Yesterday, I complimented a very nice lady on her tanned skin. She thanked me, and said it’s from her cancer treatments. I wanted to ask her how and why, but didn’t know if it was appropriate.
My question is what causes this?
The tan can be explained if she is using Gershon Therapy, an cancer therapy that involves coffee enemas and juicing. The juicing includes tons of carrot juice and carrots contain canthaxanthin which gives them their orange colour. And will give you an orange brown colour to your skin if you eat enough.
Google a site like Quackwatch for the effectiveness (or actually the ineffectiveness) of this therapy. It has been discredited but there are still clinics offering this treatment and of course you can find people promoting it on the web.
Thanks roxie, I read a bit about it. I’m going to see her today again-- wondering if maybe I should strike up a conversation about the treatment with her because it’s kind of interesting.
But IDK, like… ask her if it is Gerson therapy and then ask her about coffee enemas… nevermind, probably inappropriate as well. Guess I’ll leave it to rest.
My sister went through a couple of periods in her 10-year cancer treatment where she looked a bit “tan” but I don’t know which drugs were causing it.
Radiation treatments can cause reddened, darkened, or tanned skin at and around the site of the radiation. But it usually doesn’t produce a nice even all-over tan that would attract compliments.
There are some chemotherapy drugs that can cause an overall hyperpigmentation of the skin that might look like a tan. Alkylating antineoplastic agents and Monoclonal antibodies are the most likely culprits.
Humans shouldn’t compliment one another on looking unhealthy. And that’s what tanned skin is - unhealthy. The misconception that tan = healthy is dangerous and insidious.
Hyperpigmentation (tanning) can develop in people who’ve received various chemotherapeutic drugs.
Examples:
5- FU
Busulfan
Doxorubicin (aka Adriamycin)
Hydroxyurea
and more . . .
Also, the new class of so-called ‘epidermal growth factor inhibitors’ can also lead to hyperpigmentation.
ETA: Many of the above drugs are used in the treatment for many types of cancer, i.e. the presence of hyperpigmentation doesn’t really give much of a clue as to the particular underlying cancer
OMG - I tan so easily! Every spring, summer and fall, without fail (!), I tan really dark, no matter what I do. It’s all over my arms, on my neck, my face (!!) - I parted my hairline, it’s even up there!! Woe is me, for I am well and truly screwed. The worst part - my mom doesn’t even have a basement I could hole up in.
jimbuff314 - still an American Indian and still a human.
It’s possible it’s not a tan but slight yellowing due to liver damage from chemotherapy.