Researchers identify protein that helps skin cancer spread | Hacker News Reader

Researchers identify protein that helps skin cancer spread

qmul.ac.uk

97 pointsgmays34 comments

I see a reasonable number of these University press releases on HN. This was a preclinical lab study. There are literally hundreds of thousands of these studies, and yet as you may readily observe, cancer is still killing lots of people. The signal to noise ratio is very low for such preclinical results. They are also inferior information sources versus the actual paper. As someone who works in the oncology field, my opinion is that these press release submissions are generally of low quality.

Makes me wonder why they are posted. I can see the user who submitted this has had 35 submissions in the last 6 days. 3 or 4 of these are university PR pieces about cancer, Alzheimers and some other bioscience things, along with many other disparate fields. Not sure what to make of this, and I won't guess at the motivation. I accept that some people have omnivorous interests. I guess I should just not click on such articles.

I used to share these articles like crazy back when I had health anxiety. When you have obsessive thoughts about illness/death, the promise of miracle cures becomes extremely comforting.

My grandpa died of melanoma metastasis. Get your moles / birthmarks checked by a dermatologist at least once per year, ideally before and after summer and any time you notice a change yourself. The dermatologist will cut out those that look like they could turn into cancer.

Let me add to this, have a loved one check you out once a month chances are you can't see your back or the top of your head. If something looks "funny" go get it checked out -funny means discolored and not symmetrical. The only reason mine was caught was because my wife was concerned about a mole on my back -turns out the mole was nothing but the exam resulted in having about 20 different moles removed including one that was cancerous -everything is cool but I was lucky. Now I get to go to the derm every 3 month for the next couple of years. Use sunscreen!

I'm very pro-this advice. However for anyone seeking dermatologist to look at a suspicious mole: be prepared for them to be totally dismissive and barely look at you. I had to go to FOUR derms before I found one that took my concerns seriously. It was a very strange and disheartening experience, especially in sunny California. Persist and you will get the help you need.

Interesting. My first visit could best be described as invasive, the doc checked every part of my body including places that have never seen sunlight. I was a bit surprised where they checked but it's just the job. I looked into digital imaging, they are even working on AI to identify changes but from what I read, at this time the best method is the old fashion look and see.

My derm checks every single one with a dermatoscope and takes pictures of borderline ones to track progression. Your mileage way vaty as I go to a private derm in a country with fully public/free healthcare.

and were your concerns serious?

Apologies, I'm not going to post my health status or information here. I found the help I needed.

gotta go anon

Sorry for your loss, and +1 to this advice.

It’s pretty quick and relatively pain free to get your moles examined and biopsied if necessary.

I started to see tiny moles on my arms shoulders and back after going to beaches without sunscreen…. you are terrifying me

It's likely nothing but it's worth getting checked out. I was a lifeguard and worked outside in my 20's and didn't think anything about it, but as I'm finding out all the damage you do to your body in your 20's comes back to kick your ass in your 50's. I only went in to get checked out because my wife was nagging me over a mole on my back. The one on my back was nothing but the one on my chest was cancer -and that diagnosis scares the shit out of you, you'll never realize how many cancer commercials there are on TV until you have it, ugh. Treatment is pretty straight forward they just cut it out, it doesn't hurt the worst is just waiting for the biopsy to get analyzed. The only advice I can give you is to get it checked out, you'll feel a lot better when it's taken care of.

> you are terrifying me

If it’s just enough to get you to the dermatologist and then stop, count it as a blessing.

Check yourself before you shrek yourself.

Living in Australia, skin cancer is one our biggest risks to the majority of us. I read a stat that something like 2 in 3 people in Australia will experience some form of skin cancer in their lifetime.

Partially due to the hole in our ozone layer which increases the level of UVR.

This type of research is huge for us. I can get sunburnt on a normal summers day within 20-30 minutes of sun exposure without sunscreen, whereas I can spend hours in European summers and not burn.

I’m reading yet another example of the benefits of a low or no seed oil diet is reducing chances of a sun burns.

General idea is that because polyunsaturated fats are highly unstable when heated/exposed to oxygen that a person with high amounts of stored polyunsaturated fats in their own fat underneath their skin will react more severely to sun exposure and cause sun burn more easily.

Anecdotally I noticed a huge difference in sun burning when I stopped consuming seed oils and started taking cod liver oil every morning. I have pretty pale Northern European skin and I went from sunburning within an hour of sun exposure to never using sunscreen and not burning even with hours of sun exposure. I think I’d still burn at some point but the threshold is no where near what I am used to it being.

I don't think I really do eat much polyunsaturated fats though? I only use Olive oil when cooking for instance

Unless you are seriously actively avoiding it I would be highly skeptical your average person actually avoids seed oil in their everyday eating because it’s in almost everything packaged and used at almost all restaurants/take out places.

And olive oil is an unsaturated fat. It has more monounsaturated fats than seed oils but still contains polyunsaturated fats. You’d really need to stick to only butter and tallow to really maintain a low Pufa diet, as well as avoid high Pufa foods like fish and fish oils.

The idea is your stored fat should be primarily saturated fats that are stable when exposed to heat and oxygen.

I suppose I wonder how much you would need to avoid it. If it is extremely limited and you do most of your own cooking then your intake would be fairly low.

That might be the case, but then you'd need to weight up the health benefits of perhaps just using a high SPF sunscreen instead of increasing your intake of saturated fats.

Stay safe.

I am convinced we're going to see similar numbers here in California in the near future due to the extreme dry summers we've been experiencing. Very high UV index on those days. In particular, I'm concerned about California kids who spend vast amounts of time outdoors. Sports outside on high UV days lead to lots of exposure. I'm not sure parents who are indoors during the workday understand the amount of sun exposure their children are getting in California.

Exactly, important to note that you can still have very high UV even in overcast cooler weather as well.

Tangentially related to melanoma.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/moderna-says-pers...

> Moderna says personalized mRNA cancer vaccine is effective for advanced melanoma

> The company said that in a phase 2 clinical trial, the vaccine, when combined with immunotherapy drug Keytruda, reduced the risk of recurrence by 44%.

Yeah, except you need to send your specific individual melanoma off for analysis, and the vaccine costs thousands of dollars, if you can even get it.

This is still cheaper than death, and progress must start somewhere. The first human genome cost ~$1B 30 years ago, and now one can get a full sequence for sub $1000. Be optimistic! mRNA is going to revolutionize personalized cancer treatments.

Of course. My point is more that it doesn't work retroactively for people who've had melanoma in the past, because it needs to be tailored. It's not like you can have one generic shot which protects against all melanoma.

So I spent this summer dealing with skin cancer and while my out of pocket was only about $20,000 the bill was well into the six figure range and this was just getting cut up not chemo or any other drug. We saw the same thing with the drug for hepititus, when it came out it was $100K and insurance companies were refusing to pay and now it's something like $30K so prices drop quickly once it becomes normalized.

Would you be willing to share why you were charged $20k?

I'm interested in projecting my health care expenses in retirement and I've heard of healthcare costs exceeding out of pocket max, but it's rare that I get to actually ask!

out of pocket and out of network specialists. There was one specialist that wasn't in my plan and that cost me about $10K. Frankly it's worth it to me to get the best person I can find and pay for it than getting someone sub par but covered by my insurance.

Thank you for sharing. I didn't realize that insurance wouldn't cover or reimburse you for out of network once you are over the out of pocket max.

Thousands of dollars is better than no solution.

It's a magnitude cheaper than chemo and radiation.

Not to mention the side effects of the treatment, which can often be chronic.

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