From: feetback@shoebusters.com (James Semmel)

TO: All melanoma researchers, doctors, and patients.

It seems to me that with Vitamin D3, a person would be melanoma-free for
life. I realize that's a pretty bold opinion coming from an amateur with
irrelevant degrees in electrical engineering, but just consider the
following when forming your own viewpoint.
We know that vitamins are essential to life, and without them, a person
ultimately dies. Yet the current medical textbooks do not list a deadly
Vitamin D deficiency condition with these most basic characteristics:
1. Fast-spreading.
2. Affects both genders.
3. Affects all ages.
4. Primarily affects the skin, since it is practically the sole source
of Vitamin D.
Melanoma--the cause of which remains unknown--seems like a perfect
match, doesn't it?
(In recent years there has been a smattering of researchers speculating
that prostate, breast, and colon cancers arise from D-deficiency--even
though none of the diseases afflict young children, who are just as
susceptible to Vitamin D deficiency as adults.)
Presumably, even late-stage melanoma patients will benefit from
high-dose Vitamin D3 therapy. As the distinguished Dr. Joel E.
Goldthwait put it: "Nature is ready to repair damages if a chance is
given."
James Semmel
Albuquerque, New Mexico
reference:
http://www.mpip.org/bb/shtml/320380.shtml 3rd annual: Is melanoma simply
a Vitamin D deficiency cancer?
========

hi james - i'm still wondering what happened in my case.  

i drink milk, took vitamins daily for the past 30 years and i got the
usual daily sun.  although, i did sun bathe rarely, it was no where what
a lot of people do.

yet, i ended up with not only prostate cancer, but skin cancer to boot.  

~ curtis

knowledge is power - growing old is mandatory - growing wise is optional    
"Many more men die with prostate cancer than of it. Growing old is
invariably fatal. Prostate cancer is only sometimes so."
http://community.webtv.net/PALMER_ENT/doc

James,

You need to look at more research on this.

An article published in July 2002 and summarized by the National
Cancer Institute on their website at:

 http://www.cancer.gov/newscenter/individualmelanoma

claims that there is now direct evidence that increased exposure
to the sun is directly associated with increased risk of melanoma.

I also had a look at the SEER ("Surveillance Epidemiology and
End Results") data on melanoma.  See:

  http://seer.cancer.gov/cgi-bin/csr/1975_2002/search.pl

If I'm understanding what I see correctly, I looked at the age adjusted
rates for melanoma and saw that between 1992 and 2002, people
over 65 had a much higher rate of increase in melanoma than people
under 65, which _might_ indicate that people with more exposure
before the era of powerful sunscreens fare worse than those of
today - though both groups have increased.

It therefore seems to me that your hypothesis, while interesting, and
possibly even worth investigating, is at best unlikely to be the
whole story about cause and prevention of melanoma.

These things are difficult to analyze.  To get at the truth about
something like this, it is essential not to focus too narrowly on
one set of premises.  Cancer is a terribly complicated set of
diseases and, even in the case of a single cancer classification
like melanoma, it seems to involve many different factors that
promote or suppress cancer development - often different for
different people.  I'd personally be very surprised if a simple
hypothesis like vitamin D deficiency takes us very far in
understanding causes and cures - though it might take us
part of the way in at least some of the cases.

   Alan