Did you know that some antibiotics can increase the sensitivity of the skin to the sun and therefore increase the risk of skin cancer?

Antibiotics make you susceptible to skin cancer

Most people believe that the sun is THE risk factor for developing skin cancer. Hardly anyone is considering that perhaps there could be very different causes. Antibiotics, for example, make the skin really sensitive to sunlight and therefore increase the risk of skin cancer. cancer considerably.

The skin is protected
Human skin is not defenseless against the sun. The different mechanisms of protection of the body to preserve it from sunburn, from the negative effects of UV radiation and, therefore, against malignant skin cancers. The p53 protein, for example, among all the body’s own sun protection mechanisms, has a really key role.

The protective police force against cancer
p53 not only protects the skin from the sun and consequently against skin cancer. p53 belongs to a type of protective police against cancer, which are throughout the body taking care that there are no cancerous changes. Thus, one can degenerate into cells, no matter where they are located in the body, extremely high levels of p53 are seen, whereas in normal cells no p53 proteins are present. What does p53 do in transformed cells? Ensures that damaged regions of DNA* are repaired. If it turns out that the damage is irreparable, p53 kills the diseased cell to prevent it from evolving into a tumor. Thus p53 is a brake of the tumor type.

* = Genetic information from DNA in the nucleus

Cancer occurs only when the body’s own cancer protection is blocked.
However, if p53 is blocked in any way, cells multiply and degenerate, leading to tumor formation. Also, defects in the p53 protein lead to enhanced photocarcinogenesis – this is the development of skin cancer due to sun exposure.

Antibiotics block the body’s own sun protection.
However, p53 is not immortal. It is sensitive to cigarette smoke, X-rays, mold toxins, and medications such as antibiotics or some very general chemotherapy. Under the influence of these confounding factors leads to defects in the p53 molecule that now protect your ability, the skin against the sun and the body against cancer, lose.

Various antibiotics are prescribed for many different ailments, not only at p53 inhibiting its activity, but also at other endogenous mechanisms of protection against UV radiation. These include antibiotics such as those of the fluoroquinolone class, such as levofloxacin or ciprofloxacin. Applications for these products are pneumonia, urinary tract infections, bacterial infections, and many other intestinal infections.

Fluoroquinolones should really only be prescribed when it comes to fighting pathogens that have developed resistance compared to standard antibiotics. This planned economical use of fluoroquinolones had at least two reasons: if on the one hand the fact is true that in an emergency not even an effective means is available, and he wanted the patient – to avoid the serious side effects of this class of antibiotics – while may be possible.

Manufacturers announce dangerous antibiotics
However, as manufacturers of fluoroquinolones go to great lengths to establish fluoroquinolones through strong therapist advertising as the antibiotic of choice in outpatient practice, they are much more common than originally intended use. The result: further development of resistance in dangerous pathogens and patients who are threatened by serious side effects.

Withdrawals of six antibiotics
Fluoroquinolone antibiotics are known to damage the heart and liver to promote tendon tearing, trigger allergies, and cause psychosis, which can lead to suicidal desires in the patient. Particularly due to its toxicity to the heart and liver, in Germany six (in the US nine) fluoroquinolone antibiotics were withdrawn from the market, usually later, shortly after admission and few deaths and liver transplants .

The information brochure is worth reading.
In the United States it was the reason for four recalls, phototoxicity from antibiotics, which resulted until AFTER the drug was approved and the patient had suffered severe skin damage. This does not mean that the remaining fluoroquinolones were not phototoxic, it simply means that currently approved drugs have a warning on their labeling that the sun should be avoided during therapy. Who does not read the newspaper and on a sunny day takes a walk happy, but unfortunate.

And standard antibiotics increase the photosensitivity of the skin.
Therefore, it would be the best solution – as one might think – still the standard use of antibiotics such as doxycycline or amoxicillin, over side effects (at least not life-threatening) such as diarrhoea, destruction of the intestinal flora, fungal infections, to “enjoy” etc., and fluoroquinolones are really only used in an emergency. Unfortunately, however, doxycycline, one of the most frequently prescribed antibiotics, also applies to those drugs that block the body’s protective mechanisms against UV radiation and thus promote skin cancer.

Antibiotics as maintenance therapy for acne?
Doxycycline is often used in the long-term treatment of Lyme disease or acne. This means that the patient in question must withdraw this antibiotic for MONTHS. Acne patients are mostly young. Aside from the fact that they generally have to do better than study the package insert for a drug that raises the question of whether they should now reside for months or even years in the house. Or can he be masked just venturing out in the open? After all, for example, advise health insurance technicians on their website, they must (avoid apart from usual activities such as reading the brochure, Sun 11-15 hours, etc.) to prevent phototoxic reactions caused by drugs, but please kind UV opaque films for house windows and car mounting, to indemnify to survive long-term therapy.

Sun phobia brings vitamin D deficiency
What is the consequence of such a phobia of forced sunlight to medication? Although the patient was spared – if the advice is to be taken – from acute skin damage caused by direct sunlight, but suffered (for long-term therapy), sooner or later, severe chronic vitamin deficiency d.

Vitamin D is normally produced by sunlight affecting the human body itself, while the diet contributes only a negligible part to vitamin D status. Therefore, a vitamin D deficiency is inevitable when people become couch potatoes. However, a low level of vitamin D is in turn associated with a variety of diseases. These include osteoporosis, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune diseases, and cancer.

WHO recommends antibiotics for prevention
Antibiotic therapy provides the patient who is in almost hopeless conflict. On the one hand, you need to avoid the sun, on the other hand, a lack of sunlight can cause very serious diseases. From this point of view, it is impossible to understand how he arrived at the WHO recommendation to use doxycycline for malaria prophylaxis. In other words, the WHO recommends that people who wish to travel to certain regions of the tropics take doxycycline as a preventive against malaria. To do this, you should take one tablet a day, starting one week before you leave, then during all your vacations and another four weeks if you are back home. Unfortunately, the WHO did not bother to explain how it should be possible during a holiday in the well-known sunny tropics, but to avoid the sun due to long-term use of doxycycline.

What really causes skin cancer?
With the widespread long-term use of effective phototoxic or photocarcinogenic drugs for chronic conditions that are not acutely life-threatening, the burning question is whether the increasing number of skin cancer cases is not much more with these drugs together. annoying sun.

breaking new ground
Especially with chronic diseases, it must be taken into account that there are paths that are quite remote from conventional medical therapies. These are therapies that – activate the body’s self-protection and self-healing mechanisms and do not weaken it as – unlike the aforementioned drugs. Antibiotics are unavoidable, while one must have a particularly nutrient-rich diet and practice basenüberschüssige to help the body in this at least positive way. As a result of antibiotic therapy, actions can also be taken that serve to detoxify, which leads to the restoration of the intestinal flora and builds and strengthens people in general again.