Does sunshine cause cancer or prevent it?
Submitted by Dr.Kattlove’s Cancer Blog
Every cancer prevention message always emphasizes that you should limit your exposure to sunshine as much as possible. But is this the right message? Sure, we know that skin cancer is caused by sun exposure. Although the most common skin cancer, basal cell cancer, almost never poses a threat, the less common skin cancer, melanoma can be a killer.
But how about other cancers? The National Cancer Institute publishes a document called the Cancer Atlas that portrays the rate for different states by colors. Red means a high rate and blue a low one. The map for melanoma naturally finds that southern states are red and northern one blue. No surprise – lots more sun in the South so expect more melanoma. But check out the maps for cancers of the breast, colon, ovary and prostate. Now the Northern states are red, and the Southern ones blue. There are a lot more of these cancers in the North than in the South.
Why is this? Most researchers point to Vitamin D as the link between sunshine and a reduced cancer rate. Much of our vitamin D comes from sunshine. Sure some foods, especially milk are fortified with vitamin D to protect northerners or couch potatoes from getting deficient in vitamin D. But good old sunshine is a more important source.
Sunshine makes vitamin D by converting substances in the skin to this vitamin. In fact, one theory why Africans are black and northern Europeans are white has to do with vitamin D. The black skin blocks sunlight and protects the Africans against making too much vitamin D, which can be toxic at high levels. The light skin of the Europeans allows vitamin D production in these lands of low sunshine.
So why not just take Vitamin D pills? The problem is that so far researchers have been unable to prove that taking vitamin D will prevent cancer. There are studies in progress, but none are anywhere near complete. Also, the vitamin D in the pills may be slightly different chemically, from the Vitamin D produced by sunshine.
So what’s the bottom line? More sun or less? We really don’t know.
But don’t be so trusting that staying out of the sun is good for you.
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