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Bill Bowser
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 Posted - 07/22/2011 : 1:07:16 PM
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Since becoming actively involved in social nudism I have developed an interest in the effects of vitamin D. Today I stumbled upon a somewhat lengthy, but very thought-provoking article on the subject, which I have reproduced below. Since the article was copied with permission of the publisher I assume this is acceptable.
Tanning Can Cause Cancer, but Not Tanning Could Cause a Lot Worse
Bob Berman — Vitamin D, produced when skin is exposed to light, is essential for our bodies. Unfortunately, modern lifestyles have minimized our time we spend under the sun. The Sun's Heartbeat explains why a tan isn't as bad as previously thought.
The first scenes in one Sun-tragedy unfolded long before there were written records of any kind. Spurred by events we can only guess at, a human exodus began 50,000 to 70,000 years ago, when our ancestors migrated away from the tropics and the equatorial region's strong sunlight. Immediately, people developed vitamin D deficiencies.
Our bodies make vitamin D when our skin is struck by the Sun's ultraviolet rays. Because UV intensity declines dramatically with lower Sun angles, people in temperate regions, and especially those in even higher latitudes, receive as little as 10 percent of the UV experienced by those near the equator. As our ancestors migrating north developed vitamin D deficiencies, the results were swift and brutal. They were removed from the breeding pool by a cruel Darwinian process: the fetus inside a woman with rickets (a disease resulting from low vitamin D) is unable to emerge from her body, and both die in childbirth.
Within just a few thousand years, natural selection had turned some people's skin white, and they were now able to manufacture ample vitamin D even from the reduced Sun intensity of the higher latitudes. (Dark skin color, called melanin, is a sunblock, needed because naked bodies near the equator can suffer from too much ultraviolet exposure.) In North America and northern Europe, the climate is sufficiently warm that their skin was almost fully exposed for more than half the year, and their bodies stored vitamin D in the muscle and fat. A new balance had been restored.
But starting a century ago, everything changed. First, the United States and Europe went from a mostly outdoors agrarian society to a mostly indoors manufacturing one. Then people started driving around in vehicles surrounded by windows. Glass prevents any vitamin D production because it blocks the Sun's UV. When air-conditioning became widely available starting in the late 1950s and then got cheaper in the 1970s, people stopped keeping their windows open. Fixed- pane units became increasingly popular. The only sunlight that reached us in our homes and workplaces came through UV-stopping glass.
The last straw was sunblock. It did not even exist until thirty years ago. The initial UV- reducing creams, which cut exposure only in half, were marketed in the 1950s to promote tanning, not totally screen out ultraviolet rays. Then, in the 1980s, a new product came on the market: sunblock. With SPF (sun protection factor) numbers such as 30 and 45, sunblock essentially stops the body's vitamin D production cold. At the same time, people were advised to cover themselves with these lotions throughout the summer months. Even the medical establishment urged hiding from the Sun as a way to counter skin cancer.
The metamorphosis was complete: we had become like the Morlocks in H. G. Wells's book The Time Machine, shielded almost totally from sunlight's UV.
Enter modern vitamin D researchers such as John Cannell, MD, executive director of the Vitamin D Council, a nonprofit educational corporation that believes that "many humans are needlessly suffering and dying from Vitamin D Deficiency." Cannell is no ordinary medical doctor. He's no ordinary researcher either. He is a proselytizer, the first in the theater to shout "Fire!" when the smoke appears, while there's still time to get out. And these days, he's very, very passionate. He believes that human beings have unwittingly transformed themselves into something uniquely and self- destructively unnatural.
"We are the first society of cave people," he lamented to me in 2010. "In the development process of creating the skin, nature never dreamed that we'd deliberately avoid the Sun so thoroughly."
What Cannell and a growing legion of researchers are decrying are the past three decades of newspaper and TV scare stories that have made the public afraid of the Sun. The consequence, they believe, is that our blood's natural vitamin D levels are just a tiny fraction of what nature intended. And this is producing an avalanche of horrible consequences that include vastly increased rates of cancer.
That vitamin D is super-important is no longer in doubt. It has become the new needed supplement, recommended increasingly by family doctors and the popular media alike. The March 2010 Reader's Digest calls vitamins in general "a scam" and urges people to take no daily supplements whatsoever - with the single exception of 1,000 international units (IU) of vitamin D3, the form most recommended as a supplement.
