Walk down the aisles of your local market and you’ll see plenty of foods that can help stave off heart disease and diabete s, and keep your bones and muscles strong as you age . Add some skin cancers to that list. “Some studies show that some antioxidants, such as vitamins A, C, E and carotenoids and selenium, can help prevent some skin cancers,” says Dr.
Tanya Nino , a double board-certified dermatologist and the melanoma program director at the Center for Cancer Prevention and Treatment at Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Burbank, California. “These vitamins are antioxidants that work by neutralizing free radicals in cells.
Free radicals are unstable molecules that can damage the DNA in our cells.” Why is attacking cancer at the cellular level so crucial? “Cancer is out-of-control division of whatever cell is making up the cancer,” says San Francisco dermatologist Dr. Caren Campbell MD, FAAD .
“In the case of skin cancer, it’s an out-of-control division or proliferation of a cell that makes up a part of the skin. Melanoma is an overgrowth of the melanin-producing cells melanocytes, and non-melanoma skin cancer is an overgrowth of cells that make up the top layer of skin called the epidermis.” Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the U.
S. with one in five Americans developing it by the time they are 70, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation . Basal and squamous cell skin cancers are the most common types, and start in the epidermis, according to th.