sun exposure, vitamin D

[Tony Belding]

As I prepare to "get into" cycling, one of my nagging concerns was sun
exposure. For some years now I've bought into the modern conventional
wisdom, which says there's no such thing as good sun exposure. It ages
the skin, it causes skin cancer, etc. This was a special concern to
me, since I had a large mole years ago which was judged to be
pre-cancerous, and the doctors ended up taking a lemon-sized chunk of
tissue out of my chest just to make sure it didn't spread! I never had
any recurrance of the cancer, but I still have this large, ugly, and
sometimes itchy scar to remind me.

So here I am thinking. . . How can I have fun cycling and get
much-needed exercise without exposing myself to bad old Mr. Sun? Do I
wrap up like a mummy? In the Texas summer? Ha! I don't think so.

Then I saw this article:
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050521/D8A7MPFG0.html

Long, great article. Go read it! But here's the short version:

* Many people are defient in vitamin D -- which your skin synthesizes
using the UV rays from sunlight.
* Vitamin D appears to prevent many kinds of cancer.
* The vast majority of skin cancers aren't life-threatening. The kind
that vitamin D prevents are quite serious.
* Melanoma -- the most dangerous form of skin cancer -- can be induced
from repeated sunburns, but there's little evidence to show that normal
sun exposure causes it.
* Vitamin D could prevent up to 30 deaths for each one caused by skin cancer.

Vitamin D is hard to get from food. Supplements are inexpensive and
can be effective (vitamin D3, or cholecalciferol, is best), but you may
have to take four pills a day to get the cancer-preventing benefits.
It's easier to just spend a few minutes in the sun every day, the
synthesis of vitamin D in your skin can occur quite rapidly.
(Apparently supplements should be mainly useful for older persons,
dark-skinned persons, or those who live at high lattitudes, or as a
wintertime boost.) Overdosing on vitamin D is very, very hard to do.

With sun exposure, moderation is the key. Your liver can tolerate a
modest amount of alcohol, and you skin can take a reasonable amount of
sun. Don't use it as an excuse for binging! If you burn, that is too
much.

Now I have another excuse to get out and ride. I'm happy!

--
Tony Belding, Hamilton Texas

 

[LioNiNoiL_a t_Y a h 0 0_d 0 t_c 0 m]

Tony Belding wrote:

> As I prepare to "get into" cycling, one of my nagging concerns
> was sun exposure.

Well it should be, you living in Texas.

> Then I saw this article:
> http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050521/D8A7MPFG0.html
>
> Long, great article. Go read it! But here's the short version:

Here's the *really* short version: the theory expounded by a professor
at Harvard University encouraged one dermatologist from New York (Allan
Halpern), another from Boston (Michael Holick), and another from
Pennsylvania (James Leyden) to make public statements that sun exposure
can do more to prevent cancer than to cause it. Overlooking the
controversy for now, the "burning question" is: are you going to take
advice about sun exposure from a bunch of Northerners??

I live in southern Nevada, and I challenge any and all of them to
accompany me on a nice little ride across my town any time between now
and the end of August, me with sunscreen and them without, of course. It
was 102°F here yesterday and today, so I think it will be fascinating to
hear what they have to say about sun exposure after a proper dose of it.

I use sunscreen whenever I am outdoors, and even so I developed skin
cancer three years ago that required a substantial piece of my nose be
cut off. I had to laugh at the reporter's statement about Vitamin D; if
she thinks "supplements are problematic", I can't imagine what she
thinks about reconstructive surgery.

--
"Bicycling is a healthy and manly pursuit with much
to recommend it, and, unlike other foolish crazes,
it has not died out." -- The Daily Telegraph (1877)