This sudden interest has been sparked by a spate of studies strongly indicating that vitamin D is the most powerful anticancer agent ever known. Robert Heaney, MD, of Creighton University, a vitamin D researcher, points to thirty- two randomized trials, the majority of which were strongly positive. For example, in a big study of women whose average age was sixty-two, subjects who were given a large daily vitamin D supplement enjoyed a whopping 60 percent reduction in all kinds of cancers after just four years of treatment compared to a control group.
The skeptical might well wonder how, when cancer typically takes decades to develop, such a huge drop can be detected after just a few years. Heaney believes it's because vitamin D prevents tiny predetectable tumors from growing or spreading. "That's the kind of cancer I'd want to have - one that never grows," he told me in June 2010.
The Canadian Cancer Society raised its vitamin D intake recommendations to 1,000 IU daily in 2009. But Cannell, Heaney, and others think that even this is still way too low.
"I went to a conference and asked all the researchers what they themselves take daily and give to their families," Heaney said. "The average was 5,500 IU daily. There is certainly no danger in doing this, since toxicity cannot arise in under 30,000 IU a day."
Why is this vitamin D craze happening now? It sounds suspiciously familiar - like the antioxidant craze of the 1990s, when everyone was gobbling vitamin E to guard against "free radicals." Or the Linus Pauling– led vitamin C frenzy of the 1970s. Recent studies have shown that all those vitamins have no effect on mortality whatsoever. Indeed, a multivitamin a day now seems to be no better for your health than gobbling a daily Hostess Twinkie. Perhaps our bodies were not designed to get flooded with vitamins. Or maybe the couple of dozen known minerals and vitamins are only the tip of the health iceberg, and what's important are hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of trace substances of which we are not yet even aware.
Yet it is here, in a discussion of the natural environment in which our bodies were fashioned, that vitamin D makes so much sense. After all, our bodies create it naturally out of the Sun's ultraviolet rays.
Spending just ten minutes in strong sunlight - the kind you get from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM between April and August - will allow your body to make as much vitamin D as you would get from drinking two hundred glasses of milk. This is astonishing. Asks John Cannell rhetorically, "Why does nature do this so quickly? Nature normally doesn't do this kind of thing."
The implied answer, of course, is that we were designed to have a high and steady level of this vitamin in our bodies. Yet as more and more people are tested, researchers are finding serious vitamin D deficiencies in virtually all of the population of the United States, Canada, and northern Europe. The reason? According to Cannell and the other doctors on the Vitamin D Council, we have been hiding from the Sun for decades.
The results may be even worse than we realize. Many researchers now fear that the explosive increase in autism is a result of pregnant mothers having close to no vitamin D in their bodies and then young babies and infants being similarly shielded from the Sun. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says that virtually no infants are getting enough vitamin D. The inadequacy figures, even using the CDC's pre-2011 lower recommendations of what they thought the body should have, was that 90 percent of infants are deficient.
According to Cannell, the highest autism rates occur in areas that have the most clouds and rain, and hence the lowest blood levels of vitamin D. A Swedish study has strongly linked sunlight deprivation with autism. Moreover, blacks, whose vitamin D levels are half those found in whites living at the same latitudes, have twice the autism rates. Conversely, autism is virtually unknown in places such as sunny Somalia, where most people still spend most of their time outdoors. Yet another piece of anecdotal evidence is that autism is one of the very few afflictions that occur at higher rates among the wealthier and more educated - exactly the people most likely to be diligent about sunscreen and more inclined to keep their children indoors.
As we saw in assessing links between earthly events and sunspot fluctuations, it's perilous to assign connections too quickly, and autism in particular is a can of worms. Nonetheless, these early threads should set off alarms: it might be wise for pregnant women and mothers of small children to immediately start exposing themselves and their kids to more sunlight.
When Cannell was in medical school in 1973, he was taught that human breast milk contains little or no vitamin D. "This didn't make sense," he said during a phone conversation with me in 2011. "Why would nature ever deprive a nursing infant of this vital substance?" Then it came to him: "When pregnant women start taking 5,000 international units of vitamin D daily, their milk soon contains enough vitamin D for a breast-feeding baby. So there's the key to how much a woman should naturally be getting every day."
In contrast to all this, and to the great annoyance of physicians and researchers on the Vitamin D Council, the FDA continued to advise only 400 IU of D3 daily as of early 2011. The agency officially regards most vitamin D studies as "incomplete" or "contradictory" and clearly has taken a cautious, go-slow approach.
