Vitamin D may shield skin against cancer

From a long time dermatologists have been talking about the harmful effects of the sunlight on the skin surface but a recent study at Stanford University, California has found that a blast of sunlight can help in fighting skin diseases and cancerdefine by attracting immune cells to the skin surface.

Sunlight is essential for the production of vitamin D in the body which makes skin healthy and do counter affect the danger of skin cancer but on the other side more exposure to sunlight can also aggravate the skin problems.

Marianne Berwick, a skin cancerdefine researcher and chief of epidemiology at the University of New Mexico's Cancer Research and Treatment Center says, "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?"

"How do you tell people that it's OK to have a little bit of sunlight but not too much?" she added.

In the skin immune cells are present known as dendritic cells which are responsible for converting the vitamin D3 into its active form and this active form than in turn makes T cells migrate to the upper skin surface.

These T cells act as a barrier and shields the affected area and once they reach at the desired area these powerful immune systemdefine agents stand on guard against any infection or even cancer, according to the researchers.

The dermatologists do sometimes ask patients to use D3 creams to treat skin disorder such as psoriasis.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's recommendation 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.

So, soaking in the sun for a while everyday will not increase your risk of cancer but it can actually do lot of good say like preserving bone health.