Fall of the sun king: professor is sacked for saying UV rays can be good f

[JoFerret]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=514712

Fall of the sun king: professor is sacked for saying UV rays can be good for you
By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
24 April 2004


Sunshine is one of our most sought-after natural phenomena. People long for it to appear, strip off in its presence and spend large sums of money to pursue it around the world.

Now a leading professor has been sacked for daring to suggest that the sun has some benefits for health. In a challenge to the dermatologists who view sunshine as an enemy, Michael Holick, a professor of medicine, dermatology and physiology at Boston University Medical Centre, has written a book arguing that sunlight can help prevent cancer and heart disease, strengthen the bones and alleviate depression.

InThe UV Advantage, to be published next month in the United States, Professor Holick recommends people spend a few minutes, two to three times a week depending on skin type, exposed to the sun or lying under a sun lamp without sun cream to ensure they get enough vitamin D.

He says he does not advocate tanning or sun worship but "moderate" exposure, sufficient to gain its benefits. "I am advocating common sense, something often in short supply in America's approach to health," he said. "Our society doesn't seem to believe in a happy medium, only in extremes. The notion that we have to protect ourselves from the sun all the time is misguided and unhealthy."

He cites evidence suggesting that vitamin D has a role in preventing a range of diseases including breast, bowel and prostate cancers, diabetes and multiple sclerosis, and that production of the vitamin is reduced by more than 97 per cent in skin protected by sunscreens. Sunlight is also an effective cure for depression, he says.

But his theories have infuriated his superiors and he has been disowned by the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD). He has been forced to resign from the department of dermatology at Boston University, although he remains head of the bone health care clinic and director of the general clinical research centre.
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[Chicago Democrat]

1. I agree.. Sunshine cures depression.

and living in darkness causes it...

amoung other things, like the destruction of the entire world order by a stupid Texan named Bush.

[LastDemocratInSC]

6. You may be missing an important point

Holick's book is named "The UV Advantage", not "The Sunshine Advantage".

The depression you mentioned is called seasonal affective disorder and is caused by a shift in the levels of hormones that control our sleep / wake cycles. It's also called "holiday blues" or "winter blues". It is brought on by the shorter days and longer nights of winter. Our bodies need exposure to light to keep our biological clocks in rhythm.

While exposure to just about any level of light can help this problem to some extent, most people get relief only after several hours of exposure per day to broad spectrum light at least 10 times as bright as ordinary indoor lighting.

It's a long stretch to say that the increased UV exposure that Holick's book advocates would have an advantage to those with this kind of depression. In fact, the skin cancers that many of these might develop from exposure to more UV might even make them more depressed in the long run.

[frylock]

2. what a great quote..

"I am advocating common sense, something often in short supply in America's approach to health"

[KittyWampus]

3. Yes, It Can't Be Repeated Too Often

and I agree that this obsession with covering up and shunning the suns rays completely is not healthy.

But then, sunblock companies are making a killing.

[sendero]

8. And I agree too...

... I'm so tired of junk recommendations coming from medical research, where pronouncements of what is good for you and not good for you oftens sounds like common sense, but is anything but.

For example, eating cholesterol. Dietary intake of cholesterol is only a small factor in contol of serum levels. But remember back in the late 70s when eating cholesterol was bad, bad, bad?

Bullstuff.

Then there was fat. Oh fat is evil. No wait, it is carbs. Carbs are evil. I'm waiting for some myopic researcher to claim that protein is bad. :)

People have lived with the sun since the dawn of man. Without sunscreen. Nuff said.

[LastDemocratInSC]

10. Shunning the rays doesn't mean you won't get enough UV exposure

Yes, some ultraviolet radiation is needed by our bodies, and if you cover up sufficiently to keep the direct sunlight completely off your skin, you'll still get enough UV from the reflected light outside. Sitting at an umbrella table, or in the shade of a backyard, with no sunlight on your skin, is the healthiest way to get UV. Let the reflected light do it. There's no need to cook your skin with direct sunlight to get the teeny amount of UV your body needs.

