Aging Liberates

Passing lately a hair salon at a local plaza I noticed a poster of young woman with beads in her hair. The advertisement said ‘hair bling’. 

‘Rubbish!’ – was my immediate reaction but then I checked myself. ‘Maybe it is not attractive for me now, but 30 years ago I might’ve jumped on the opportunity of having something like this on my head.‘

Is this a sign that I do not care how I look anymore?

In one smart and insightful article about aging the author made her point that aging liberates - men do not notice you anymore, so why bother (dying your hair or wearing heels).

With this for some reasons I could not agree.



Old Woman by Guido Reni



I think, I never looked at my femininity as a burden.

Since early teens it was a big part of my stride towards becoming the best person I could be. Looking good was not about pretense – rather about self-expression and certain bravado. 

In my prime femininity was my closest friend, bold and challenging at times, but also deeply rewarding. Perhaps that is why I feel no need to be liberated from it now in my late 50s.

Why should I relax or change direction if I am not tired living my life?

I also doubt that people ignore older women entirely. I think, they still notice us, just for different reasons - for our approval, or expertise for example.

It is quite interesting though, that a man can be bald or hairy, neat or totally unkempt and still be considered smart or important. With us women this evaluation is much more connected to the way we look.

A well-groomed and nicely dressed woman is often perceived also as  more competent. This effect was recently tested by giving the group of people pictures of the same women with and without makeup and asking them to indicate those who seemed smart.  The major conclusion was – those with reasonable makeup – i.e., who looked good.

I guess, by making an effort to look nice we send a message that we care about people around us, their opinions and what they are comfortable with. We let them know that they are important to us, as well as the particular occasion.

We also somehow expect an older lady who took time to make a hairdo and touch her lips with a hint of lipstick to be in a good mood.  I am not sure how it works, but a smile and even the anticipation of a smile makes us feel better.

So when we get older it is not that we should abandon an effort – just gradually change means.  

And on another note:

Several years ago the grandmother of my then son-in-law  came to our parts for a visit. She was in her 80s, recently diagnosed with advanced stage of cancer, and decided to see her grandchildren for the last time. Her life, as I heard, was no picnic - a working-class wife and mother who had survived Depression and war. She lost to cancer first – her husband, then - one after another - both of her daughters.

I expected to see a woman in deep despair, a human wreck.   Instead on my porch arrived a nice little lady with silver curls and French manicure. She enthusiastically tried a glass of wine and strong Turkish-style coffee my husband made for her. She also looked genuinely interested in our exotic stories about life in former USSR.

She died several months later, and many things happened since then. I think though, that her visit taught me a lesson on not just how to live but how to go.

It is quite possible that when we make an effort to the end, we actually extend our life through people's memory. Even - of distant people.

They may think about us years after with respect, gratitude or just with a smile.

Indian Food

With people I know it is like this: one either likes Indian food right away or hates it forever!

Heading for India we were set on trying new things. It made us easy to go from ‘Oh, this is so... different’ to ‘We definitely like it’, and then - to ‘We like it a lot!’

I mean traditional Indian food, full of flavors, spicy and completely vegetarian.

My first introduction to it happened in the middle of the night in the Delhi airport, while waiting 6 long hours for our flight to Chennai.

At a pretty ordinary food stand I bought a cup of coffee with a pretty ordinary-looking pastry named ‘Samosa’. The first bite surprised me though.

‘Why is this stuff so hot? It seems unsuitable with sweet coffee’   

But after a while I forgot about spiciness and started enjoying the yummy factor. Strangely enough through all those exotic flavors I recognized bold and earthy taste of my grandma’s beef-and-potato stew. Was it caramelized onion, or beans in this pastry? I could not tell. My grandma’s stew was never vegetarian, and yet…

Learned that we liked Indian food our hosts In Chennai, where we provided seminars, started enthusiastically introducing us to it.  In the morning they offered us a really strong coffee or black tea with milk and some fragrant seeds. At first we stuck to our habits and asked for these drinks to be straight. But often we forgot to make the requests and then we just had it Indian way.

There is something special about Indian milk and cheese. Those skin-and-bones extraordinary peaceful cows that walk and lay freely in the middle of any mad urban traffic (and all the traffic in India is mad!) apparently do a very good job.

 Maybe it is a trade-off:

‘You do not eat me, and I give you a really good milk of a free-roaming, naturally fit and content creature’.  

Every lunch in India was a feast of great variety. Because the rule was followed in so many different places, not only in hotels and restaurants, but also in small offices and at huge manufacturing plants, I dare to assume that hospitality was only part of the equation; another part of it was table tradition. Lunch in India is important and good variety of dishes is expected.

