Posted on 08/10/2009 6:45:50 AM PDT by Prodigal Son
Benign skin growths that erupted on the face of Ukrainian president Victor Yushchenko helped save his life after he was poisoned with dioxin five years ago.
That's the verdict of doctors who have treated and monitored Yushchenko since an unknown assassin made the attempt on his life by lacing his soup with dioxin during a dinner in Kiev on 5 September 2004.
It now turns out that the lumps that grew on his face and body as a result probably saved his life by isolating the dioxin away from his vital, internal organs. They also helped to detoxify the poison, known chemically as TCDD (2,3,7,8-tetrachlrodibenzo-p-dioxin), by producing powerful enzymes called cytochrome p450s that are normally confined to the liver.
The growths are rearrangements of skin, created from skin stem cells. "A new organ was created out of normal structures of the skin, and the tissue expressed very high levels of dioxin-metabolizing enzymes," says Jean Saurat, the dermatologist heading the team which treated Yushchenko at the Swiss Centre for Human Applied Toxicology in Geneva. "They were made to detoxify the dioxin."
"A hamartoma is a new organisation of normal cells that simply organise themselves differently," says Saurat. "So skin can be regarded as a detoxifying organ," he says.
Saurat says that at the start of treatment, Yushchenko had concentrations of TCDD 50,000 times higher than those typically found in people.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
“A new organ was created out of normal structures of the skin, and the tissue expressed very high levels of dioxin-metabolizing enzymes,”
wait, what?
So he evolved a new organ in a matter of days?
Wow .. fascinating ... miraculous, how God
intricately and wonderfully designed His
creation.
No, his skin changed its structure by creating special cells to deal with the poison. It is well known that the skin is a detoxifying organ, it is one reason why many lymph nodes are close to the surface of the body near the skin relatively speaking. Like the throat, armpits groin etc. To help detoxify the body. I am amazed however that it could do that... that’s pretty amazing. I had thought the lesions were his skin dying, instead, it was his skin living more than ever. Thats amazing.
an unknown assassin made the attempt on his life by lacing his soup with dioxin during a dinner in Kiev on 5 September 2004Gosh, I wonder who was behind that attack? /sarc
Is is skin back to normal now?
Thank you.
I haven’t seen a photo of him since that happened.
I don’t think it is but I don’t have a source for that. It is just my impression.
Thats how cancer works. It develops in a matter of days. Lucky for him his cancer seems to be benign and is helping rather than killing him. If dioxin poisoning were a common problem in the environment only people like him who can develop a tactic to deal with it would be left alive. Their children would have “evolved” to survive dioxin poisoning.
I believe this photo was dated July, 2009. He appears to be much improved.
Poor man.
I believe a good surgeon can do wonders in the future.
Let us hope.
As an aside, do you remember his wife is a U.S. citizen?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.