Topical Vitamin C or Eggplant Extract: Two Potential Cures for Non Melanoma Skin Cancer and Other Skin Conditions

Pretty much everyone is aware of the benefits of taking oral vitamin C to treat the common cold, and all types of infections, especially viral. That was championed by Linus Pauling in the 1970s, and fortunately Americans have taken it to heart, and it is now widely used.

Most people only take it when they are feeling ill, which is a major mistake, but I will discuss that in another article, since I want to focus on the little-known topical uses of vitamin C.

The use of topical vitamin C to heal skin lesions of all types is not widely known or utilized, but it should be. As it turns out, it is outstanding in the treatment of many types of skin conditions including non-melanoma skin cancers such as basal cell carcinoma.

The Vitamin C Foundation is a wonderful source for information on the many uses of vitamin C, and I would encourage any of my readers who have an interest in that to go and check it out http://vitamincfoundation.org/.

Dr. Julian Whittaker always has original, cutting-edge work on his website

https://www.whittakerwellness.com/

. He has some very interesting information there on various treatments for skin cancer including topical vitamin C.

If you are a new reader of the Medical Underground, I like to first give you a short education about the subject, so you can better understand what I am teaching. So, let us take a look at the various types of skin conditions including the various skin cancers.

VERY IMPORTANT: One thing I want to stress to you is that if you find a skin lesion on yourself or a loved one, you should have it evaluated by a physician, before you go ahead and assume it is something it may not be. A mistaken diagnosis on your part could be potentially lethal if you misdiagnose a malignant melanoma as something benign.

SKIN CONDITIONS OF VARIOUS TYPES THAT ARE COMMONLY ENCOUNTERED

Solar or Actinic Keratoses

One of the most common types of skin conditions encountered is what is known as solar or actinic keratoses. These are the darker patches of skin, that often have rough, dry, crusted surfaces. Sometimes they may break down and bleed.

They occur in areas that typically get a lot of direct sun exposure, such as the face, neck, hands, shoulders, legs, and arms. Below is a picture of one on the scalp of an elderly patient.

Other times they occur on patients’ back. I remember my father having them all over his back, from a lifetime of working outside, often without a shirt. They typically look like this picture below:

They are ugly and are quite common, especially among white and Asian patients. They are potentially pre-malignant, but typically they are not, and just get larger and uglier with time.

If they do advance to malignant, they do not become melanomas but rather are non-melanoma skin cancers such as basal cell and squamous cell.

My lovely wife, Lynne, will often ask me what is this or that new skin lesion she has, and like any loving physician husband, I patiently explain that they are just barnacles! My back-up response is to tell her that I don’t accept her insurance!

Solar or actinic keratoses are always the consequence of excessive sun exposure with UV or ultraviolet light damaging the skin, often from multiple skin burns over the years.

The short wavelengths of UVB or ultraviolet B light tend to penetrate deeper into the skin causing more skin damage than UVA or ultraviolet A light.

As one might imagine the fairer your skin coloring the greater your risk of developing solar keratosis, especially combined with a history of multiple sun burns. Age and an impaired immune system also contribute to their development.

Mainstream medicine typically treats these by external destruction of the lesions. Various methods are utilized, such as the application of liquid nitrogen, shave excisions, destruction via electrocautery, topical chemotherapy such as 5-fluorouracil, complete excisions, and photodynamic therapy.

Non-Melanoma and Melanoma Skin Cancers

As I stated earlier, there are two types of non-melanoma skin cancers ─ basal cell, and squamous cell carcinomas. Typically, they do not become malignant, but there are times when they do. For this reason, I am a firm believer in being proactive and treating them as soon as they are discovered.

That being said, they typically are slow growing, often times they will appear to be a skin injury that scabs or crusts up, and falls often, only to reappear once again. In my experience, these are almost always non-melanoma skin cancers.

Seventy-five percent of skin cancers are basal cell, twenty percent are squamous cell and five percent are malignant melanomas.

Basal cell carcinomas arise from the most innermost layer of epidermis called the basal layer and are typically rounded.

Squamous cell carcinomas arise from the outermost layer of the epidermis and are typically flat.

Click image to enlarge

Note: There is a fourth type of skin cancer that is very rare named Merkel cell carcinoma. It grows and spreads very quickly and typically kills the patient. I did not include it in our discussion due to its rarity. I have never seen one in my almost four decades of clinical experience.

