Sunlight Prevents Skin Cancer

Sunlight is good for you

Sunlight Prevents Skin Cancer with thanks to Natural News [1] (with permission) Results in a study published in the Feb. 2, 2005 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute [2] have Scientists baffled. The results show that exposure to sunlight actually reduces the risk of skin cancer. These results back up important evidence what doctors like Dr. Michael Holick [3] , author of "The UV Advantage" [4] , have been saying for years: Sunlight is actually good for you. In fact, the risk of many cancers increases when you do not have sufficient exposure to sunlight.

How could this not be an ideal image of a desirable place to be?

Scientists are really baffled with the results of the study. They can't believe everything they've been told all these years could somehow be false. The conventional medical community has been taught and been telling us that sunlight is bad for you. You must cover up your skin, wear sunscreen and avoid any sunlight exposure at all if you want to be healthy.

The sunscreen industry has been pushing this line of advertising for years as well as the dermatology industry, which has been largely funded by the sunscreen manufacturers.

In the full sun is where we have the most fun

They have been telling people sunlight causes cancer, and you must avoid the sun at all costs. I must say that I have always thought it strange that some people who stayed in the sun a lot had no sign of skin cancer and others did. We were not designed to live under fluorescent lights with a lifetime supply of sunscreen. The human body was designed to live in harmony with sunlight. We evolved under natural sunlight, we need natural sunlight in order to stay healthy. These results may finally turn the tide and help doctors and researchers realize they need to stop telling people to avoid sunlight and start enjoying more sunlight.

Naturally, you need sensible exposure, which is determined by the pigmentation in your skin. The darker your skin apparently, the more sunlight you need in order to generate vitamin D. The lighter, or fairer, your skin, the less sunlight you need. One of the people commenting on this study was so baffled by the results they said “It must all be due to vitamin D, and if you want vitamin D, there are better places to get it like drinking milk”.

It's typical advice from conventional medicine. They're still telling people to avoid the sun and, instead, drink lots of cows' milk. If you think that is good health advice - just look at the NOTmilk [5] website for information on how bad processed pasteurised milk is for you. Milk, even the “fortified” variety, doesn't really have much vitamin D in it at all [6] , especially if it's offered in those typical translucent containers, because light destroys the vitamin D content. Furthermore, this whole line of thinking by conventional medicine misses the point that there may be other characteristics of sunlight that encourage human health aside from just vitamin D. In other words, there may be a lot more going on.

Sunlight - available for full-body therapy also

Vitamin D is the Key

Vitamin D production starts with sunlight

Vitamin D is manufactured in the skin following direct exposure to sunlight. The amount of vitamin D produced in the skin varies depending on time of day, season, latitude and skin pigmentation. Usually 10-15 minutes exposure of hands, arms and face two to three times a week (depending on one's skin sensitivity) is enough to satisfy the body's vitamin D requirement. Using sunscreen markedly diminishes the manufacture of vitamin D in the skin, as do window glass, clothing and air pollution. Skin color also affects vitamin D production; the fairer you are, the more you make and the quicker you make it. There probably is a phototherapy effect that goes well beyond the biochemistry of vitamin D production. Even if you're just looking at vitamin D, there are so many healing benefits of vitamin D that it's worth promoting sunlight exposure for that reason alone. Vitamin D regulates the growth of cancer cells. It impairs the proliferation of cancer tumours in the body, and at the same time it is extremely important for absorption of calcium in the small intestine. Babies need vitamin D for healthy growth and development. It helps them build strong, healthy bones and teeth. Babies who don�t get enough vitamin D are at risk of getting rickets, a disease that affects the way bones grow and develop.

This helps explain why so many senior citizens get osteoporosis today even though they think they're taking plenty of calcium supplements. The reason is they don't have enough vitamin D to actually absorb the calcium. So they start out with a vitamin D deficiency due to lack of sunlight, and they end up with a calcium deficiency even though they're taking lots of calcium supplements.

The end result is, of course, osteoporosis. Once that's diagnosed by conventional medicine, they're usually given hormone replacement therapy or a variety of prescription drugs rather than simply being told to get more sunlight and engage in some form of physical exercise to enhance bone mineral density.

United Kingdom doctors are already being advised to tell people to get more sunlight and not to wear sunscreen every time they go outside, at least not for the first few minutes of sun exposure. So the UK is well ahead of the Australia in this thinking.

Australia - with the seasonal “Slip Slop Slap” propaganda, seems to be a lot slower to acknowledge any healing benefits of therapies outside of drugs, surgery and radiation. There is a complete lack of awareness that nature knows best regarding healing. Here we are actually seeing yet another example of how nature actually prevents and even reverses cancer in the human body.

Research shows that sunlight and vitamin D can prevent and even reverse cancers in the human body. We're talking about prostate cancer, breast cancer, cervical cancer and now, skin cancers as well. In fact, there seems to be a systemic anti-cancer effect provided by sunlight exposure and vitamin D.

Vitamin D toxicity: Excessive exposure to sunlight does not lead to overproduction of vitamin D, as with most vitamins, once the body has sufficient, it either stops producing it or stores or eliminates the excess.

Vitamin D toxicity is inevitably the result of overdosing on vitamin D supplements. Don't do this! Ingestion of milligram quantities of vitamin D over periods of weeks of months can be severely toxic to humans and animals. In fact, baits laced with vitamin D are used very effectively as rodenticides.

I am sure this study is bringing a big smile to Dr. Michael Holick's face, and hopefully increasing awareness of the importance of sunlight world-wide especially in the medical community.

Could it be that sunscreens are causing skin cancer? ^{[7] [8]}

In 1991 Professor Johan Moan of the Norwegian Cancer Institute made an astounding discovery ^[9] . He found that the yearly incidence of melanoma in Norway had increased by 350% for men and by 440% for women during the period 1957 to 1984. He also determined that there had been no change in the ozone layer over this period of time. He concludes his report in the British Journal of Cancer by stating "Ozone depletion is not the cause of the increase in skin cancers".

There is still no denying the fact that the highest incidences of skin cancer have actually occurred in countries where the use of chemical sunscreens containing benzophenone and oxybenzone and PABA have been promoted the most. The irony is that the chemical sunscreen industry makes money by selling sunscreen lotion products which is promoted to prevent skin cancer, but the ingredients used actually contain cancer-causing chemicals. ^[10] However neither is there any denying that sunburn is an unpleasant experience and one which it is best to avoid. So how can you work in the hot sun without dressing from head to toe and without smearing your sensitive, absorptive skin with carcinogenic goo?

Here are 2 natural sunscreens that are wonderful to use:

natural sunscreens that nourish

Aloe Vera The Aloe Vera plant works the same way - it prevents ultra violet rays and just makes you go brown. Even if you apply it after your exposure to the sun, the gel from aloe vera is a remarkable agent for healing burns of all kinds and sunburn is no exception. Virgin coconut oil I went on holidays with my sisters and niece last October to Surfers Paradise and my younger sister and I used coconut oil before going to the beach and my older sister and niece used nothing. We stayed on the beach for about an hour and my older sister and niece were extremely burnt and my younger sister and myself who used the coconut oil were delightfully one shade browner and had no effect from the sun. I have often used it since and it seems to help the skin convert sun exposure to suntan. For a much more technical description of how the skin tans see How Sunburn and Sun Tans Work convert the sunbrown. With these 2 wonderful products who needs to smear themselves with chemical sunscreens that may be contributing to cancer?

http://middlepath.com.au/qol/sunlight_vitamin-D_skin-cancer_suntan_sunburn.php