Sun-basking protects skin from cancer : Study

Basking in the sunlight, previously thought to be the cause of skin diseases and cancer might also help protect against the disease, results of a new study suggest.

Researchers at the Stanford University, California found that basking in sunlight can help in fighting skin diseases and cancer by attracting immune cells to the skin surface.

However, study’s lead researcher, professor of pathology at Stanford University, Eugene Butcher, warns that too much exposure to harmful ultraviolet rays can boost skin cancer risks. The key lies in the amount of ultraviolet B (UVB) light the skin absorbs, just enough to stimulate a healthy, vitamin D-linked immune response in the skin.

“Sunshine is good for you, as long as it’s not too much,” researcher Hekla Sigmundsdottir said.

Vitamin D3, the inactive prohormone naturally generated in the skin by exposure to the sun protects the skin from cellular damage, including damage caused by sunlight itself, suggests the study published on January 28 in Nature Immunology.

Immune cells in the skin known as dendritic cells are responsible for converting the vitamin D3 into its active form on exposure to sunlight. This active hormonal form in turn induces T cells to migrate to the upper skin surface.

On reaching the affected area, these T cells then act as a barrier and shield the affected area. The immune system hormones stand on guard against any infection or cancer, researchers explain.

Commenting upon the scenario, Marianne Berwick, a skin cancer researcher and chief of epidemiology at the University of New Mexico's Cancer Research and Treatment Center said, "I do think that a little bit of sunlight is good for people, but I think that one of the problems that the American Cancer Society and dermatologists have is, how do you define what a little bit is?"

“Sunshine is good for you, as long as it’s not too much,” says team member Hekla Sigmundsdottir

Sitting around half an hour to an hour outside in the sunlight or 400 daily IU’s of vitamin D are enough for a person, U.S. Department of Agriculture's recommends.