Everyone has heard about the positive health benefits of vitamin D—however, most people aren’t able to reconcile the idea that exposing themselves to the sun is good for them with the knowledge that increased sun exposure can cause skin cancer. Unfortunately, that mindset may be depriving people of protection from a range of diseases, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“The risk of skin cancer is there, but the health benefits obtained from modest sun exposure is far larger than that risk,” says Johan Moan, a researcher at the Institute for Cancer Research in Oslo and leader of the study. “This is because modest sun exposure provides enormous vitamin D benefits.”
While certain foods contain vitamin D, the body's main source of the vitamin is derived from the sun. The researchers calculated that, given the same amount of time spent outside, people living just below the equator in Australia produced 3.4 times more vitamin D than people in Britain and 4.8 times more than Scandinavians.
This means that even though rates of internal cancers such as colon cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer and prostate cancer rise from north to south, people in sunnier latitudes were less likely to die from the diseases, the researchers said.
Getting more vitamin D—which helps the body's immune system work properly—also is critical for people living in places where long winters and short days during the year limit sun exposure, Moan adds.
In Norway, Moan estimated that doubling the sun exposure for the general population would also double the number of annual skin cancer deaths to about 300—however, 3,000 fewer people would die from other cancers overall.
“The benefits could be significant for people in other countries as well,” he says.
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