In November 2010, the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine issued its first new recommendations about the vitamin since 1997, and many people were disappointed. The institute did boost its recommended daily amounts to 400 IU for infants, 600 IU for most adults, and 800 IU for those over age seventy. It also said there was no harm in taking up to 10,000 IU daily, although it conservatively adopted 4,000 IU as the official recommended upper limit.
According to Cannell, the new recommendations are still "irrelevant dosages." Michael Holick, MD, of Boston University, another vitamin researcher, agreed, saying that he personally takes 3,000 IU daily.
Cannell told me that the National Academy of Sciences report was a "scandal" and that four physicians had disgustedly resigned from the committee that put out the paper. "Commonsense aspects are totally lacking," he said. "For example, they urge infants to get 400 IU daily, but adults just 600 IU. Yet this vitamin is distributed in muscle and fat. The more you weigh, the more you should be getting. It doesn't make sense."
"Listen," he added, "everyone knows that there is an explosion of childhood cases of autism, asthma, and autoimmune disease. It all began when we took our children out of the Sun. Starting twenty-five years ago, a perfect storm of three events has changed how much sunlight children get. First came the scare of childhood sexual predators in the early eighties, then the fear of skin cancer, and finally the Nintendo and video game craze. Nowadays, kids do not play outdoors. Playgrounds are empty. You're a bad mother if you let your child run around. And it's almost a social services offense if your kid gets a sunburn. Never before have children's brains had to develop in the absence of vitamin D."
Since this is not a medical book, I can only pass on the recommendations of those in the forefront of vitamin D research. Their best advice is to go in the Sun regularly without burning. Wear as little clothing as you can. You know how much Sun you can han-dle without turning red. Unless you have a very light complexion and blond or red hair, you should be able to expose yourself safely to ten to twenty minutes of strong sunlight at a time. Lie out in the Sun in shorts for five to ten minutes on each side. The key to UV intensity is Sun height. If your shadow is shorter than you are, your body will produce a good amount of vitamin D.
After experiencing twenty minutes of unprotected midday Sun from May to July, or a full hour or more during March, early April, and late August through October, you can certainly use sunblock. The experts say to buy the kind whose active ingredient is either zinc or titanium oxide. Most other kinds will be absorbed by the skin, then enter the bloodstream and circulate. "You might as well drink the stuff," Cannell says disdainfully.
During the low-Sun winter months, you need to spend much more time sunbathing and probably take a vitamin D supplement. The experts are currently urging 2,000 to 3,000 IU daily.
Why not skip the Sun altogether and just pop the pills year- round? Some doctors, including those responsible for the 2010 National Academy of Sciences report, suggest doing exactly that. They figure that you can have it all - nice, high vitamin D serum levels plus no UV exposure, with its skin cancer risk. But others believe that's a bad idea. "Some of my colleagues think D3 supplements are enough," Cannell says. "But that supposes we know everything. I suspect that we do not know everything. Natural sunlight has to be the preferred route whenever possible."
Everyone should use solar power wisely and not go totally bonkers. There's no need to fry. But whatever extra skin cancer risk we might assume certainly seems to me to be a reasonable price to pay, considering the benefits. It now appears that adequate sunlight- mediated vitamin D might prevent as many as 150,000 cancer deaths a year in the United States alone and also reduce infections, bone problems, and perhaps, though more science is needed, even autism and asthma rates. Of course, on the other side of the balance beam, melanoma causes 8,500 US deaths a year. Every activity from bicycle riding to barroom brawling involves some balancing of risks, and the decision of what trade- offs to make is, of course, yours alone.
Tomorrow is a new day. As the Sun rises, its orange beams will cast magical rays in the morning mist. Is the Sun our enemy or our friend? Will it take our life or save it?
Reprinted with permission from Little, Brown and Company.
Bill Bowser - Cincinnati
Nudists are everywhere, but they're hard to identify with their clothes on.
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Edited by - Bill Bowser on 07/24/2011 11:08:08 PM
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Warmskin
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Posted - 07/23/2011 : 01:04:52 AM
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Interesting stuff, Bill. A lot more attention is now being paid to Vitamin D3. It is now said to help heart patients, as well as cancer.
Makes us wonder how much the labs don't yet know that would be of a big benefit in natural foods. And, let's hope the FDA is not too sluggish in recognizing the natural power of vitamins and minerals. I guess that agency is too protective against natural foods and vitamins so that the pharmacueticals are well taken care of.