Melanoma is a type of skin cancer that arises in the skin’s melanocytes. Melanocytes are the cells that make skin, eye, and hair pigment called melanin. Naturally, the more melanin in your skin, the darker your skin tone.

Man evolved from Africa and spread across the entire planet. In Africa and parts of Asia, the hot tropical sun caused humans in those areas to develop large amounts of melanin (and thus darker skin) in order to protect their skin from the relentless tropical sun.

As man migrated out of Africa to Europe and other temperate climates, their skin lightened as their need for protection from the sun’s rays waned. As European melanin levels dropped, so did their eye pigmentation and their brown eyes gave way to blue.

I think there is a song here: remember Crystal Gayle singing Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue. I love that song; however I digress.

This loss of skin pigmentation in whites left them with little protection from sunburn when exposed to excessive UVB radiation. Hence their higher levels of malignant melanoma than non-whites.

This is especially true when they immigrate to tropical areas. So much for the white privilege that our indoctrinated college students are so obsessed with.

Most melanomas develop in the skin, fingernail, or toenail and are called cutaneous melanomas (cutaneous means related to the skin in medical jargon). Some develop in the eyes and other non-skin areas but are much less common.

Blacks can develop melanomas, but due to the protection provided by the pigment melanin, which absorbs and filters the UV light, it is much less common. Fair skin and blue eyes are risk factors for melanoma, along with repeated burns and a history of using tanning beds.

I think dermatologists are totally misguided with their hatred of sun exposure and their feeling that its cumulative lifetime exposure leads to melanoma and other skin cancers.

I totally disagree. I believe it is a consequence of repeated sunburn and their damage to the DNA of the skin cells. The reason I say this is that if that was true, then you would expect construction workers to have astronomical rates of melanoma.

But in fact office workers have much higher rates, since they are inside all the time and when they go out, they often get burnt. Also, if you look at New England for example. The early settlers here were primarily of northern European decent, English, Irish, Scotts, Poles, Germans, Russians, and Scandinavians.

They would have suffered with skin cancer and died in droves if sun exposure was the culprit. That was not the case. In fact, if you look at early photos of them, they were deeply tanned.

They looked like Italians (that is always a good thing). The reason is that they were outside all year round, as the days got longer their skin acclimated to it and they became deeply tanned.

Exposure to sunlight has many benefits including production of vitamin D and its absorption of calcium for strong bones and teeth. It improves mood, boosts your immunity, improves brain function, and lowers cholesterol (since the backbone of the vitamin D molecule is made from cholesterol). It also lowers blood pressure and supercharges your cells’ powerhouses ─ the mitochondria, thus increasing energy.

If you are looking at a skin lesion and are not sure if it could be a melanoma, there are a set of guidelines that we physicians utilize called the ABCDE’s of melanoma.

NOTE: Once again, I cannot stress enough that if you find any lesion that you even remotely think is potentially a melanoma, that you immediately seek medical attention and have it evaluated by your physician. They can be fatal lesions, just ask the almost 8,000 patients who died of melanoma last year in the United States.

Click image to enlarge

HOW THE MEDICAL UNDERGROUND TREATS SOLAR KERATOSES and NON-MELANOMA SKIN CANCERS, and OTHER SKIN CONDITIONS

Topical vitamin C is the treatment of choice among physicians of the Medical Underground. And for good reason, it is very potent and effective, inexpensive, readily available without a prescription, and without any side effects.

Even dermatologists admit that topical vitamin C helps repair skin damage, promotes healing, slows aging of the skin, and provides powerful antioxidant protection to the skin giving it a healthy natural glow.

You should keep in mind that 90 percent of the world’s vitamin C is currently made in China. Like many Chinese products their quality control is abysmal, and their vitamin C is often contaminated with heavy metals and other harmful ingredients.

Look for vitamin C made outside of China, preferably in the United States or other western nations that have good quality control.

Vitamin C in the proper concentrations is effective against a variety of cancers, when given intravenously. The usual intravenous dose is about 50 grams, which should provide a blood concentration of about 2.5 mg/ml.

