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Sunny days mean more activity outside, but being outside also means exposure to the sun. Being exposed to the sun can cause burns on the skin, and even skin cancer. Skin remembers very well every moment in the sun.
Unfortunately, in the last few years increased occurrence of all forms of skin cancers has been recorded, especially of the most dangerous one – skin melanoma. Melanoma is a malignant tumor that forms from cells that make skin pigment. Every change in the skin, especially a change of size and colour of a mole, bleeding or pigmentation widening out of the edges, itchiness, sensitivity and pain occurrence or occurrence of new formations or ulceration around, is suspicious for skin cancer. Recognizing these changes is very significant for early discovering of skin cancer. Recommendations from a dermatologist because of it are reduced exposure to the sun. Because of high frequency of skin cancer, many people almost completely avoid the sun. There is enough proof that exposing the skin to the sun brings to a number of harmful changes on the skin, and also to skin cancer.
Benefits from exposing to the sun
Still, there are those doctors that advocate moderate and reasonable exposure to the sun. Namely, exposing to the sun leads to creating vitamin D in the organism which can lead to prevention of developing of many diseases. For millions of years our ancestors have been exposed to the sun almost for whole days so they had much more vitamin D in their organism, it is considered that they had almost five times more vitamin D supplies than people of today.
Vitamin D is very important for health condition of our organism and actually isn’t a real vitamin, but a form of steroid hormone. In our skin under the influence of sun vitamin D forms from cholesterol (cholecalciferol), and later in liver and kidneys active vitamin D is formed (calcitriol). This hormone has important functions and it controls almost 10% of all human genes. Unfortunately, almost half of world’s population has vitamin D deficiency, so vitamin D deficiency has become a big public health issue.
Even in the parts of the world with more sun, people suffer from vitamin D deficiency because in some countries a great number of people, especially women, wear traditional clothes. And the women that don’t wear such clothes, use cosmetics with a lot of protection factors. Even low protection factor like six or eight can completely prevent the ability of skin from creating vitamin D. This is one of the reasons why women in general have lower levels of vitamin D. Vitamin D deficiency is related to cancer, elevated blood pressure, heart diseases, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, osteoporosis, Parkinson’s disease and other diseases. Vitamin D strengthens the immune system and it is an important factor in fight against infections and other diseases. Vitamin D deficiency during the winter months, when there is less sunlight, is related to higher frequency of diseases that typically occur in the winter time, like a cold.
The scientists have proved how vitamin D can destroy cancer cells (which can have an important part in cancer prevention, especially breast, prostate, lung and intestinal cancer), it is proven that it prevents osteoporosis, depression, diabetes and obesity. Even the patients with melanoma have better outcome if they have higher concentration of vitamin D in their blood. Those parts of the world with less sun have higher frequency of tuberculosis, multiple sclerosis, arterial hypertension, osteoporosis, and breast, ovarian, prostate and colon cancer.
People with vitamin D deficiency usually complain about general weakness and muscle pains. Before discovering vitamin D many children suffered from rickets, once a very common bone disease, caused by vitamin D deficiency, especially in northern parts with no sun. Vitamin D is today routinely given to children in a form of vitamin product. But, vitamin D not only keeps them from getting rickets, it’s also shown that children who take enough amounts of vitamin D in their childhood, later in life have a lower risk of developing diabetes. It is well known that exposing to the sun has beneficial effects on some psychiatric and skin diseases, which today is attributed to higher concentration of vitamin D in the blood of patients that have been exposed to the sun.
Sun as a remedy
Recommended daily doses of vitamin D for an adult are 400-600 units of vitamin D. A glass of milk has, for example 100 units of vitamin D. Food that contains a slightly higher amount of vitamin D is fish oil, tuna, salmon, mackerel, liver, eggs, butter, yoghurt and cheese. It is almost impossible to get enough amounts of vitamin D from nutrition. Around 80% of vitamin D in the body forms from exposing skin to ultraviolet rays B (UVB), while in smaller doses it comes from food. Multivitamin products usually contain less than 400 units of vitamin D. So, reasonable exposure to sunlight is the only certain and natural way of getting enough amounts of this vitamin.
Some doctors think that exposing to sunlight can significantly reduce the percentage of chronic diseases throughout the world. Of course, when exposing to the sun, you need to be wise. With intensified exposure to the sun, more vitamin D won’t form (because there are feedback mechanisms that inhibit the possible occurrence of too high concentrations of vitamin D which can be harmful), and sun that is too strong could cause skin damages and even cancer occurrence. It is important to expose yourself to the sun ordinarily, during the whole year. Besides creating vitamin D, sun and being outside have beneficial effects to your health, and sun encourages creating a hormone melatonin which regulates sleeping rhythm, it affects the mood in general and it strengthens the immune system.
How to use Sun wisely?
Researches have shown that it is enough for most people just a few minutes spent in the sun every day, with only 5% of the skin exposed (eg. face and arms), 2 to 3 times a week. UVB rays usually work between 10 and 15 hours.
This kind of sun exposure can ensure enough amounts of vitamin D. With this kind of short-term sun exposure, applying the sun cream isn’t necessary, and besides that, this kind of protection can reduce the forming of vitamin D. Namely, almost all suntan creams block only UVB radiation. As such, they also block vitamin D production.
For mentioning is that UVB rays don’t go even through glass. More than 20 minutes spent in the sun doesn’t increase the amount of vitamin D, and it increases the risk of skin damage. Of course, skin colour can also affect the ability for forming vitamin D after exposing to the sun. For people with very light skin 10 minutes is enough to be exposed to the sun, several times a week, these people absorb UVB rays very quickly. For people with normally light skin, it should be enough to be exposed for 10 to 15 minutes, and people with darker skin up to 20 minutes, several times a week of exposing to the sun in short sleeves and shorts. People with very dark skin are very well protected from the sun, but they need much more of exposure to the sun to produce vitamin D. If these people live in cold, northern areas, they should start using vitamin D products with supervision of a physician. Also production of vitamin D depends on other factors like geographical position, air pollution and smog. So, sun shouldn’t be avoided, but you should be exposed to it reasonably and right.