Nutritional supplement studies have greatly increased over the past several years. Maybe it is out of concern for declining health care quality or an interest in personal accountability for health.
Whatever the reason, nutritional supplements are on the rise throughout the United States.
And a recent study—the largest study of its kind—suggests that vitamin B3 might lower the risk for the most common type of skin cancer in people who have a history of relatively harmless but concerning cancerous growths.
“These are sort of the run-of-the-mill skin cancers that so many people get,” explains Dr. Richard Schilsky, who is the chief medical officer of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. This is an organization consisting of cancer specialists. Dr. Schilsky goes on to say, “They’re rarely lethal but they’re very persistent and they keep coming back,” and, more importantly, these are expensive to remove; which is typically done through surgery, where they freeze of the spots or radiation.
The study is out of Australia—as these studies are not as common in the United States—and it followed several subjects who type a specific type of Vitamin B3 for at least one year showed a reduction in rates of new skin cancer incidents by about 23 percent.
Lead investigator Dr. Diona Damian comments, “It’s safe, it’s almost obscenely inexpensive and it’s widely available,” noting that these findings could certainly be put into practice immediately.
The University of Sydney professor of dermatology adds, “This one’s ready to go straight into the clinic,” saying that the vitamin should be used as a treatment only by those people who frequently get skin cancers, and not by everyone just arbitrarily.
