Now that summertime has arrived, so too has the annual rite of vacation-plan braggadocio. It\u2019s pretty tame this time around, though. That\u2019s because many of my pals, after decades of overexposure to the sun, are trying not to tan their hides. Well, make that what\u2019s left of their hides after the dermatologist has carved out various and sundry chunks. So maybe this year, Buffalo is a better play than Bali.<\/p>\n
After all, the afterglow of what we used to call a \u201chealthy glow\u201d might not be so healthy after all.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, nobody ever heard of a healthy pallor. <\/p>\n
The sun seems to be cast as both hero and villain. I\u2019ve watched the plot veer back and forth over the decades, so I\u2019ll mention some of the recent action.<\/p>\n
One twist in the plot is that the sun isn\u2019t the only character on the stage. Vitamin D, which is produced by the interaction of sunlight with our skin, is also a major player. And what about sunscreen? We\u2019ll have to look at that, too.<\/p>\n
The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, in May 2017, published a report, \u201cVitamin D Deficiency, Its Role in Health and Disease, and Current Supplementation Recommendations,\u201d authored by Kim M. Pfotenhauer, D.O. and Jay H. Shubrook, D.O. The gist is that Vitamin D is really important for good health. However, 1 billion people are Vitamin D deficient, says the report. \u201cInsufficient sunlight exposure\u201d is listed as one cause for Vitamin D deficiency. <\/p>\n
I first heard about this Vitamin D thing from an old-school doctor a bunch of years ago. He was nobody\u2019s mule; he was very much his own man, and I liked his independence of mind. He said that a lack of Vitamin D increased the risk of certain types of cancer, and he therefore advised taking Vitamin D3 supplements. I suspect that if you went to his office and downed a triple-bacon-cheeseburger, washed it down with a glass of jet fuel (stirred, not shaken), and then fired up a cigar for dessert, the ol\u2019 boy would not bat an eye. Heck, he\u2019d probably dig a Macanudo out of his white coat and join you. But if you shorted yourself on Vitamin D, well, you\u2019d hear about it for sure.<\/p>\n
Well, I was sold, and I became a D-student; \u201cD\u201d for Vitamin D, that is. However, this take is hardly universal. Several items in the health news have recently taken a dim view of vitamin supplements, saying that if you take them you\u2019re just flushing your money down the commode. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the magic lotion that was supposed to keep the sun\u2019s bite at bay might have harbored an unintended consequence. People may have gotten a false sense of security, and, with it, more sun damage that they bargained for. This hinges on a distinction between frequencies in the ultraviolet chunk of the light spectrum. One range of frequencies, called UVB, causes the visible burns and is blocked (at least to a large extent) by sunscreen formulations. <\/p>\n
So, no burn, no problem, right?<\/p>\n
Well, not so fast. There\u2019s another range of frequencies, called UVA, that\u2019s apparently not blocked by all the formulations out there, and which doesn\u2019t cause visible burns, but which has been implicated in skin damage, to include, yes, skin cancer. <\/p>\n
Incidentally, UVA is a longer wavelength than UVB, and, in fact, UVA actually borders the visible end of the spectrum. It penetrates the skin deeper than UVB does.<\/p>\n
The Journal of Investigative Dermatology, October 2003, had a report by Haywood et al, \u201c\u201d\u201dSunscreens Inadequately Protect Against Ultraviolet-A-Induced Free Radicals in Skin.\u201d I\u2019ll admit that high school chemistry did not equip me to understand the entire report, but we did talk about moles a lot, which seems like a good mesh with matters dermatological.<\/p>\n
Anyway, here\u2019s the nut quote: \u201cDespite the extensive use of sunscreens during the last two decades, the incidence of skin cancers is still increasing.\u201d <\/p>\n
So let\u2019s summarize this stuff. Too much sun, we know, can mess up our skin and even trigger cancer. Too little sun, on the other hand, might cheat us out of vital Vitamin D. Vitamin D pills can help plug that gap, unless it\u2019s the case that vitamin supplements don\u2019t do any good, as asserted in some quarters. Meanwhile, sunscreen, long trusted to keep us safe from the sun, could conceivably sucker us into overexposure that harbors invisible (at the time) damage, though specifics on this count will depend on the exact formulation of sunscreen being used.<\/p>\n
Facing all these tradeoffs and contradictory factors, I\u2019ve decided to confront them with a contradictory force of my own. Not to intimidate you with my scientific prowess, but I will simply offset the Avagadro phases by amplifying the interference pattern of their quantum waves. So here\u2019s my plan for the summer: Wherever I decide to go on vacation, I\u2019ll just go somewhere else instead.<\/p>\n
And they say that D-students aren\u2019t bright. Ha!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Now that summertime has arrived, so too has the annual rite of vacation-plan braggadocio. It\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[55,67,12747,12748],"class_list":["post-278630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-health-2","tag-people","tag-uva","tag-uvb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278630\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}