Wednesday, January 17, 2007

what can I believe now?

Vitamin D research may have doctors prescribing sunshine
The Associated Press

Scientists are excited about a vitamin again. But unlike fads that sizzled and fizzled, the evidence this time is strong and keeps growing.
If it bears out, it will challenge one of medicine's most fundamental beliefs: that people need to coat themselves with sunscreen whenever they're in the sun. Doing that may actually contribute to far more cancer deaths than it prevents, some researchers think.
The vitamin is D, nicknamed the "sunshine vitamin" because the skin makes it from ultraviolet rays. Sunscreen blocks its production, but dermatologists and health agencies have long preached that such lotions are needed to prevent skin cancer.
Now some scientists are questioning that advice.
The reason is that vitamin D increasingly seems important for preventing and even treating many types of cancer. In the last three months alone, four separate studies found it helped protect against lymphoma and cancers of the prostate, lung and, ironically, the skin. The strongest evidence is for colon cancer.
Many people aren't getting enough vitamin D. It's hard to do from food and fortified milk alone, and supplements are problematic.
So the thinking is this: Even if too much sun leads to skin cancer, which is rarely deadly, too little sun may be worse.

This article startles me and makes me doubt absolutely everything that scientist say. No one knows what to believe and it's because scientist know nothing. One day something is bad and the next it's great. I hate being teased around and it seems like that is what they do to us. I'm prepared to just follow my gut instinct and do what I think is right instead of listening to what the 'experts' have to say.

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