Originally published March 30 2005
Sunlight is healthy again, according to a recent British study
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A recent study into the effects of Cancer Research UK's SunSmart program has shown that avoiding the sun can actually increase the risk of cancer. By avoiding the sun most of the time, people are at an increased risk for burns when they do see the sun, increasing the risk of skin cancer. As well, people who avoid the sun have severely depressed levels of vitamin D, which increases the risk for various types of cancer, multiple sclerosis, brittle bones and diabetes.
The health of the public is being put at risk by recommendations to cover up and stay out of the sun in the UK.
These recommendations, which are part of Cancer Research UK's SunSmart programmed, increase the risk of several types of cancer, and may also increase deaths from melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer.
Increased exposure to sunlight or greater intake of vitamin D has been found to reduce the risk of five common cancers in case/control studies.
For example, the risk of prostate cancer, which causes some 10,000 deaths a year in England, has been found to be reduced by sunbathing and by foreign holidays.
Two recent scientific articles suggest that increased sun exposure reduces the risk of either getting melanoma or of dying from it (11,12).
Other studies have found that adults who work outdoors and children who play outdoors where they are regularly exposed to the sun are less likely to develop melanoma than those who work or play indoors (13,14).
Occasional or irregular exposure of the skin to the sun is associated with an increased risk of melanoma, possibly because it is associated with low levels of vitamin D or because irregular exposure does not lead to a protective tan and skin thickening.
Vitamin D supplements have been shown to prevent both falls (due to the action of the vitamin on the nervous system) and fractures in a number of double blind randomized trials (20).
Diabetes: Risk of diabetes type 1 is also increased in people whose mothers had insufficient vitamin D during pregnancy (23,24).
1. Pritchard, R. S., Baron, J. A. & Gerhardsson de Verdier, M. Dietary calcium, vitamin D, and the risk of colorectal cancer in Stockholm, Sweden.
Sun exposure may protect against non-Hodgkin lymphoma: a case control study.
Exposure to ultraviolet radiation: association with susceptibility and age at presentation with prostate cancer.
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