Sunlight, vitamin D, sunscreens and drama: is Hollywood (or TV drama) beginning to pay attention?

A friend just told me about watching an episode of Law and Order, Special Victims Unit.

The storyline involved a woman who had been locked up for four years, and one of the characters in plot mentioned that the victim of this heinous crime was terribly deficient in vitamin D.

Amazingly, he went on to say that a whole generation is now vitamin D deficient due to applying sunscreens when venturing outdoors.

Hallelujah!

Is the media starting to wake up to one of the most atrocious crimes of all—vitamin D deficiency brought on by the advice of the American Academy of Dermatology and other “professionals” who insist that we never go outside without “protection?”

I hope so. The media are a powerful force for either good or evil in society, and it appears that at least this one time, they got it right.

Vitamin D, U.S. needs how much? Why?

Video talks about the need for proper amounts of vitamin D. How and why?

Sunlight…Scare me to death, or save my life?

Video on sunlight scare…or not?

Sarah Palin, Vitamin D and tanning beds part 6: conclusion

This may surprise you, but I believe it is a good idea to be checked regularly by a dermatologist to assess any changes that may occur to your skin.

That advice, however, is most important for those who do not use tanning beds or get regular sunlight, since more melanomas occur among those who receive little or no UVB (see previous posts).

So let’s do a few mathematics.

Scientists now estimate that maintaining a vitamin D blood level of 55ng/ml would prevent the breast-cancer deaths of 85,000 US women yearly.[1]

Melanoma, on the other hand, takes the lives of about 3,020 women per year.[2]

If you assumed that tanning causes 3,020 deaths from melanoma (which it does not), but prevents 85,000 breast cancer deaths, which would you rather take a chance with? Such an analysis, of course, would not even take into consideration the other diseases that are prevented by high vitamin D levels.

For example, Australian researchers did an analysis to determine the risk of death from bone disease that would occur if the anti-sunlight advocates had their way.

For the purposes of their analysis, they assumed that sunlight caused melanoma.

They then calculated that for every case of melanoma death and disability prevented by avoiding the sun, there would be 2,000 cases of death disability caused by bone diseases alone due to lack of vitamin D.[3]

The good news is that sunlight does not cause melanoma; we have already established that regular exposure prevents melanoma.

If Sarah Palin is using her tanning bed in a safe and sane manner, she has one of the best health-promoting devices ever developed.

The vitamin D she receives from the UVB light is reducing her risk of twenty cancers and is also reducing her risk of heart disease, osteoporosis, hypertension, MS, lupus, diabetes and approximately 80 more diseases in which vitamin D deficiency is implicated.

So Sarah, go ahead and enjoy that tanning bed!

[1] Garland, C et al. What is the dose-response relationship between vitamin D and cancer risk? Nutrition Reviews 2007;65:S91-5.
[2] American Cancer Society Statistics 2008.
[3] Lucas, R, et al. Estimating the global disease burden due to ultraviolet radiation exposure.
Int. J. Epidemiol. Advance Access published February 14, 2008.

Sarah Palin, vitamin D and tanning beds: part 5

In the last installment of the Sarah-Palin/tanning-bed saga, we presented some of the positive research on tanning beds—research that has been mostly ignored by the American Academy of Dermatology and by the press.

Since the volume of positive research regarding tanning was too great to treat in one post, we continue it here.

One of the latest studies showed no significant increase in melanoma with tanning bed use.[i]

Have you ever heard of that research?

Another study of five European countries showed that in France, where 20% of the population used tanning beds, their use was associated with a 19% increase in risk of melanoma.[ii]

But in Sweden, where 83% of the population uses tanning beds, there was a 38% decrease in melanoma. Overall, the risk of melanoma was reduced by 10% in tanning-bed users, although individuals with fair skin and a high number of moles were at increased risk.

I ask again, have you ever heard of that research? Of course not; it doesn’t sell sunscreens and does not help the drug business. Clearly, studies that indict tanning beds without taking into consideration skin type are flawed, and if they do not also differentiate between tanning and burning, they are doubly flawed.

We have clearly stated that burning correlates to an increased risk of melanoma.

Unfortunately, most of the studies that associated tanning beds with increased melanoma did not control for burning.

A very light skin that does not tan or has many moles or a skin condition that is sensitive to UV may preclude tanning-bed use by some individuals.

Others who may have adverse effects to tanning bed exposure are organ transplant recipients or those taking photosensitive prescription drugs.

If you do not know if your drug is photosensitive, ask a pharmacist.

The next post will finish this discussion about Sarah, vitamin D and tanning beds. Stay tuned!

[i] Clough-Gorr, K. et al. Exposure to sunlamps, tanning beds and melanoma risk. Cancer Causes Control. 2008;7:659-69
[ii] Bataille V, et al. A multicentre epidemiological study on tanning bed use and cutaneous melanoma in Europe. Eur J Cancer 2005;41:2141-49.