HEALTH
Dr C’s check-up
Recently, Professor Tim Spector was criticised for suggesting a new study proved we don’t need to wear SPF every day. But Dr C says he has a point
Iwith Prof Tim Spector when he was lambasted for saying that we don’t need to wear SPF 50 all year round in the UK. He was saying that vitamin Dhas benefits – which it does –and our diet isn’t always amazing in this country, which it isn’t for a lot of people, so he was making a lot of sense. But as usual people just shouted, rather than listening.
THE ISSUE WITH THIS STUDY
He said a pre-clinical study in mice, which suggested that vitamin Dimproves cancer immunotherapy and anti-tumour immunity was “another reason to stop using SPF 50 all year round”. There are studies in humans which have shown similar –we know that vitamin Dis important to immunity and cancer, but experts dismissed his opinion, because the study was in mice. While you obviously can’t change policy as a result of one study done in mice, outright dismissing those results seems very blinkered.
BE OPEN MINDED
Lots of the people who criticised Prof Spector are specialists in dermatology, while his specialism is genetic epidemiology (the study of the role of genetic factors in determining health and disease), so they’re coming at this issue from different angles, and don’t seem open to listening to each other. Dermatologists will recommend wearing sunscreen all year round, but on a cold, wet, grey day in February, while some of the sun’s radiation will get through, it’s not exactly blasting you to death.
GET VITAMIN D
One scientist said that while sunlight can help our bodies make vitamin D, sun exposure is a risk factor for skin cancer, and as we can also get vitamin Dfrom diet, it’s easy to avert deficiency while minimising harmful exposure to the sun’s rays. Nothing he said was wrong, but it’s not that clear cut. Yes, the ideal diet would give us enough vitamin D, but then there’s what we actually eat. The Association of UK Dieticians say that sunshine –not food –is where most of your vitamin D comes from because your average person doesn’t eat lots of offal, egg yolks and oily fish. The reality is, 15 minutes of gentle morning or early-evening sunlight on your forearms and legs makes much more vitamin Dthan most of us get in food. We also need to bear in mind factors like poverty and time.
LOOK AT YOUR SKIN
Professor Spector has said that the risk of melanoma is largely dependent on genetics. I’m not sure about the word “largely”. It’s true that genetics nearly always play a part in cancer risk, but too much ultraviol