I suspect, if they are like the FAA, their job is to promote as well as regulate the drug industry. To wit, back in the 1980s or so, the FDA banned L-Tryptophan, and natural anti-depressant that had been used in Europe quite successfully. It worked nicely over here too. Japan had made a bad batch, and the FDA used that as an excuse to ban even American-made tryptophan. That was great for the megapharmaceuticals because it banned a much cheaper competing source of anti-depressant.
If you were badly suffering from depression, tryptophan could dispatch the depression within a half-hour. Drugs take longer, and sometimes up to 6 weeks.
Banning that natural substance was akin to banning all American-made cars because Toyota made a car with a major problem. Who benefitted from that decision? Not the sufferers, but the pharmaceuticals.
I hope Vitamin D3 does not have the happen to it. Too many people can benefit from Vitamin D3 capsules during the winter, or if you work in the indoors all day.
Thanks again, Bill. Much needed topic. I take 2000 IUs a day, except on Sundays, because it's an oil-based vitamin, and it accumulates.
"How far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?"
Dwight D. Eisenhower
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jbsnc
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Posted - 07/23/2011 : 09:59:21 AM
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Bill, Thanks a great article. Some years back a group of British doctors commissioned a study to find out why physicians who were around X-Ray equipment a lot had - overall - no more instances of cancer than other doctors. One conclusion reached was that sunshine is a powerful anti-cancer weapon. The study recommend that everyone take a morning or afternoon 20 - 30 minute walk with lots of skin exposure. Ergo, justification for going nude and gaining thousands of units of vitamin D. I don't know if this has been verified but numerous health nuts claim the overall instances of cancer declines as one lives nearer the equator.
Happy Nuding.
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ddoger
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Posted - 07/24/2011 : 12:50:02 PM
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Thanks Bill I appreciated that article.
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nudesunguy
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Posted - 07/25/2011 : 10:12:41 AM
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Great info, but just like with "The French Paradox," the FDA is very slow to make any moves. And there are many lobbyists for industries which will not take kindly to this information becoming widespread.
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Bill Bowser
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Posted - 11/27/2011 : 01:09:26 AM
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More important health information regarding Vitamin D, an article I encountered on the Reuters website.
Low vitamin D linked to heart disease, death
By Kimberly Hayes Taylor
NEW YORK | Fri Nov 25, 2011 6:48pm EST
(Reuters Health) - In people with low blood levels of vitamin D, boosting them with supplements more than halved a person's risk of dying from any cause compared to someone who remained deficient, in a large new study.
Analyzing data on more than 10,000 patients, University of Kansas researchers found that 70 percent were deficient in vitamin D and they were at significantly higher risk for a variety of heart diseases.
D-deficiency also nearly doubled a person's likelihood of dying, whereas correcting the deficiency with supplements lowered their risk of death by 60 percent.
"We expected to see that there was a relationship between heart disease and vitamin D deficiency; we were surprised at how strong it was," Dr. James L. Vacek, a professor of cardiology at the University of Kansas Hospital and Medical Center, told Reuters Health.
"It was so much more profound than we expected."
Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to a range of illnesses, but few studies have demonstrated the reverse -- that supplements could prevent those outcomes.
Vacek and his team reviewed data from 10,899 adults whose vitamin D serum levels had been tested at the University of Kansas Hospital, and found that more than 70 percent of the patients were below 30 nanograms per milliliter, the level many experts consider sufficient for good health.
After taking into account the patients' medical history, medications and other factors, the cardiologists found that people with deficient levels of vitamin D were more than twice as likely to have diabetes, 40 percent more likely to have high blood pressure and about 30 percent more likely to suffer from cardiomyopathy -- a diseased heart muscle -- as people without D deficiency.
Overall, those who were deficient in D had a three-fold higher likelihood of dying from any cause than those who weren't deficient, the researchers reported in the American Journal of Cardiology. Moreover, when the team looked at people who took vitamin D supplements, their risk of death from any cause was about 60 percent lower than the rest of the patients, although the effect was strongest among those who were vitamin D deficient at the time they were tested.
The study does not prove that vitamin D is the cause of the effects seen -- other factors, like disease, could be responsible both for the differences in health and the differences in vitamin D levels, for instance.
Previous research has indicated that many Americans don't have sufficient levels of vitamin D, however. The latest National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey estimated that 25 percent to 57 percent of adults have insufficient levels of D, and other studies have suggested the number is as high as 70 percent.
