If you’re worried about skin cancer, here’s another thing to worry about.
An interesting review of about 41 patients (published in the Archives of Dermatology) trying to ward off a recurrence of basal cell carcinoma, one of the two most common forms of skin cancer, found that (and I’m actually quite surprised to learn that even the men were doing this), in this study at least, a large majority (80%) of those people who had a basal cell skin cancer were actually listening to their doctors and were using sunscreen every day, avoiding sun exposure during peak hours, and wearing appropriate clothing to cover up exposed areas of skin.
That’s the terrific news.
The consequent bad news, however, is that in their understandable zeal to avoid the sun, over half of them ended up with vitamin D deficiency (you get most of your vitamin D, of course, from sun exposure).
Bottom line: if you are fervent about avoiding the sun for whatever reason, then it’s a good idea to take vitamin D supplements.
