Science & Technology: Melanoma & Tanning (Melanoma: Coincidental Correlation Does Not Prove Causation)

The normal pattern is for the “mother” melanocyte cell to quit dividing and for both the “mother” and “daughter” melanocyte cells to reattach themselves to the basement membrane and set up a new EMU but, for reasons not yet understood, the “mother” melanocyte cell fails to get the message to quit dividing and becomes a CMM, a continually dividing (immortal) cancer cell. No one knows exactly why this happens, but the most probable theories are based upon the idea that exposure to electromagnetic spectrum wavelengths other than UVR may scramble the signal that tells the “mother” melanocyte cell to quit dividing. These other wavelengths may be:

FM radio broadcast radiation. Hallberg, et al, provided compelling evidence showing that proximity to a FM radio broadcast tower dramatically increased the incidence of CMM.

High-frequency voltage transients. A recent article showed that teachers in a school with high-frequency voltage transients had 10 times the relative risk (RR) of developing melanoma.

Infrared radiation. Several recent articles have considered the possibility that the heat and the resultant heat shock proteins (especially hsp105), produced by exposure to infrared radiation, play a role in the development of CMM.

A New Theory: Vitamin D Insufficiency

We propose a new theory to explain what allows a melanocyte to transform into a CMM—vitamin D insufficiency. Our belief, which is supported by an increasing body of scientific evidence regarding vitamin D’s role in cellular signaling, is that an insufficient level of vitamin D plays a key role in the process of a melanocyte transforming into a CMM. In this scenario, the environmental factor disrupting the signal telling the “mother” melanocyte cell to quit dividing can only occur when there is an insufficient level of vitamin D. Conversely, when the vitamin D supply is sufficient, the signal will not be disrupted and the process of cell division takes place normally, i.e., without resulting in CMM.

The articles purporting to show that exposure to sunlight, UVR or a tanning device causes CMM all have various forms of bias (i.e., researcher bias, publication bias, recall bias, misclassification bias, methodology bias, sample-size bias, etc.) and these confounding factors make them scientifically invalid. In addition, the studies claiming to show that sunlight, UVR or a tanning device causes CMM all have very small RR values—less than 2.0—when the authors know, or reasonably should know, that a RR of at least 3.0 is required to prove that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between two events. In case they forgot, here are a few quotes to remind them:

“As a general rule of thumb, we are looking for a relative risk of 3.0 or more before accepting a paper for publication.”
–Marcia Angell, editor of the New England Journal Of Medicine

“My basic rule is, if the relative risk isn’t at least 3 or 4, forget it.”
–Robert Temple, director of drug evaluation for the U.S. Food And Drug Administration

“Relative risks of less than 3.0 are considered small and are difficult to interpret. Such increases may be due to chance, coincidence, statistical bias or the effect of confounding factors that are sometimes not evident.”
–Excerpt from a National Cancer Institute publication