it easy to sunburn the top of your head.

      Medications -- ganciclovir, some nausea medications (chlorpromazine, haloperidol, promethazine), quinolone antibiotics (ciprofloxacin, levofloxacin, ofloxacin, sparfloxacin, and others), sulfamethoxazole, and others

Here’s a fascinating and informative publication on the way skin reacts/recovers during and after radiotherapy.
http://www.ycn.nhs.uk/html/downloads/ltht-managingradiotherapyinducedskinreactions-oct2011.pdf - According to this document, Cisplatin is bad, too.

Sunshine is electromagnetic radiation made up of, inter alia, three groups of Ultraviolet wavelengths. UVA suppresses the immune system, damages the eyes and may lead to indirect DNA damage: UVB may lead to direct DNA damage and sunburn: UVC has the highest potential for biological damage, but can’t get through the earth’s atmosphere. (UVB is partially blocked, depending on the level of ozone above you). (The bodies defense against UVB is to produce melanin, which has a dark pigment and this diffuses UVB into safe radiation – i.e. heat – so if you've not got sun-cream on you’ll feel hotter than if you have!). (Yes, UV radiation has benefits, but that’s not for this article).

Ultraviolet (UV) light is so-named because the electromagnetic spectrum consists of waves with frequencies higher than those that humans identify as the colour violet. These frequencies are invisible to most humans except those with aphakia. Near-UV is visible to a number of insects and birds.

UVA, UVB, and UVC can all damage collagen fibres and, therefore, accelerate aging of the skin. Both UVA and UVB destroy vitamin A in skin, which may cause further damage. UVA is immunosuppressive for the entire body and is mutagenic for basal cell keratinocytes in skin.

Physical sunblocks reflect UVA and UVB from the surface of the skin. Chemical sunblocks prevent UVB penetration by absorbing it, they generally don’t absorb UVA. Each chemical within the cream absorbs a different range of UVB radiation.

UVA sunblocks typically contain either titanium dioxide or zinc oxide.

When buying sunblock, avoid synthetic chemicals that can further damage your skin and weaken your defense systems: Including 4-Methyl-Benzylidencamphor (4-MBC), Oxybenzone, Benzophenone-3, and Octyl-methoyl-cinnamates (OMC). Or synthetic preservatives like parabens and synthetic fragrance.

If you've got this far, read this http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3263051/
and find out about herbals and sunshine – flowing into some other fascinating herbal information.