Sunscreen, vitamin D, cancer and more...

With summer coming and many hours on lakes and rivers on the horizon, I thought this might be interesting.

For 20 odd years we've been told that we need to use sunscreen to avoid skin cancer, but according to this guy studies are showing an *increase* in skin cancer AND increases in other maladies ranging from autism to cancer to ... for lack of vitamin D. If the data he is citing is accurate, what has been sold to us is the supposed avoidance of 1,500 deaths per year from melanomas at the expensive of 200,000 to 300,000 (US alone) deaths per year due to other cancers that were avoidable with adequate vitamin D levels.

He also contends that sunscreen, absorbed through the skin, is toxic.

I found a lot of his info on this subject credible, but as always, you have to be a skeptic as well.

http://www.mercola.com/article/vitamin-d-resources.htm


Ben

I heard a news story on the radio last weekend that was on the same subject. It did not list the cancer numbers but its main theme was that we need to get about 20 minutes or so of sun exposure every day. And that lots of people were making themselves sick by slathering up with sunscreen prior to every time outside.

I was just talking to a housemate about vitamin D the other day.  Turns out she had a melanoma (!) removed a few years ago.  Caught early, probably no problems.  She said tests showed she had very low levels of vitamin D, and that's true of a lot of people who get melanoma.  She needs to stay out of the sun, so she takes D supplements.  So do I, now.

Interesting. Don't shower for 2 days after UVB exposure . . . great!  That should be good for your WAF points.
Seriously, it's info worth considering, but hopefully people will not misinterpret any of it to think overexposure to sun is OK, especially for us melanin-challenged peeps.