For safety's sake, pop a pill

Sunbathing to get more vitamin D is like taking up smoking to lose weight, a Boston dermatologist warns.

"You can get all the good stuff with a vitamin pill - you do not have to put yourself at increased risk of skin cancer and photo-ageing," Dr Barbara A. Gilchrest, of Boston University School of Medicine and co-author of a review on vitamin D requirements and UV radiation, said.

The public was getting a mixed message on sun and health, she said, because advocates of increased UV exposure, like the indoor tanning industry, were advocating sunbathing for getting more vitamin D for everyone, including young light-skinned people who face the greatest skin cancer risk - and who were among the least likely to have vitamin D deficiency.

"This 'controversy' about whether people should get more UV - that's not coming from the science community, it's coming from other places," she said.

"The public message has gotten very mixed up."

New research had indeed shown that some groups of people who may get little sun exposure and don't drink much milk - for example frail elderly individuals at risk of bone fractures - would benefit from getting more vitamin D than is recommended by the US Department of Agriculture, Dr Gilchrest and her colleague Dr Deon Wolpowitz noted in their report.

There was also evidence that people with dark skin and those who lived in northern climes might be deficient in the vitamin, which is essential for bone health. But such deficiencies could always be handled with oral supplementation, Dr Gilchrest said.

Dr Gilchrest advised people who were worried about not getting enough vitamin D to take a vitamin pill - or two.

"Vitamin D is very safe to take in the form of oral supplements," she said.

- REUTERS