Alternative Healthy Sunshine

Posted on March 24, 2008
Category: Uncategorized | 10 Comments

Following on the last article here Alternative Cures: Meditation, we’re going to take a short look at an about turn in the fortunes of sunlight and its links to cancer.

In this case, however, you can use the sun not to risk causing skin cancer, but to help you prevent breast and colorectal cancer.

Recent research by the University of California has revealed that something like 350,000 cases of breast cancer and 250,000 cases of colorectal cancer that currently occur worldwide could actually be prevented by people getting more vitamin D.

As we all know vitamin D is produced in the body when exposed to the sun. Now we know that too much exposure to the sun can risk contraction of skin cancer, but in smaller doses it is beneficial.

You actually need a mere 15 minutes of sun exposure a day in order to boost your vitamin D levels enough to help your body ward off these cancers. In winter of course, this is not always something that is uppermost in your mind. But if you can get outside f0r 15 minutes at lunchtime, when the sun is at its strongest (even if it’s behind clouds) , this is enough for most people’s skin to produce a large amount of vitamin D.

That exposure time is much less than it would take for the skin to burn, so the risk of getting skin cancer is almost negligible. Its all about getting the right balance between enough sun exposure to produce sufficient vitamin D to stave off breast and colorectal cancers and avoiding skin cancer.

Terry Didcott
Freelance Writer
Alternative Cures

Comments

10 Responses to “Alternative Healthy Sunshine”

  1. bloggingzoom.com on March 24th, 2008 2:34 pm

    Alternative Healthy Sunshine…

    For years the stark warning has been that too much sun exposure increases your risk of contracting skin cancer. So much so that this advice seems to have eclipsed the fact that we need to get regular sun exposure in order for our skin to produce vitami…

  2. Joyful Digesting on March 24th, 2008 6:28 pm

    Hi there! I just zoomed your post because I completely agree with you, and appreciate you bringing this to people’s attention.

    Now here’s a question I’ve always wondered: in the wintertime, if we do go out at lunch to get our 15 minutes, it’s likely that only our heads (and maybe hands) are exposed to receive sunlight. Is that still going to generate enough Vitamin D?

    PS: If I may make a suggestion for your site, I’d really appreciate a comment subscription button so I could follow along new developments in these posts. Thanks!

  3. alt on March 24th, 2008 6:42 pm

    Hi there, thanks for the comment and I’m happy to get the message out there for anything that helps people stay healthy!

    As for the button, well, you may have noticed this is a pretty low-tech blog template (lol) but there is a well-hidden (not intentionally) RSS section in the sidebar with both a post feed and comment feed text link. I’ll look at updating them to feedburner which offers better graphics!

    Terry

  4. alt on March 24th, 2008 6:47 pm

    Oh, by the way, your question about the 15 minutes of sun…

    I’m not 100% sure on this but I remember being told once that your face does absorb sunlight and convert it into vitamin D better than the rest of your body.

    But as I said, I wouldn’t take that as gospel!

  5. Liudmila on March 28th, 2008 3:45 pm

    Mmmm… where is this sun????? Rain, rain, rain and rain all days for sooo much time!
    My skin is waiting and waiting and waiting this sun…

    By the way, what do you say about washing the face with dew? PLS a good post!

  6. alt on March 29th, 2008 9:13 pm

    I think the sun has migrated to Spain! It’s been very dry here and we actually need some more rain – you must be keeping it all to your selves in Italy!!!

    I’ll see what I can find out for you about dew…

  7. Dew Face Wash | Alternative Cures on April 13th, 2008 10:03 am

    [...] was asked in a comment on the post: Alternative Healthy Sunshine,to come up with a post about the benefits or otherwise of washing your face with dew. That was a [...]

  8. Nick Grimshawe on September 23rd, 2008 6:05 am

    Thanks for clearing up the confusion. I posted a link to an alternative Health site when I first heard this news but I wasn’t sure if we were just jumping from the frying pan to the fire.

    Keeping a balance as you suggest is very wise.

    Nick

  9. tel on September 23rd, 2008 1:15 pm

    Thanks Nick,

    The best alternative health advices all recommend finding a good balance in most things that reinforces the old saying, A little of what you fancy does you good!

  10. Reflexology London on November 8th, 2008 1:46 pm

    This is very true Nick,
    I am a Reflexologist based in London and in the summer my clientele who usually complains of tiredness and unhapiness magically disappears. Sunshine is excellent and i often recommend it :)

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