Vitamin C is cytotoxic to cancer cells at concentrations above 2 mg/ml, meaning it kills them. We in the Medical Underground routinely make topical mixtures saturated with vitamin C giving it concentrations of 500 mg/ml.

This is 250 X stronger than the 2 mg/ml required to kill cancer cells internally. This explains its amazing efficacy at killing topical skin cancers such as basal cell carcinomas. You cannot use it against malignant melanomas due to their tendency to metastasize or spread to other areas of the body.

How you make a saturated mixture of vitamin C is quite simple. You take a certain amount of water, and you keep mixing vitamin C into it, until it will no longer dissolve. That is when it reaches complete saturation with a concentration of 500 mg/ml.

You can use any type of vitamin C powder, such as sodium ascorbate, calcium ascorbate, C salts, buffered C (from Life Extension foundation), and plain old ascorbic acid. They all are effective.

It is the ascorbate that kills the cancer cells. What it is chelated to is not that important. You might find that one type works better for you, and that is the one you should stick with.

It appears that vitamin C is effective topically against cancer from its action of causing hydrogen peroxide to be formed inside the cells that absorb it. Normal cells produce catalase that neutralizes the hydrogen peroxide.

Cancer cells on the other hand lack catalase production, thus they cannot neutralize the hydrogen peroxide produced by the vitamin C and the cells are killed.

Thus, topical vitamin C does no harm to normal cells and targets cancer cells for destruction, the perfect combination we are looking for. Remember, as a physician my mantra should always be, first do no harm.

The solution of vitamin C that you make should be used asap to maintain its freshness and effectiveness. There are several ways it can be used: you can apply it in a paste like consistency and cover it with a Band-Aid or any bandage like dressing and leave it soaking overnight.

Or you can apply it in more of a liquid less pasty form and apply it to the lesions you are treating several times a day. Typically, in several weeks the lesion will crust up, dry up and fall off, leaving healthy normal skin. The length of time required varies, depending upon the thickness, and the size of the lesion.

Dr. Whittaker describes using it mixed with DMSO, which acts as a carrier. DMSO is dimethyl sulfoxide. It is a potent topical painkiller, but we are not using it for that. We are using it for its ability to penetrate deeply into the skin.

If you have ever used it, you can attest to its penetrating ability. Apply it to your skin and in a short time you can taste it in your mouth. A few drops of it mixed in your saturated vitamin C solution will suffice. It also smells horrible.

Dr. Whittaker recommends equal parts of vitamin C and DMSO, but the smell and taste might make you resort to a less DMSO in that mixture. Plus, you only need a little bit for it to act as a carrier molecule, helping to transport vitamin C across your skin.

DMSO is available online. There are even some that are touted as being “low odor”, due to their purity. Here is an example of that:

Any skin lesion that does not show signs of improvement after several weeks of treatment is a bad sign and should immediately be evaluated by a physician.

Will topical vitamin C work against other skin lesions such as psoriasis and eczema? That is unknown currently. There are anecdotal reports of it working for them, but very little is known. I would try it if any irritation develops discontinue it.

Vitamin C is not the only topical treatment for skin lesions, including skin cancers. There is a product out of Australia made with eggplant extract and other natural ingredients called Curaderm BEC5.

In clinical testing it was proven effective against solar keratoses, basal and squamous cell carcinomas. It has a unique mechanism of action ─ it binds to receptors on cancer cells’ outer cell membranes, enters them, and kills them.

Since normal cells do not have these receptors, they are not affected. Also it is not absorbed into the blood stream and thus has no systemic side effects. It does sometime cause a minor skin irritation at the site of application that is self-limited and disappears upon cessation of its use.

The inventor Dr. Cham has written a book about it called “The Eggplant Cancer Cure”.

Other eggplant salves are available on, you guessed it, Amazon. However, I do not know their effectiveness in comparison to Curaderm BEC5, which is not available on Amazon, but can be ordered by calling 888-409-8351.

I hope you found this article both educational and entertaining. Please tell your friends and family about Medical Underground and consider becoming a paid subscriber to support my work. Do not be so cheap, a one-year subscription will cost you about $5.80 a month, less than a coffee and a donut, and will help me continue getting out these important alternative treatments to as many folks as possible.

As always, May God Bless You and Your Family, and the United States of America, and remember: Miracle Shall Follow Miracle and Wonders Shall Never Cease.

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