Chicago: The health benefits of moderate sun exposure may outweigh the associated skin cancer risks for people who are deficient in Vitamin D, especially those who live in colder northern latitudes, according to a study released recently.
The study found that Vitamin D levels, which were calculated based on sun exposure, correlated with better survival rates for cancer victims.
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People in sunnier, southern latitudes, with higher estimated Vitamin D levels, were significantly less likely to die from their malignancies than people in northern latitudes, according to the paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, (PNAS).
"In previous work, we have shown that survival rates for (prostate, breast, colon and lung) cancers improve when the diagnosis coincides with the season of maximum sun exposure, indicating a positive role for sun-induced vitamin D in prognosis - or at least that a good vitamin-D status is advantageous when combined with standard cancer therapies," said Richard Setlow, a biophysicist and one of the paper's authors.
"The current data provide a further indication of the beneficial role of sun- induced vitamin D for cancer prognosis."
Vitamin D, dubbed the .sunshine vitamin. because it is produced by the skin from ultraviolet rays, has been shown to have a powerful protective effect against internal cancers, such as breast and colon cancer.
But the emerging evidence on the benefits of the vitamin, and by extension sun exposure, conflicts with longstanding public health messages about the dangers of spending time in the sun because of the risk of developing the potentially deadly skin cancer melanoma.
To explore the pros and cons of time spent in the sun, US and Norwegian researchers analyzed the amount of vitamin D generated by sun exposure at different latitudes and cross referenced it with data showing cancer incidence and cancer survival rates for populations at different latitudes.
They found a clear north-south gradient in vitamin D production, "with people in the northern latitudes producing significantly less than people nearer the equator."
Specifically, they calculated that Australians produce 3.4 times more vitamin D as a result of sun exposure than people in the United Kingdom, and almost five times more vitamin D than Scandinavians.
Setlow is a senior biophysicist at the Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, and an expert on the link between solar radiation and skin cancer. - AFP
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