Another pleasant surprise of the vegetarian - Indian style, was the feeling of satiety that usually came pretty quickly and then lasted for hours without fail. It was quite sudden, like ‘yes, I had enough’, but without a brick feeling in your stomach that is almost an eminent companion at our ‘western’ parties. Where this signal of ‘enough’ comes from at Indian meals I do not know, but it always seemed to be more of emotional rather than of physical nature.  

Every meal in India includes sweets. They do not make any break between non-sweet and sweet food, just follow one with another. Indians believe that sweets aid digestion and I shared this belief with enthusiasm.  Desserts are usually small and often honey-based.

One sweet thing called Jalebi felt like kids’ ultimate dream and had been confirmed as such by our partner in Delhi – the burly man with thick mustache. We tried it in a street eatery at the Delhi bazar.

It was a nice, breezy evening. Amazingly bright fabrics in garland-illuminated stores, and crowds of people around proved of perpetual festival.

The lace-like Jalebi came straight from iron grill; it was sizzling hot, crisp on the outside with honey liquid inside.

And yes, I could not resist another one.

Indians seem to give digestion a very thorough attention. For this purpose they like to end every meal with plain yogurt. I also often saw the sets of small boxes with various seeds in them, which people would approach after breakfast or lunch and partake liberally. These seeds were to assist digestion and to make breathe fragrant. One of the seeds I recognized – it was fennel.

Another interesting digestion/breathe remedy was a minty leaf smeared with honey and spices,  and some seeds wrapped in it. You were supposed to chew it like a gum for about 30 min. rather than eat it right away. They also clean your teeth. 

Raw food was present on many occasions but I dared not to try it particularly warned against anything uncooked in India. Even locals did not encourage us to eat raw.

 ‘You have different immune system’ they said.

It looked very good though. I gazed with envy at the sprouted beans and cabbage salad, which my husband tried without hesitation. He said it was spicy (and he was completely OK afterwards).

In the very nice hotel in Bangalore I tried passion fruit and Indian melon.

To the end of our trip I was ready to go back to our usual food and was glad when on Delta flight Amsterdam – Detroit dinner came completely ‘European’. 

But in 2 weeks afterwards I started missing Indian and looking on the Internet for a restaurant in the area.    

The Flattering Power of Sari

At 2:00 a.m. in the Delhi airport, India I saw more sequence and glitter than in my entire life.

With my husband we had just arrived in India for business and were awaiting our first domestic flight to Chennai. I was trying to get some sleep on the side of the  bench surrounding  octagonal pillar; my head was close to a turban of a tiny old man, my feet - to a family of three (they were using their side of the bench in turn). 

Women in saris were coming and going – old and young, slim and not.  I was practically screaming ‘look at this!’ at every passing gown. There was not even one sari that I liked less - each and every of them looked amazing!

My husband completely agreed with me on that.

The vibrancy of colors, often calculatedly matching, but also in bold combinations (for example, a yellow blouse,  dark blue sari with magenta-and-gold  borders) and large number of bracelets, anklets and necklaces made me think that we had arrived at the advent of a major national holiday.

But I was wrong. This was totally casual attire of an Indian woman.

Later I saw ladies in sari in offices and café', on motorcycles (behind the driver, or as a driver) looking very comfortable and at ease in their elaborate gowns and jewelry.  Not just a few women, but most of them. It was an apparent dress code.

Now I had a chance to look closely and here are my findings:

Sari is the most strategic and universally flattering gown in the world. The young proportionate woman looks a goddess in it. But all the rest of us – short, heavy, bowlegged – somehow appear very dignified (and pretty too).

The reason, besides glitter, is a variety of strategic folds and angles at which  fabric is draped.

Two embellished borders of a sari cross the body in front: the inner border comes across the chest; it accents the X shape and makes  shoulder line stronger and wider thus giving the figure better proportion. The outside border starts in front  below the hip. This one crosses the entire body at a long diagonal, visually slimming it and making legs look longer. Not too bad, a?

Then, there is a folding gathered at the waist and strategically positioned slightly off-center. This folding keeps  fabric at the woman’s tummy perfectly loose, making the entire ‘tummy issue’ irrelevant.

There are no protruding female tummies in India!

It made me wonder of the advantages of growing up and never giving yourself a judging side-ways look into the mirror followed by sucking your stomach up hard, and then, as long as you can manage without breathing, watching it perfectly flat, hoping it stayed that way…

Apparently Indian teenagers are free from such experiences; their mothers and grandmothers – as well.

