Yes, folks, I understand that sunlight can be dangerous. We’ve all had it drummed into our heads that UV radiation can cause melanoma and other skin cancers. But it’s also…
Yes, folks, I understand that sunlight can be dangerous. We’ve all had it drummed into our heads that UV radiation can cause melanoma and other skin cancers.
But it’s also a source of Vitamin D, and it’s a condition that humanity has lived with for — well, all of its existence. Does that make preaching minor exposure to sunlight a firing offense in the science community? Evidently so.
Michael Holick, a dermatologist at Boston University, was recently asked to resign from school’s department of dermatology because of a book in which he describes the importance of sunlight in boosting vitamin D levels and his ties to the indoor tanning industry.
Holick’s book “is an embarrassment for this institution and an embarrassment for him,” department chair Barbara Gilchrest told the Boston Globe. According to the Globe, which first reported the story, Holick was asked to resign from the department of dermatology in February. He has resigned, but continues to teach and to direct the medical center’s vitamin D lab, and has not received a pay cut.
Although the benefits of vitamin D in bone health have been long known, new research is emerging that suggests the fat-soluble vitamin may also help prevent different types of cancer. As a result, Holick argues that moderate amounts of sunlight—the main source of vitamin D—are more beneficial than dangerous, and he recommends that fair-skinned people who live in the Boston latitude spend a few sunblock-free minutes a couple of times per week outside, with their skin exposed. He summarizes his thoughts on the issue in The UV Advantage, scheduled to be released in May.
Or, described in more detail:
In the book, The UV Advantage, to be published next month in the US, 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 sunscreen) to ensure they get enough vitamin D.
He says he does not advocate tanning or sun worship but “moderate” exposure to the Sun sufficient to gain its benefits. “I am advocating common sense, something often in short supply in America’s approach to health. 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.”
And for his sins?
In a statement to The Scientist, Boni E. Elewski, president of the American Academy of Dermatology, argued that even a few minutes of sunlight exposure can be dangerous, and people can get what they need of the vitamin through supplements. “Any group, organization, or individual that disseminates information encouraging exposure to UV radiation, whether natural or artificial, is doing a disservice to the public,” Elewski said.
Even a few minutes? Whether or not Holick has ties to the Indoor Tanning Association, he’s not suggesting everyone sport a “healthy” tan, just that they get a few minutes in the sun a couple of times a week. That the ADA finds this to be dangerous to the point of unacceptability is, itself, illuminating.
[Dr Barbara Gilchrest, chairwoman of the department of dermatology at the university] added: “I would ask anyone to resign his appointment in the department if I felt that person was conducting himself in a way that was professionally irresponsible, potentially dangerous to the public and not conforming to what I think are very high standards for reporting scientific information.”
The AAD said Holick was irresponsible and compared his advice on the benefits of the Sun to suggesting that smoking might be used to combat anxiety.
Which might be true if he were discussing how space aliens and perpetual motion machines would keep sun burns from being dangerous. But Holick has plenty of non-lunatic support:
Some vitamin D experts said that Holick should not have to resign. “If he was fired for his opinion, which is based on science, then it would appear to be a violation of the principles of academic freedom,” James Fleet, who studies nutrition and vitamin D at Purdue University, told The Scientist. Whether small amounts of sunlight can boost vitamin D intake without raising the risk of cancer “is an issue worth debating,” Fleet said.
Reinhold Vieth of the University of Toronto, who has worked with vitamin D since 1974, said that shunning Holick from the department of dermatology represents a “narrow-minded” approach to health. “It’s like a horse with blinkers, and the only thing they see is melanoma,” he told The Scientist.
I’m not trying to downplay the dangers of skin cancer here, given my own family history, but it seems to me that if only a few minutes exposure to sunlight every couple of days is, in fact, of significant danger, we would be seeing skin cancer as the number one killer in America, and folks like Holick would be worthy of firing (not to mention laughingstocks), as opposed to the other way around.
Neil Walker, chairman of the UK Skin Cancer Prevention Working Party and a consultant dermatologist at Churchill Hospital, Oxford, said: “If dermatologists say ‘never go in the sun’ people are going to look at us as idiots.
“We have got to find a way of putting the message across about the most damaging behaviour which is why I tell my patients not to bake or burn. There are lot of people who have this almost religious conviction about the dangers of the sun.
“My view is that we have got to look at things practically.”
How … refreshing.
(via GeekPress)
The county seal of Los Angeles County (my old stomping grounds) is shown to the right. It was designed in 1957 by then County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn.