The new rules of sun safety

This article is absurd. It's sole purpose is to sell even more suncreens, vitamin D pills and specialty clothing. Ever notice that as sunscreen sales increase, cancer rates have increased? Not that the sunscreens themselves cause cancer (Maybe they do and maybe they don't.) But increasingly, chronic vitamin D deficiency has had a major effect in increasing some forms of cancer and problems related to decreased immunity. And vitamin D pills do not work well enough to take the place of the sun. As usual the the truth is: 1) do what mother nature intended, get some sun exposure - it's natural, beneficial, and needed, and 2) use your brain - called common sense - and don't get too much exposure. Yahoo ought to be charged for publishing rubbish like this.

Me too Justin....love my coconut oil and chocolate.

SUNSCREEN=Cancer.

Sun doesn't cause skin cancer, sunscreens do. My sunscreen? I eat coconut oil and a little dark chocolate everyday. Look it up

I am going to be 53 next week and always laid in the sun or tanning bed. I had surgery on my eyebrow for what turned out to be pre cancer cells...believe me ladies, I wish I would have used the sunscreen instead of cocoa butter and baby oil. I lived in AZ for a couple years, and I'm going back. IF YOU'RE GOING TO LAY IN THE SUN.... PUT ON THE SUN SCREEN !!!!! You STILL TAN !!

Sunscreen is BAD. The chemicals react to to the sun, sink into our bloodstream, and poison us. Yuck! Eating lots of veggies and certain natural products and oils are all you need to protect yourself from the sun.

Justsayin........good stuff. I'll just add:

Margaret Schlumpf and her colleagues (Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Zurich, Switzerland) also found estrogenic sunscreens in the breast milk of mothers at levels of nanograms per kilogram of fat. This is the about same level as other known environmental contaminants such as PCBs. Schlumpf commented that this exposure could be dramatically increased in childhood by the large amount of sunscreen used by bathers, especially children. Her group is following the offspring of 4-MBC exposed rats to see if they develop health problems.

My daughter uses Coppertone Water Babies and Banana Boat Ultra Sunblock spf 30 when she runs out of nail polish remover. Takes that nail polish right off. Mom came down to visit, almost threw it away...didnt believe us when we told her that it works great for removing nail polish...Then she TRIED IT !! I know I feel so much better at the lake after I rub these products on my skin :) These companies contribute greatly to the Skin Cancer Foundation, just so nieve shmucks will believe that the sun is so dangerous and you will die of Melanoma if you dont lather on that Oxybenzone (Chemical known to kill coral, change the sex of fish, and creates false estrogine leading to hormonal imbalance). but, DONT GET YOUR VITAMIN D THROUGH MODERATE UV EXPOSURE (the way God intended)..TAKE SYNTHETIC VITAMINS !!!! How many people are going to wear dark heavy clothing out to the lake and pass out from heat exhaustion ??? COME DRINK THE KOOL AID !!!!!!!!

never do anything in life... u might live forever lol

The Vitamin D from Sunlight is free! Not much else is these dsays. Funny how there is no cancer epidemic in the hotter, poorer parts of India and Africa and South America.

Well, lets see...The center for health and wellnesss says we should get outside and get at least 1 hour of activity every day to prevent becoming sedentary ansd fat..this article says you cant go out in the sun for more than 20 mins 3 times a week and yet another group says spray on tans may cause skin cancer and are generally bad, so thats not an option for nice tan looking skin. So...if i got this right, i should go outside and get exercise for an hour a day, BUT, i should do it at night except for 20 minutes a day 3 times a week, and even than i should wear tons of sunblock at $10 to $30 a tube and i should remain totally pale and pastey white for the rest of my life. Gotcha, makes total sense.?.!.?

Oh, u r so full of sh it!!

Good stuff Erik!

After months of feeling fatigue a blood test revealed I was Vit D deficient (not a surprise in Wisconsin where winters are 6 months of the year). I'm on prescription strength Vit D3 supplement and under orders after May 20 to about Oct 20th (the time the right wave lengths to make Vit D3 hit my area) to be outside without sun screen in a tank top & shorts to make Vit D. Yep dermatologist agreed whole heartedly not a myth for those of us who no longer live in areas where potential for Vit D making are year around - like sunny Florida was.

One of the world's experts in vitamin D research, Dr. Michael Holick, PhD, MD, disputes this article. Getting sun exposure 20 minutes per day, 3 times a week from March thru October is not an "old rule". It's only recently that the medical community has agreed that Americans are deficient in vitamin D, many severely, and that alone promotes development of cancer in a variety of forms as well as osteoporosis, high blood pressure, and heart problems. Oral vitamin D supplements are inferior to that which your body makes from sun exposure, and come with undesirable side effects for some (headaches, incorrect dosing). Why buy vitamin D when your body can make all you need for free? Research has shown that melanoma is far more common in people with little sun exposure than in those with regular, moderate sun exposure. High blood pressure is far more common in people with vitamin D deficiency. Almost every chemical process in your body requires vitamin D. Get some sun... but be reasonable. Too much sun does cause other skin cancers.

Bunch of sun wimps.

You can't go outdoors without protection now? Give me a break. You know, it will come out later in the news that sunscreen itself will cause cancer with all the chemicals it contains.

Bah, I don't think I have much to worry about, living in Oregon. Sun? What sun???

Melanoma shows a strong correlation with vitamin D deficiency and typically starts on sections of skin like the hips or feet that get very little sun exposure.

Go figure.

How much D do you need to avoid deficiency? I don't know, but keep in mind that our ancestors not terribly far back would spend hours in the sun every day with most of their bodies exposed. Odd that they didn't look like lobsters all the time. Might have had something to do with not forcing their bodies to use substandard lipids from industrial vegetable oils in the structure of their skin cells. Those crazy, crazy folks used lard and butter.

is there a study of skin cancer frequency according to hair color? being in the sun makes your hair lighter....maybe blondes have an increase in cancer receptivity.

Minor correction about hands and arms while driving: Your windshield does indeed block ALL UV because it is laminated glass. However the light coming in your side windows still contains UVa as these windows are not laminated glass - just tempered glass. (Likewise roof skylights in your home are laminated glass so they block all UV.)
- a glass guy

In my youth I never used sun screen. Even used tanning beds for a couple of years. Then in my 40's I started getting some skin lesions ... no big deal, the Dernotologist just cut them off and told me to come see her every 6 months. Today, late 50's I have stage 4 metistatic melanoma. I've been in treatment for 4 years, surgery, chemo, the whole mess. Lost my job, total disability ... STAY OUT OF THE SUN! See a Dermotologist regularly ... Don't be an idiot like I was.