Does Sunlight Really Cause Skin Cancer?
Is the sun toxic?
Where do we get the idea in modern society that the sun is toxic? We can start off with analyzing our modern personal experience with the sun.
Itâs fair to say that most of us are fully aware that being in the sun for too long in the middle of the day can lead to a sunburn. The fact that the sun can burn us, and that this happens with something called radiation, is the first step in the logic associated with the sun being a toxin.
This opens the door for professionals with medical degrees to announce that this is the source of skin cancer and skin damage. But is this a fair conclusion? Is it really radiation in sunlight on itâs own causing skin damage?
Correlation does not equal causation
Our first piece of evidence shows that most (93%) patients with melanoma, the most dangerous type of skin cancer, have a vitamin D deficiency upon initial diagnosis. UV sunlight, which supposedly causes skin cancer, is also responsible for creating vitamin D in our skin with cholesterol. If UV light causes skin cancer, and also is what produces vitamin D, shouldnât the initial diagnosis of skin cancer patients show sky high vitamin D levels? Why doesnât it? Many dermatologists will write this off to the fact that skin cancer patients are told to avoid the sun so they all have low Vitamin D levels. But how can they be purposefully avoiding the sun if they arenât a skin cancer patient yet? This trend occurs in patients upon initial diagnosis, and they didnât know they had skin cancer prior. They didnât know to avoid sun exposure yet.
This also raises the question about why they would tell them to avoid the sun after diagnosis of skin cancer. Lower vitamin D levels are associated with a worse outcome for metastatic melanoma skin cancer. They are also associated with a higher risk of melanoma. How else would we get higher levels of Vitamin D before supplements existed? Food barely contains any. The answer, is UV light.
Ask your dermatologist
Melanoma is the deadliest type of skin cancer. It easily spreads throughout the body, a process called metastasis. Dermatologists point their finger at the sun as the main cause of melanoma, but this is where things get really confusing.
In half of melanoma cases, the melanoma is found on skin that the patient doesnât normally expose to light â areas usually covered by clothes. How could the sun cause melanoma if thereâs a 50/50 chance the melanoma is even on a sun exposed part of your skin?
Ask your dermatologist about this; they donât have an answer. If melanoma is almost always metastatic, in a state of spreading, could this cancer in most cases even be originating in another part of the body? Metastasis seems to occur when cells are searching for UV light, not when they have it. The cancer is likely starting inside the body, coming to the skin to find UV light, and then being incorrectly diagnosed as originating from the skin. Needless to say, based on these results, UV light doesnât seem to cause melanoma on itâs own.
Your cells are equipped with many advanced mechanisms to deal with excess UV damage. Itâs only when you cripple your cells that errors and issues can leak through the security mechanisms.
