As I prepare to "get into" cycling, one of my nagging concerns was sun
exposure. For some years now I've bought into the modern conventional
wisdom, which says there's no such thing as good sun exposure. It ages
the skin, it causes skin cancer, etc. This was a special concern to
me, since I had a large mole years ago which was judged to be
pre-cancerous, and the doctors ended up taking a lemon-sized chunk of
tissue out of my chest just to make sure it didn't spread! I never had
any recurrance of the cancer, but I still have this large, ugly, and
sometimes itchy scar to remind me.
So here I am thinking. . . How can I have fun cycling and get
much-needed exercise without exposing myself to bad old Mr. Sun? Do I
wrap up like a mummy? In the Texas summer? Ha! I don't think so.
Then I saw this article:
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050521/D8A7MPFG0.html
Long, great article. Go read it! But here's the short version:
* Many people are defient in vitamin D -- which your skin synthesizes
using the UV rays from sunlight.
* Vitamin D appears to prevent many kinds of cancer.
* The vast majority of skin cancers aren't life-threatening. The kind
that vitamin D prevents are quite serious.
* Melanoma -- the most dangerous form of skin cancer -- can be induced
from repeated sunburns, but there's little evidence to show that normal
sun exposure causes it.
* Vitamin D could prevent up to 30 deaths for each one caused by skin cancer.
Vitamin D is hard to get from food. Supplements are inexpensive and
can be effective (vitamin D3, or cholecalciferol, is best), but you may
have to take four pills a day to get the cancer-preventing benefits.
It's easier to just spend a few minutes in the sun every day, the
synthesis of vitamin D in your skin can occur quite rapidly.
(Apparently supplements should be mainly useful for older persons,
dark-skinned persons, or those who live at high lattitudes, or as a
wintertime boost.) Overdosing on vitamin D is very, very hard to do.
With sun exposure, moderation is the key. Your liver can tolerate a
modest amount of alcohol, and you skin can take a reasonable amount of
sun. Don't use it as an excuse for binging! If you burn, that is too
much.
Now I have another excuse to get out and ride. I'm happy!
--
Tony Belding, Hamilton Texas