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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