And I am not finished with the folding yet. When a woman moves folded fabric precedes her every step framing her foot like a long conical bell or fan. The leg underneath seems endless and its movement – regal. No wonder, high heels are not popular in India. Who needs them when such gracefulness can be achieved in flip-flops!

I could not help myself comparing the flattering power of sari to our western clothes and must admit that we are at disadvantage here. If I can trust my travel observations few women look good in  business suit. It makes us bulky on the top and shows no mercy to our ‘normal’ bottoms by exposing imperfect width or shape of our hips, those treacherously protruding stomachs and true length (or should I say, shortness) of our legs. We try to compensate for all this cruelty by good,  expensive fabrics and muted 'earthy' colors.

But next to a woman in sari we look like little grey hens near a peacock.

During our visit to a construction company in Delhi, my husband and I passed a young female worker carrying a cement block on her head. She was wearing a cotton gauze green-and-indigo sari smartly tacked for convenience.

-  Look at this gorgeous thing - I said to my husband, - I would've loved to have it for a very special occasion!

-  What, a cement block?

American Food Quiz

At the MSN site - my designated source of news, I’ve run into this title: ‘Traditional American food quiz’.

It looked really exciting to learn more about authentic American food: the old-fashioned and simple recipes of pioneers, frontiers, cowboys and Indians. Those daring and zesty people had formed close and powerful relations with nature and for sure knew a thing or two about healthy natural food. 

I was imagining something like this



The starting question in the quiz was a surprise:

-          Who first served burgers?

Overcoming my disappointment I clicked ‘McDonalds. It was the wrong answer. The right one was - ‘White Castle’.

I kind of got the idea that the quiz was not exactly what I expected but rather about processed food, so I frowned and checked the next question right. This one was ‘how much French fries are consumed in the US per year’. I just went with the most outrageous number (2 bill.) which appeared to be correct.

Inspired by the hint I hit the next question correctly too. It inquired about the kind of cheese that is put on top of cheesesteaks. Out of several options I’ve selected the most mysterious (at least for me) – ‘Cheese Whiz’.

Having a strong suspicion that it was not even cheese but rather a so-called ‘cheese product’ I checked it in Wikipedia. My suspicion was confirmed.

It made me wonder why linoleum is not called  ‘oil product’ – one of its components (according to abovementioned Wikipedia) is linseed oil.

Next several questions I missed.

I did not know that Buffalo wings should be served with blue cheese dressing and that Coca Cola had been invented in Georgia.  And out of complete frustration I checked the wrong answer to traditional Texan barbeque (I knew, it was beef! Like in the movie ‘Giant’ with Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean)

Anyway, my quiz summary was:

-          4 correct answers – Just visiting?

I liked the joke.

But with the final statement in the quiz I agreed wholeheartedly and therefore decided to copy it here:

‘The origins of American cuisine are rich and varied.’

I wished though, that   publications about real (not commercial) American food were more around.



My Anti-Bucket List

For  the last several years I have been collecting information on foods with reported anti-cancer properties, especially those that are recommended against breast cancer - i.e., my personal anti-bucket list.

To have this information at hand when needed, I printed the list out and pinned it by my working desk. From time to time I browse it through to refresh my memory and to see if some of the items are lacking in my diet. When additional useful information arrives I add it to the list and reprint it.

I do realize that anti-cancer properties of certain foods can be overestimated or simply not true. Still, they may as well work and definitely will not harm anyone.

Therefore, I am sharing this list below:

1. Brassica vegetables (regulate cell growth rates, and help to change a strong and inflammatory form of estrogen (estradiol) into a safer, less aggressive form (estrone); also an antioxidant),  including:
1. Broccoli sprouts
2. Broccoli
3. Radish
4. Cabbage
5. Brussels sprouts
6. Kale,
7. Mustard greens
8. Tofu 
2. Turmeric, ginger (suppress inflammation) - 1tsp dried spice daily
3. 1%-2% organic hormone free milk (not fat-free!)
4. Kefir and other fermented milk products
5. Omega 3 fatty acids in:
1. Fatty fish –

                       i.      Salmon

                       ii.      Tuna

                       iii.      Whitefish

                       iv.      Anchovies

                       v.      Mackerel  

2. Sea vegetables
3. Walnuts  
4. Eggs
5. Olive oil
5. Lentils and other legumes   (contains Folic acid - 600 mcg or more of folic acid a day)
6. Maitake mushrooms
7. Tomatoes (Licopene)
8. Flaxseeds
9. Antioxidant and detox properties in:
1. Green and white tea (Caffeinated brands have twice as much potency as decaffeinated)
2. Garlic
3. Onions 
4. Dark chocolate
5. Citrus, peel and white membrane of oranges
6. Cranberries
7. Apples
8. Grapes (Concord)
9. Dark cherries
10. Blueberries  
10. Coffee – for Women with BRCA1 gene mutations

Eventually as you can see, the list became quite long.

