We heard it for years, “sunlight causes cancer”.? Well, in an article by William Douglas, MD. In the Fall 2006 edition of Wise Traditions, you learn that this may not be necessarily true.? In fact, two studies in the Journal of National Cancer Institute show that increased sun exposure not only reduces the incidence of one cancer, it increases the survival rate of another.

What is it about sunlight that’s so beneficial? Vitamin D production.

Among whites in the U.S. there is a striking difference in the number of cases of many types of cancer-breast, prostate and colon, for example-between the northern latitudes and the southern latitudes.? The higher the latitude in which you live, the more likely you are to die of cancer.? In other words, New York bad, Birmingham good.? And what’s the major difference between New York and Birmingham?? New York gets a whole lot less sunshine.

What excessive sun exposure does do is cause injury to the inner layer of the skin, the dermis, which in turn, leads to wrinkling of the outer layer, the epidermis.? If you’re thinking that that happens with age (regardless of the sun), you’re right.? But sun exposure can speed up the process, causing the skin to age prematurely and to become loose and leathery.? This is called solar elastosis.

When researchers at the University of New Mexico investigated melanoma, they found a marked decrease in the disease in patients with solar elastosis.? (This information is from one of the two studies talked about in the article.)

I guess this starts to explain why melanomas are usually found on the body, “where the sun doesn’t shine”.????