Sun : Good and Bad for Cancer
Posting Date: 09/18/2003

Newswise-Can sunshine, now shunned by so many who fear skin cancer and wrinkles, save many more lives than it harms? People who avoid the sun or ultraviolet light tanning beds may be at increased risk of breast, prostrate, lung, breast, colon, ovarian and pancreatic cancer according to published scientific research that links UV light to the photosynthesis of vitamin D in human skin.

A recent study in the medical journal CANCER estimates that tens of thousands of Americans die each year of cancers possibly caused by too little sun exposure and too little vitamin D. Scientists at the National Cancer Institute recently found that the chances of dying from many of these cancers was reduced by 10 to 27 percent for people who live in the sunniest areas. Current indoor lifestyles, sun-blocking pollution and sunscreens reduce Vitamin D production, which is found in few foods consumed today. The body relies on UV light to get most of the vitamin D it needs to stay healthy.

According to research, UV light can have powerful health benefits into the many roles played by vitamin D in the body, according to Dr. Michael F. Holick, professor of Dermatology, Medicine, Physiology and Biophysics at Boston University Medical Center. Dr. Holick has concluded that brief exposure to sunshine or artificially produced UV light produced by indoor tanning beds can help to ward off a host of debilitating and sometimes deadly diseases, including osteoporosis, hypertension, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, depression and cancers of the colon, prostate and breast. According to his studies, exposing people with high blood pressure to UVB rays in a tanning salon lowers their blood pressure readings as much as a drug will, and he also found that increasing vitamin D improved the heart's pumping ability and reduced cardiac strain.

Vitamin D is made in the skin when it is exposed to the ultraviolet B (UVB) rays in sunshine, as well as those from indoor tanning beds. A sunscreen with an S.P.F. of 8 blocks 95 percent of the skin's ability to make vitamin D, and an S.P.F. of 15 blocks it by 99 percent, according to Michael Stepp, CEO of Wolff System Technology, the founder of today's modern indoor tanning industry.

"We advocate the use of a sunscreen outdoors for people with vulnerable skin types as well as those who can tan well. But only after exposing the skin moderately to produce the necessary vitamin D," said Stepp.