Vacek said he believes so many people are deficient because we should get about 90 percent of our Vitamin D from the sun and only about 10 percent from our food. The human body makes vitamin D in response to skin exposure to sunlight.
Certain foods, like oily fish, eggs and enriched milk products are also good sources of D. A sufficient amount of Vitamin D absorption from the sun would require at least 20 minutes of full-body exposure each day in warmer seasons, and most people aren't outside enough, Vacek said.
In the northern United States and throughout Canada, experts say the sun isn't strong enough during the winter months to make sufficient vitamin D, even if the weather was warm enough to expose the skin for a long time.
It means that adults should consider getting their Vitamin D levels checked through a simple blood test, Vacek said, and take vitamin D supplements. Generally, Vacek recommends that adults take between 1,000 to 2,000 international units (IU) of Vitamin D each day.
"If you're not deficient, Vitamin D is not a magic pill that will make you live longer," Vacek said.
"Its benefit is in people who are deficient. If you're low, it makes sense to be put on replacement therapy and have a follow-up a couple months later to make sure your levels come up."
Source: The American Journal of Cardiology, online Nov. 7, 2011
Bill Bowser - Cincinnati
Nudists are everywhere, but they're hard to identify with their clothes on.
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Bob Knows
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Posted - 11/27/2011 : 09:55:55 AM
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Good stuff Bill.
I have read that people of African ancestry who move to more northern latitudes often suffer from low D and have higher death rates because of it. The rapid evolution of white skin of those who's ancestors moved north shows how important the need for sunshine is for our health and even survival. A population does not evolve rapidly unless there is a high death rate from the status quo.
Bob
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wayne a
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Posted - 12/05/2011 : 7:37:32 PM
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This subject of Vitamin D just came up at my physical last month. I turned 55 in August. I had blood work done and everything looked good. She said my Vitamin D was good. She said that being in Michigan many people she sees are low in Vitamin D. After doing the rest of the physical she said I still had a dark tan and asked if I go to a tanning salon. I said no that's what happens when you camp at a nustist campground. I love the sun and in moderation it's GOOD for you.
Wayne
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cony
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Posted - 12/06/2011 : 07:31:03 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by wayne a
This subject of Vitamin D just came up at my physical last month....
Wayne
I also have my physical this month. I have seen the list of test to be done (blood to be sucked out) and Vitamin D is not amongst them. All my previous tests for this have shown very healthy levels so the clinic must have come to the conclusion that it was a waste to do the test (anything to do with a naturist lifestyle and healthy colour?). btw I turned 60 last April!
Cony 
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Bob Knows
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Posted - 12/06/2011 : 4:17:32 PM
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I still have some of my summer color too, although I'm starting to fade back to white. I tend to suffer from "cabin fever" or "light deprived syndrome" a.k.a. Seasonally Affected Disorder (SAD) or whatever you want to call it before spring. The association of depression with lack of Vitamin D are not entirely well documented, but its now commonly accepted that light deprived people have low D and often have depression. We northern climate folks have to get our sunshine from face and hands while our bodies are covered from the cold all winter. Maybe that has something to do with men losing hair, to get more D from skin exposure.
Come spring I start trying to get an hour a day of sunshine, but no more, until I get my color back. Vitamine D helps to fight skin cancer, but sunburn is not good.
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sailawaybob
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Posted - 12/10/2011 : 7:03:16 PM
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besides the vitamin D benefit who can smile when the sun is shining, i live in the south and i think we are blessed with our weather. a few weeks ago it was still warm enough to lay outside nude and soak up some sun, now if i can just get to florida and mix the sun with the sand i'd be a happy nude camper :)
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free2be
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Posted - 01/15/2012 : 12:17:51 PM
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Great information. Thanks Bill. My wife's test not too long ago showed she was vitamin D deficient. She avoids the sun. Next blood test for me, I'll have to make sure that is on the list. I'll be curious where my levels are.
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steady78
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Posted - 01/15/2012 : 3:16:34 PM
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The old saying "everything in moderation" comes to mind :)
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free2be
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Posted - 01/15/2012 : 3:20:49 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by steady78
The old saying "everything in moderation" comes to mind :)
Absolutely correct. I use sunscreen but I also try to get a little sun first before I put it on.