Also, any degree of UV exposure is damaging to the retinas of your eyes over time. Every person should wear 100% UV filtering sunglasses when outside. Ask any ophthalmologist about this - they see the damage every day.

I try to keep direct sunlight off my skin at all times. There is no advantage to exposing skin to those hard levels of radiation, and the UV you need is still available in the softer reflected light.

[IMayBeWrongBut]

4. This is getting smacked down as hard as

that "scientific" study that said more data was needed to be sure sunscreen didn't cause cancer.

Wouldn't it be ironic if the acutual cause of the rise in skin cancer cases weren't due to ozone layer depletion, but due to increased usage of Sunscreen.

I'd like to add that I'm not a doctor, and I haven't even talked to one in years, so I'm not a reliable source. :)

[m-jean03]

5. Look no further my friend.

In a 1993 Mother Jones article ("Beach Bummer," May/June), I reported that sunscreen may actuallycontribute to skin cancer. It prolongs people's time in the sun by preventing the only natural melanoma warning system human skin has—sunburn. Berwick didn't go that far, but in noting the mounting evidence against sunscreen, she credited Mother Jones for its reporting.

What's changed in the five years since our report? More studies prove this link, melanoma rates are rising about 6 percent each year, and sunscreen sales are continuing to climb.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/1998/05/wellbeing.html


There are other articles on this too, just do a Google.

edit: btw that "I" doesn't refer to this poster, it is text of the article in the link

[Emillereid]

7. So much for science -- the idea that the sun that we evolved with might

actually have benefits should not be surprising much such a taboo idea that to utter it would be cause for academic removal. Good lord how did all our ancestors ever make it out there naked under the sun! The lack of vitamin D, the kind made via the skin and not the stuff they fortify milk with, is turning up more and more as a factor in cancer development, including skin cancer as well as other diseases. I'll lay money that this fellow will be exonerated by future research -- just like other so called crack pot ideas that later became accepted dogma!

[LastDemocratInSC]

9. Some things for you to consider

The sun provides benefits - no question about that. Where would we be without its energy? But most of what the sun provides is radiation that would kill you in short order if it weren't for our atmosphere and our magnetosphere. So, I guess the question is, did we evolve with, or in spite of the sun?

The earth's magnetic field protects our atmosphere, and the atmosphere absorbs the ultraviolet that the book's author claims we should have more of. Mars has almost no atmosphere despite having enough gravity to hold an atmosphere because it has no magnetic field. The solar wind has stripped away any atmosphere it may have once had. Our magnetic field forces the solar wind away from the central latitudes and toward the poles, so most of our atmosphere is protected. Without our protective ozone layer, which absorbs the UV, we would be toast.

In areas that have very high UV levels, like the southernmost parts of South America, lots of animals develop burns on their corneas, leading to blindness in time. I suppose the UV Doctor would like to run around naked down there for a while?

Basically, ultraviolet light is bad stuff - very bad stuff. We just haven't seen enough of what it can do understand that. If you want to experiment personally, you can buy a germicidal UV lamp at most industrial supply places. These lamps are used in schools and hospitals to kill airborne germs. If you snap one of these lamps into a standard fluorescent fixture and read by its rosy light for a while, you'll learn that the only person who will benefit are your eye doctor and the dermatologist.

[ret5hd]

11. maybe there is more in the full article(i dont feel like clicking), but...

just reading the snip above...

man, he's just saying a few minutes at a time two or three times a week, not sitting under an industrial UV lamp designed to kill germs. Probably mowing your lawn would count as one of those 2 or 3 times.

[ldf]

12. i had come to this opinion all on my own

i never was guilty of getting too much sun, but did try to get sun once a week. tried a tanning bed for a short while.

then stopped. it has been about 8 years now that i have gotten very little sun, and then only in the normal outdoor periods.

i have never had more problems with my skin than since i stopped. now i am so pale that i (to me) look unhealthier than i have ever looked.

we need some sun. if not we would all be albinos living in caves.

just my own take on the issue.

ymmv

[Stuckinthebush]

13. The little skin cancers popping up on my face say otherwise

It took me a long time to realize this, but tan skin is damaged skin.

UV is not healthy.