Posted July 15, 2011 - 2:29pm by Tracy
Is the sun a friend or foe?
In health care, prevention advice is often pretty straightforward: Eat a healthy diet, exercise regularly, get plenty of sleep, stay hydrated. But how about cases when medical advice is not so clear-cut?
Take sun exposure as an example.
In Well Community’s recent report on Hot topics in summer skin care, Dr. Oksana Barilyak said she believes there is no safe amount of sun exposure, as the risks of sunburn, skin cancer and aging skin are too high — and most doctors would agree.
And yet, the Endrocrine Society recently established new guidelines on the appropriate dietary intake of vitamin D, which is important for preventing osteoporosis and may protect against high blood pressure and autoimmune diseases, in response to the large population of people with low levels of the vitamin. The best source of vitamin D happens to be sun exposure.
Terri Stat, a former Well Community contributor and Professional Hypochondriac blogger, pointed out in a recent entry that even if you use sunscreen to protect against the sun’s damage in hopes of gaining vitamin D, sunscreen reduces vitamin D production by 95 percent.
So what is the healthy thing to do? I, for one, would love a medical excuse to get more sun. Unfortunately it is not that simple.
Dr. Barilyak agrees that vitamin D deficiency is a possibility, but maintains that the risk of skin cancer far exceeds the risk of vitamin D deficiency, so sun exposure really should be avoided. Plus, vitamin D can be obtained in other ways, such as supplements or foods including fortified milk, orange juice and salmon.
This is one of those crossroads in a healthy lifestyle that in many ways doesn’t have an ideal answer.
What is your take? Do you take your chances in the sun or shade?
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