— A search for “DNA repair” in Amazon’s “beauty” category results in 71 hits that range in price from $15-$700, all claiming to prevent DNA damage or even to repair your DNA. Both scientists and the beauty industry know that as we grow older, our cells accumulate DNA damage while their ability to correctly repair it declines, leading to changes in appearance associated with aging, and the beauty industry is taking advantage of this fact. Whether you have commercially defined symptoms of aging or not, the cells in your body have to repair up to one million DNA lesions per day from both environmental and cellular sources. Continue reading DNA Damage and Skin Cancer: It’s Not All About the Sun

— On any given weekend from March until October, it’s a fair bet that somewhere in your state there’s an event raising money for cancer treatment, prevention and/or research.  It probably seems, at times, like someone should have found a cure by now – after all, there has been an organized and concerted effort to cure this disease for the better part of the last century.  What is it about cancer that makes a cure so elusive, despite the efforts of innumerable hard-working and intelligent people?  It turns out we have spent a significant part of the last century underestimating just how clever cancer can be, but researchers and doctors are beginning to develop a better view of this disease, and as a result, are developing better treatments which may one day make cancer as treatable as any other chronic but manageable disease. Continue reading Cancer: The Disease That’s Just as Smart as We Are

— When Steve Jobs died on October 5th of this year, global attention turned to his cause of death – pancreatic cancer. Many people had questions: Would his fate have been different if he hadn’t elected for alternative treatments in the early days of his diagnosis? If someone of his wealth couldn’t beat this disease, can anyone? What many people may not know is that the eight years Jobs lived with his cancer diagnosis were significantly longer than the typical pancreatic cancer patient can expect to survive. This fact has much, if not all to do with the particular type of pancreatic cancer that Jobs had. Continue reading Pancreatic Cancer: How to Catch a Silent Killer