Sun Shouldn't Be At Blame For Skin Cancer

cstanton — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:17:00 GMT

Since I was just a little tike, I've always been prone to sunburn. My ethnicity is Scotch-Irish and Polish, so as you can imagine, I look like Casper if I don't get out in the sun. I recall a time, when I was much younger, that I had gotten burned so badly that I had blisters nearly an inch high off of my shoulders and my doctor told me that I should not have my shirt off outside for six months. Despite this awful burn, my self-destructive nature allows me to throw caution to the wind and disregard sunblock purely for laziness' sake and the fact that my arms aren't long enough to reach the middle of my back.

This really doesn't have much to do with anything, but I was walking with an old friend the other day after spending some time at the pool getting burned. I had made some remark about how I was going to get skin cancer if I kept it up, and he replied "As long as you don't use sunblock, you'll be fine." My immediate reaction was to laugh awkwardly, though it really wasn't funny or anything, because this guy says a lot of off-the-wall things. I asked him what he meant and he replied, "Sunblock gives you cancer." I decided that I would do a little research into this and see what he meant, and I found a few things out.

Within 30 minutes I had found three pretty good reasons why the sun itself should not be at blame for skin cancer.

The sun allows for the production of Vitamin D. Without it, we have very few ways of consuming vitamin D as it is in very few of the things that we eat. Sunlight is necessary for the production of Vitamin D even in our foodstuffs as the things that we ingest that contain it used to live and produced it with the help of UV light somewhere back along the line. Vitamin D also promotes phagocytosis (which is used by some cells to acquire nutrients and is used to clear solid particles from the blood stream and anywhere else) and helps prevent tumors, which is a symptom of skin cancer. If people constantly wear sunblock and prevent the UV rays from promoting the production of Vitamin D, then a person could not manage to be healthy.
One of the main commonalities of skin cancer patients is that their Omega 6:3 ratio is out of whack. Humans are ideally supposed to eat a 1:1 ratio of Omega 6 and Omega 3 fatty acids. Since the production of processed vegetables has increased and become more and more a part of our diets, people generally tend to eat much more Omega 6 fatty acids than Omega 3s. This is not to say that having a perfectly balanced ratio will completely 100% prevent you from getting skin cancer but it will definitely help based on studies. So, go out and get some fish oil.
Believe it or not, most sunblocks have PABA, or para-amino benzoic acid, which has been deemed by the FDA, a carcinogen. The very thing that is supposed to prevent skin cancer is actually a carcinogen? I know that you can get PABA-free sunblock, but if there are other chemical compounds in there then you really can't trust those either, as PABA was once considered "safe" according to the FDA. I don't personally use sunblock ever, but It would probably be a good idea to go out and get a chemical-free sunblock from an organics store.

All in all, what I would like to say, is that the sun isn't what gives you cancer but burning in it may increase your risks. Everything in moderation :)

The Loris Bite : sunscreen, skin cancer

Sun Shouldn't Be At Blame For Skin Cancer