It made me think that I can live entirely on these foods feeling deprived of nothing. Besides, practically every item on this list is not just a single-benefit provider, but rather a multitasker targeting also other types of cancer, arthritis, digestive problems, immune deficiency and such.

This ability of a single common produce to tackle several scary conditions is still not rivaled by modern medicine.

My doctors once assured me that drug Tamoxifen was very good because it could reduce the risk of breast cancer up to 40%. 

Meanwhile  the research from Michigan State University in East Lansing found that those who ate raw or lightly cooked cabbage and sauerkraut more than three times a week were 72 percent less likely to develop breast cancer than those who had 1.5 or fewer servings. Now, add to the plate some salmon with beans and onions on the side...As for dessert, chocolate, anyone? 

A dinner like that can beat Tamoxifen down any day.

And NO SIDE EFFECTS, mind you!

Protector or…Perpetrator?

... Or, as my friend put it:

"To sunscreen, or not to sunscreen....that is the question."

While persuasions on using sunscreen are getting more persistent than ever, there is a new (though not surprising) evidence that one of the possible culprits in skin cancers can be the sunscreen itself.

Numerous recent epidemiological studies indicate an increased risk of malignant melanoma for the sunscreen users. For example:

Worldwide, the countries where chemical sunscreens have been recommended and adopted have experienced the greatest rise in cutaneous malignant melanoma, with a contemporaneous rise in death rates.

In the United States, Canada, Australia, and the Scandinavian countries, melanoma rates have risen steeply in recent decades, with the greatest increase occurring after the introduction of sunscreens. Death rates in the United States from melanoma doubled in women and tripled in men between the 1950s and the 1990s.

The rise in melanoma has been unusually steep in Queensland, Australia, where sunscreens were earliest and most strongly promoted by the medical community. Queensland now has the highest incidence rate of melanoma in the world. In contrast, the rise in melanoma rates was notably delayed elsewhere in Australia, where sunscreens were not promoted until more recently.

'Could sunscreens increase melanoma risk?' by Garland C, Garland F, Gorham E (04/01/1992).. Am J Public Health 82 (4): 614–5.

Look, what I've found:
nail sunscreen!

In a new population-based, matched, case-control study from southern Sweden (of all places! How much sun do they have really?) of 571 patients with a first diagnosis of cutaneous malignant melanoma, between 1995 and 1997, and 913 healthy controls aged 16 to 80 years, the association between sunscreen use and malignant melanoma was evaluated as follows:

The median sun protection factor (SPF) used by both cases and controls was 6, range 2 to 25. Sunscreen users reported greater sun exposure than non-users. Persons who used sunscreens did not have a decreased risk of malignant melanoma. Instead, a significantly elevated odds ratio (OR) for developing malignant melanoma after regular sunscreen use was found, adjusted for history of sunburns, hair color, frequency of sunbathing during the summer, and duration of each sunbathing occasion [OR = 1.8, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.1-2.9].

'Sunscreen use and malignant melanoma', by Westerdahl J; Ingvar C; Masback A; Olsson H (2000). International journal of cancer. Journal international du cancer 87: 145–50.

There are even stronger opinions regarding sunscreen impact on our health:

The scientific evidence… shows quite clearly that sunscreen actually promotes cancer by blocking the body's absorption of ultraviolet radiation, which produces vitamin D in the skin. Vitamin D, as recent studies have shown, prevents up to 77 of ALL cancers in women (breast cancer, colon cancer, cervical cancer, lung cancer, brain tumors, multiple myeloma... you name it). Meanwhile, the toxic chemical ingredients used in most sunscreen products are actually carcinogenic and have never been safety tested or safety approved by the FDA. They get absorbed right through the skin (a porous organ that absorbs most substances it comes into contact with) and enter the bloodstream.

