Sun, Vitamin D, cancer, and the vindication of commonsense

The Cinch Review ^ | 03/24/2009 | Sean Curnyn

[Merciful_Friend]

It used to be that mothers would tell their children, "Go out and play in the sunshine, it's good for you." In more recent years, saying something like that too loudly might have gotten a poor mom arrested and her children taken away from her. "The sun, good for you? Are you crazy? Are you trying to kill your kids with skin cancer?" At least, make sure the urchins are slathered all over in 45 SPF sunscreen, and preferably wearing hats and long sleeves. You might call this the Gospel of St. John the Dermatologist, and it has now been extremely well learned and internalized by a couple of generations of people in the United States and to varying degrees across what we call the developed world. And this much is now clear: it has been killing people.

[grey_whiskers]

Sorry for the late posting -- can you recommend a brand which relies on Zinc rather than on free-radical generating species?

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

In addition, there is not 100% consensus that sun causes melanoma - or at least, not all melanomas (I know of a woman who died of a vaginal melanoma).

Unless she was a nudist? I guess "stick it where the sun don't shine" wouldn't be the right thing to say to such a person...