Summary
Because of skin cancer fears, adolescents in the United Kingdom may not be getting enough exposure to sunlight, which means they are getting little vitamin D and could suffer from poor bone health, a British scientist claims.
Original source:
http://www.news-medical.net/?id=11483
Details
He says that fear of skin cancer in the United Kingdom, may have led to children spending less time exposed to sunlight, reducing the opportunities for the production of vitamin D in the skin and resulting in poor bone health.
Some recent research has shown that sunlight exposure and the resulting synthesis of vitamin D might reduce the risk of certain cancers and, perhaps, multiple sclerosis, and in response, there have been calls for current skin cancer awareness campaigns in the UK to be abandoned.
It is not easy to define what is adequate sun exposure, but it is thought that a weekly dose of 1 MED (minimal erythema dose - the exposure necessary to result in a just perceptible reddening of the skin) to the face, hands and arms in the spring summer, and autumn is more than adequate to satisfy the body's requirement for vitamin D throughout the year.
Professor Diffey, in 1994, measured the sun exposure of 180 children and adolescents in three regions of England during the spring and summer and found that 98.5% and 91% of children and adolescents, respectively, exceeded a weekly dose of 1 MED.
Diffey says these findings would account for the fact that the wintertime vitamin D status of almost all teenage girls living in northern Europe is insufficient.
But he also says that the evidence is not enough to justify abandoning current awareness campaigns about skin cancer, which are aimed primarily at avoiding excessive exposure.
He explains that British children and adolescents need not deliberately spend extended periods in strong sunshine, but rather, those whose lives are spent almost entirely indoors, in the shade, or in vehicles, should take the opportunity during casual everyday activities to walk on the sunny side of the street and, when possible, avoid taking the car.
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Friday, July 15, 2005
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