Want to raise eyebrows?\u00a0 Try telling people you sunbathe.<\/p>\n
What with fear of skin cancer, the compromised ozone layer, and the premature wrinkling caused by too much exposure, sunbathing has fallen so far out of favor in the last few decades that you might as well admit you chain-smoke unfiltered Camels.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m naturally pale, like Woody Allen, who put it this way: \u201cI don\u2019t tan.\u00a0 I don\u2019t burn.\u00a0 I stroke.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019ve always avoided the sun, especially since I\u2019ve had to get little pre-cancerous bumps removed from my hands and face.<\/p>\n
But then I found out that like many Americans, I was low on vitamin D, which in my case had led to the soft-bone condition known as osteomalacia, or rickets.\u00a0\u00a0 Meanwhile, chronic inflammation had caused me to need a total hip replacement fairly young, and left me with a limited ability to do the weight-bearing exercise that helps protect bones over time.\u00a0 Maybe my slide into osteopenia and osteoporosis was inevitable, but no way did the D deficit help.<\/p>\n
After my hip replacement, the surgeon told me my bones were shockingly mushy, but\u2014get this\u2014didn\u2019t say anything about my needing therapeutic D.\u00a0 Um, I guess he\u2019d never heard of rickets?\u00a0 Just a well-regarded bone guy, after all, and this was way<\/em> back in 1994.<\/p>\n D functions more like a hormone than like a vitamin, and contrary to myth, you may not get enough from drinking milk and walking a block to mail a letter.\u00a0 Vitamin D deficiency puts you at higher risk for certain cancers, multiple sclerosis, hypertension, and various autoimmune diseases including Type I diabetes.\u00a0 Serious stuff.\u00a0 It\u2019s not surprising that sun phobia is promoted by a more than one billion-dollar sun protection industry, but dermatologists?\u00a0 They\u2019re doctors, right?<\/p>\n At my endocrinologist\u2019s recommendation, I not only pop therapeutic doses of D twice daily, but also make a point of having brief sun sessions without<\/em> sunscreen (covering up my already-overexposed face and hands with hat and sun gloves).\u00a0 No one seems to know for sure whether ingesting D in pill form is as good as manufacturing it yourself via sun exposure, so I\u2019m covering all my bases.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve explained my situation to my dermatologist, who checks me every six months and has given me the green light on sunbathing.\u00a0 She figures that since I\u2019ve never had a sunning habit before, the skin I\u2019m exposing has heretofore been largely undamaged, and that my bone health is the major issue.\u00a0 And the fact is, the most deadly forms of skin cancer generally either appear in non<\/em>-sun-exposed areas (e.g., between the toes), or result from severe sunburns in childhood (i.e., the damage is already done).<\/p>\n Random thought: are the dermatologists, endocrinologists and orthopedists planning to collaborate on this issue any time soon?<\/p>\n As for me, my D levels are now good, my immune system seems stronger than ever, and I\u2019m preserving what bone I\u2019ve got.\u00a0 Sunbathing feels great, too.<\/p>\n Oh, and did I mention I\u2019ve got a tan for the first time in my life?\u00a0 Medicinal purposes only, you understand.<\/p>\n Published in Piedmont Post<\/em> August 19, 2009<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Want to raise eyebrows?\u00a0 Try telling people you sunbathe. What with fear of skin cancer, the compromised ozone layer, and the premature wrinkling caused by too much exposure, sunbathing has fallen so far out of favor in the last few decades that you might as well admit you chain-smoke unfiltered Camels. I\u2019m naturally pale, like…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[51,52,53],"yoast_head":"\n