Thursday, January 17, 2008

Health Benefits from Sun May Outweigh Risk of Cancer

I'm always happy when my rants actually start making in the mainstream. We've stopped using sunscreen (but we dont' go out and bake all day at the beach, either) and try to get some sun every day. Be not afraid, enjoy the sun!

This is hot off the press from Reuters News Service:

A little more sunshine might help you live longer, according to a study published on Monday suggesting that for some people health benefits from the sun outweigh the risk of skin cancer.

Sunlight spurs the body to produce vitamin D but fear of skin cancer is keeping many people in the shade and depriving them of an important protection from a range of diseases, researchers said.

"The skin cancer risk is there but the health benefits from some sun exposure is far larger than the risk," said Johan Moan, a researcher at the Institute for Cancer Research in Oslo, who led the study. "What we find is modest sun exposure gives enormous vitamin D benefits."

A number of studies have found protective effects from higher vitamin D intake for some cancers and ailments such as rickets, osteoporosis and diabetes, Moan said. Certain foods contain vitamin D but the body's main source comes from the sun.

The researchers calculated that given the same amount of time spent outside, people living just below the equator in Australia produced 3.4 times more vitamin D than people in Britain and 4.8 times more than Scandinavians.

This means even though rates of internal cancers such as colon cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer and prostate cancer rise from north to south, people in the sunnier latitudes were less likely to die from the diseases, the researchers said.

"The current data provide a further indication of the beneficial role of sun-induced vitamin D for cancer prognosis," said Richard Setlow of the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, who worked on the study.

Getting more vitamin D -- which helps the body's immune system work properly -- is also critical for people living in places like Scandinavia where long winters and short days during the year limit sun exposure, Moan added.

In Norway, Moan estimated that doubling the sun exposure for the general population would also double the number of annual skin cancer deaths to about 300 but that 3,000 fewer people would die from other cancers.

"The benefits could be significant for people in other countries as well," he said in a telephone interview. "I would be surprised if they were different."

Moan, whose findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, recommended daily sun exposure for about half the time it takes a person to get sunburn.

Another way to get more vitamin D could be designing sunscreen that blocks long ultraviolet wavelengths that trigger the deadliest forms of skin cancer while letting through short ultraviolet wavelengths that produce the vitamin, the researchers said.

Some previous GreenFertility posts:

3 comments:

Jim Dowd author The Vitamin D Cure said...

The amount of sun exposure necessary to make an adequate amount of vitamin D varies with skin tone, age, body mass index and distance from the equator. The UV index is an excellant tool to help you calculate your exposure time. The higher the index the shorter the exposure time needed. The darker your skin the more sun you need and the lower your risk of skin cancer. African Americans need 7 times more sun than European Americans to produce the same amount of vitamin D. And as we age we require longer exposure times to make enough vitamin D. It is very inexpensive to supplement vitamin D and this should be done in a weight based dosing determined by risk factor analysis (risk quiz)or using your blood level. Finally, relative to the interests on this blog. Having normal vitamin D levels are more important during fetal development and in childhood than probably at any other time in our lives. Low vitamin D levels during development increase our risk of all kinds of diseases from bone disease, to autoimmune disease to cancer.

Running Raw said...

We definitely need the sun, and a lot of it. The key is to not get burnt will still getting several hours a day for as much of the year as you can in your climate. The health benefits are enormous.

Check out: http://www.raw-food-health.net/sunrays.html

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