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barefootguyinco
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Posted - 12/27/2014 : 03:47:23 AM
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Thanks for this great information. If it's ok, I will be posting some of this information on our website at www.wearlesslivemore.org which is a website we are promoting to further education the public on the many benefits of nudism in a manner that's a little more tame than a full on nudist site. It's a place others can refer family to where they won't have to immediately encounter a picture of a naked person. Thank you
Body shame, like prejudice, is not natural. It is learned from others and benefits no one.
Helping this planet through nudism, (saves on laundry, clothes, laundry soap, etc) alternative energies & more. http://mcgyver79.earth4.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=nr3411
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Bill Bowser
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Posted - 12/10/2016 : 9:04:18 PM
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Another interesting article about Vitamin D, this one is from the Albuquerque Journal By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer
Avoiding the bright New Mexico sunshine completely may do us more harm than good, according to a new study co-authored by a University of New Mexico researcher.
The public health message about sun exposure needs to change, the study recommends, with more emphasis on the body’s need for sunlight.
For those of us living in one of the nation’s sunniest states, New Mexicans obtain beneficial vitamin D from sunlight even in winter, unlike people who live in the northern half of the U.S., said Dr. Marianne Berwick, a UNM professor of internal medicine.
The trick is, how do we balance the benefits of sun exposure against the risk of harmful overexposure to ultraviolet radiation?
The key is to spend time in the sun, but not enough time to get a sunburn, which leads to a higher risk for dangerous melanoma.
As for sunscreen, the study says “excessive use” of sunscreen could result in possible Vitamin D deficiency. Berwick defined excessive use as slathering on large amounts of sunscreen with a sunprotective factor, or SPF, of 30 or higher.
People have many different skin types, and some people can tolerate more sun exposure without risking harmful sunburns. But nearly everyone has some tolerance for sunlight.
“You can be out for a certain amount of time without harming yourself,” said Berwick, who often carries a parasol when she walks outdoors for extended periods.
Health officials for decades have warned Americans to cover up – wear long sleeves, hats, etc. – in sunlight to guard against skin cancer, but that message is too simplistic and may be harming us, Berwick says. Instead, we need to “modify the message,” she said.
“I think people can handle slightly more complex ideas,” she said.
“Public health authorities in the U.S. are currently advising that human sun exposure be reduced,” the study said, even as the CDC warns that 32 percent of Americans suffer from insufficient vitamin D.
The study, based on an examination of decades of research about the risks and benefits of sun exposure, was published Nov. 19 in the journal Dermato-Endocrinology, which is available online without a subscription.
Insufficiency of vitamin D may be linked to a long list of illnesses, including bone disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and a variety of cancers, including skin cancer, it said. Lack of vitamin D is most strongly linked to colon cancer, Berwick said.
The link between melanoma and sun exposure is “two-sided: non-burning sun exposure is associated with a reduced risk of melanoma, while sunburns are associated with a doubling of the risk of melanoma,” the study said.
In New Mexico each year, about 400 people are diagnosed with melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, and about 60 die of the disease, according to the state Department of Health. The rate of new melanoma cases was 13.5 per 100,000 in 2013, which was lower than the U.S. rate of 20.7 per 100,000 that year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
About a third of Americans don’t get enough vitamin D, which the body makes from ultraviolet radiation in sunlight, as well as nutritional sources.
“The association between sun exposure and reduced cancer mortality in North America was identified in the 1960s,” the study said. In the 1980s, vitamin D was identified as a possible protective factor from cancer.
But “instead of pursuing further benefits of sun exposure, scientific inquiry focused on the health risks of sun exposure, especially melanoma and other kinds of skin cancer,” it said.
By way of background, the study notes that the incidence of melanoma increased 23-fold from 1935 to 2012.
At the same time, the share of Americans who work indoors increased from 25 percent in 1910 to 75 percent in 2000.
The study recommends that fair-skinned people who tan only minimally can obtain required vitamin D by spending about 15 minutes in the sun with face, arms and legs exposed, two or three times a week at midday from May through October.
People with darker skin require more time in the sun to produce required vitamin D and have lower risk of non-melanoma skin cancer.
The good news for New Mexicans is that we don’t have to wait until spring to benefit from sunshine.
Like others who live in the southern half of the U.S., New Mexicans get enough UV radiation year-round to produce vitamin D, Berwick said.
“We get vitamin D from sun even in winter,” she said.
Bill Bowser - Cincinnati
Not lewd, not crude, just nude.
Nudists are everywhere, but they're hard to identify with their clothes on.
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Vitamin D - The Sunshine Vitamin
