Juergen,
Excellent! Thank you for posting this. I have intuitively known and
experienced that I do much better (health wise) with regular, moderate
sun exposure.
What do you think about the same exposure of our eyes to UV with or
without UV-screening sunglasses? Again, my intuition and personal
experience tells me that regular, moderate exposure is healthy for my
eyes (and being sensible about extremely bright situations, i.e.,
wearing a brimmed hat as a shield on some occasions). What didn't seem
to work well for me was regular use of UV sunglasses. I'd be very
interested in others' views on this.
Regards,
-=mark=-
Juergen Botz wrote:
> This is off-topic, but should be of interest to people on this
> list and I personally arrived at this line of thought through
> much the same reasoning that lead me to a quasi-paleolithic
> diet, so I feel that it makes sense to post it here...
>
> ~~~ Get your sunshine... or get sick and die.
>
> Juergen E. Botz
> April 30, 2007
> Arraial D'Ajuda, Brazil
>
> I've been saying it for years... something is very wrong with
> the anti-sunshine dogma we've been fed. The sun is the source
> of all life on Earth, and we humans in particular spent a couple
> of million years evolving on the open plains of Africa. But if
> you listen to the medical establishment today, you'd better not
> go outside without having every square centimeter of your body
> covered either with cloth or some expensive chemical sunscreen
> product. If you don't listen you WILL suffer horrible
> disfigurement and eventual death from skin cancer.
>
> To me this dogma seemed perverse and suspicious at best, and
> after doing a bit of research on the Internet I found that
> it is on very shaky ground indeed. For one thing, most skin
> cancers are relatively benign and the only deadly one, melanoma,
> is not actually proven to be linked to UV exposure. For another,
> we keep hearing about increasing skin cancer rates, but it is
> obviously /not/ true that people are spending increasing amounts
> of time in the sun... in the contrary, today in any country with
> any amount of economic development, more people are spending
> their days inside. Finally, there has long been significant
> evidence in the scientific literature that Vitamin-D, which is
> produced in our skin by exposing it to the sun, is a very
> powerful anti-oxidant and anti-cancer agent.
>
> It makes sense. We evolved under the tropical sun of the
> African savanna, so if UV radiation can indeed harm us, we
> /must/ have a natural defense mechanism. Vitamin-D is that
> defense. Although this alone is not news, it has long been
> downplayed by the healthcare establishment. But now new
> evidence is coming to light that not only is Vitamin-D a much
> more powerful anti-cancer agent than we had imagined, but many
> of our "diseases of civilization", such as multiple sclerosis,
> juvenile diabetes, osteoporosis, and even the flu, are strongly
> correlated to Vitamin-D deficiency. An article reporting on
> this research has been published in the Globe and Mail (Canada)
> this weekend... you can read it here:
>
> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070428.wxvitamin28/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/home
>
> The bottom line is this: even if UV exposure /did/ increase your
> risk of deadly skin cancer (and there is little evidence for
> that) you'd still be much better off taking that risk in order
> to get more Vitamin-D from sun exposure. The math is
> undeniable... using the statistics from the article, if you live
> in the USA your risk of dying of all cancers in a given year is
> %0.2, but your risk of dying of skin cancer only %0.0005
> percent. If having adequate Vitamin-D from unprotected sun
> exposure reduces your general cancer risk by 60%, that means
> your risk of dying from cancer would drop to below %0.1, so
> even if your risk of dying of skin cancer doubled, quadrupled
> or for that matter increased 100-fold, you'd still have
> dramatically improved your life-expectancy by going out in
> the sun.
>
> Yes, it's true that there is some statistical correlation
> between UV exposure and certain types of non-deadly skin
> cancers, namely carcinomas. But even this data is of poor
> quality... as far as I could find in my research almost nothing
> has been done to distinguish between different sub-types of
> populations, regularity of sun exposure, etc. It would seem
> reasonable to guess that many of the people who get a carcinoma
> from sun exposure are the ones who spend most of their life in
> artificially lit offices and then on their holiday spend a full
> week or two baking in the tropical sun, completely unprepared
> and still Vitamin-D deficient. And conversely that people who
> spend most of their life working half-naked in the fields of
> tropical countries are not suffering increasing skin-cancer
> rates. But try as I might, I could find no research examining
> this intuitive notion.
>
> If you're even half-way smart about it, I don't believe that
> skin cancer risk goes up at all from UV exposure... instead it
> probably goes down together with the other cancers. Being smart
> about it means getting /regular/ sun exposure, being moderate
> about it whenever you haven't had any for a while, and keeping
> your skin from drying out... dry skin appears to be much more
> easily damaged, by the sun or otherwise. Once you've built up
> your body's Vitamin-D supply and a bit of a tan, I suspect that
> statistically you are essentially invulnerable to the supposedly
> deadly rays.
>
> And avoid sunscreen at all costs... in fact, avoid all artificial
> "beauty products" if you can. There is also some evidence
> emerging that some of the chemicals used to scent and preserve
> all sorts of commercial soaps and lotions (including of course
> sunscreens) interfere with cells's ability to prevent and repair
> damage... in other words, sunscreen might actually directly
> /cause/ more cancers than it prevents. Use natural soap
> (Dr. Bronner's castile soap is my favorite) to wash and natural
> oil (pure coconut oil or un-roasted sesame oil are good) as a
> moisturizer... it's really all you need. (Btw., the trick to
> oiling your skin is to do it in the shower with your skin wet
> and to just use a few drops of oil at a time... this way you
> can quickly cover your whole body with a layer of oil so fine
> that you do not feel "oily" at all. Try it, I'll bet you'll
> soon like it better than any skin lotion.)
>
> So throw away your sunscreen and go fearless out into the sun...
> being wise enough to prevent burning and heat-stroke by limiting
> your time in the direct sun and/or wearing appropriate clothing
> and a hat when you've had enough is all the protection you really
> need. Go out in the sun with as little clothing as the weather
> allows as often as you can... your body will thank you for it
> with better health and a longer life.
>
> ~~~
>
>
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