Sufficient levels of vitamin D in your system are essential to bone health. And one of the easiest, fastest, and certainly the least expensive way to “take” vitamin D is via the sun: this key vitamin is synthesized when your skin is exposed to sunlight’s ultraviolet (UV) rays. But cancer exports warn us about the dangers of skin cancer (melanoma) due to UV exposure. How do you both maintain vitamin D levels, and protect yourself against cancer?
How much vitamin D is in fortified milk? In yogurt? Or in cereal?
Do you know how much vitamin D you get by taking the ever-popular cod liver oil?
How much vitamin D do you need every day – not only to maintain bone health, but to potentially reduce your risk of cancer, diabetes, and a host of other ills?
It all seems so complicated, doesn’t it? How did people stay healthy 200 years ago, when no one had ever heard of vitamin D, let alone spent time worrying about getting enough of it?
The answer is, our Founding Fathers didn’t say healthy; they died much younger than we do now, and from a host of ailments. But for the most part, they weren’t suffering from vitamin D deficiency.
Why not?
Because before researchers proved the link between sun exposure and skin cancer, most people got more than enough sun to ensure production of all the vitamin D their bodies needed, without worrying about either diet, or vitamin pills.
Vitamin D – “the sunshine vitamin” – is produced naturally when we expose our skin to the ultraviolet (UV) rays in sunlight. Sunlight is free, and easy to obtain. We don’t have to do a blessed thing, other than spend a short amount of time outdoors during the daytime, to ensure we get all the vitamin D our bodies need.
But clearly, it’s not that simple. Not these days, when everywhere you turn you’re warned of the dangers of sunlight, and how sun block (minimum SP30, please) is key to preventing melanoma – skin cancer.
Unfortunately, sun block is also key to preventing your body from manufacturing the vitamin D it needs.
So we’re right back to fortified dairy products, cereal, cod liver oil, and supplements – right?
Well, not so fast. There may be room for compromise here – depending on your personal capacity for risk.
The National Cancer Institute, my “go to” source for all things cancer-related, unfortunately takes a fence-sitting approach to the vitamin D/sunlight/skin cancer issue. Here’s what the NCI Web site says about relying on the sun as a source for vitamin D:
“Although people obtain some vitamin D from dietary sources, most vitamin D is made in the body after the skin is exposed to sunlight. Despite the known and potential health benefits of vitamin D, increasing sun exposure increases the risk of skin cancer. In general, most experts believe that people should continue to use sun protection when UV levels are moderate or higher. Some researchers have suggested that brief daily exposure to UV will ensure adequate vitamin D production, but many variables (such as skin color, latitude, and season) can affect the production of vitamin D, and such recommendations have proven controversial. Other experts recommend vitamin D supplementation to avoid the problem of increasing skin cancer risk.”