Proponents say sunscreen prevents sunburn, but in fact, the real cause of sunburn is not merely UV exposure: It is a lack of antioxidant nutrition. Start eating lots of berries and microalgae (spirulina, astaxanthin, blue-green algae, etc.), and you'll build up an internal sunscreen that will protect your skin from sunburn from the inside out. Sunburn is actually caused by nutritional deficiencies that leave the skin vulnerable to DNA mutations from radiation, but if you boost your nutrition and protect your nervous system with plant-based nutrients, you'll be naturally resistant to sunburn.

'The sunscreen myth: How sunscreen products actually promote cancer', by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews

http://www.naturalnews.com/021903.html

While this discussion is only starting, the majority of people  are following the recommendations of American Society for Dermatologic Surgery (see 'Under the Sun') without questioning.

The American Academy of Dermatology recommends now broad-spectrum, water-resistant sunscreens with an SPF of at least 30. Doctors stress the importance of using plenty of sunscreen -- a golf ball-sized full ounce of sunscreen for a normal size adult body, reapplied every two hours.

http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/news/20110614/new-sunscreen-rules-from-fda?page=2

However, we put on our bodies not only sunscreen. Every year more and more cosmetic products are used. A single jar of face cream is no longer enough: we apply one cream at night, another – at daytime (with sunscreen in it!); special cream - for the eye area; also serum and cleanser.

Only two decades ago, my mom’s beauty regiment was very different. It included water, soap and … nothing much else. Every now and then she would buy a new face cream, something honey-based, according to the label. After the first enthusiastic application she would place the jar into the fridge following a girlfriend’s advice and… forget it there.

In three months the cream usually became either rancid, or dried up. And after my complaints on its unsightly view, it ended up on my mothers’ shoes, of which she took a really great care.

By the way, till her last days my mother had beautiful clean skin with natural glow and not so many wrinkles. 

Today women start following beauty tips early in life, when we all try to look like girls on glossy pages. At this age cancers seem distant and irrelevant. Eventually we end up with all this ‘stuff’…

How many harmful chemicals do we absorb during our lifetime?

I stopped using sunscreens years ago, with no scientific data available to back my decision. As on several other issues I refused to follow the superficial trend, implying that the major source of life on earth is our enemy. I also relied on experience of past generations when sunburns were totally common, but skin cancer - unheard of. Those people, of course, led cleaner and simpler lives, while we ‘cannot afford it’ anymore.

But the choice is always with us: to continue our affordable chemicals-saturated existence and eventually become at war with sun, water, air, blooming plants, and food, or to clean our act and start living in harmony with nature, as it was intended.

As to the protection against excessive sun exposure, the research from Dr. Ronald Watson at the University of Arizona confirms that the antioxidants in red, yellow and orange foods build up under the skin creating extra UV protection.

"The effect is so strong that eating six portions a day for about two months will build a natural barrier equivalent to a factor four sunscreen".

Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_headline=yourlife--10-foods-you-must-eat-to-fight-wrinkles-&method=full&objectid=17923641&siteid=115875-name_page.html#ixzz10Y86F3EF

From my own humble experience, since I started eating more fruits and vegetables and by increasing summer sun exposure gradually, my skin tans visibly easier and never burns.

One-Ingredient Banana Ice Cream

The following string I received from my step-daughter couple of days ago. It shows how to make the banana ice cream in a blender out of 1 (?!) ingredient – banana:

http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/tips-techniques/stepbystep-instructions-for-oneingredient-ice-cream-097170

We made it yesterday – on the record-hot day in Michigan; just followed the instructions. It was so good that we had no time to make a picture of it.

Well, I swear, it looked just as on the pictures provided in the recipe.

Anyway, it was too hot for photo-sessions.

We used our old blender, because my husband was concerned about possible scratches to our precious Vitamix.  I took 2 good-looking bananas (not overripe); had been thinking of adding honey or agave, but decided not to, and it was a really smart decision – the ice cream came out very sweet.

It also was creamy and felt ‘fattening’, though there is no fat in bananas, at least, not to my knowledge.  

The only recommendation – keep the working blender open and scrapе frozen banana from the sides to center (be careful not to touch working blades, though!). 

It became ready pretty fast - in 5 min, or so.  

I sprinkled mine with walnuts. My husband ate it ‘as is’.

We really liked it.

Enjoy!

Under the Sun

On a gentle Michigan June morning I met a young family of four from Israel. We were planning a walk around the neighborhood. So, the mother covered her two adorable fair kindergarteners head-to-toe and warned them to stay in shade at all times.

On my surprise to such excessive caution, It was explained to me that the young woman had skin tumor removed several years ago. Luckily it was not malignant!

Since then they  bought a personal radiometer and have been checking solar activity every day:

-          ‘Many people in Israel - do.’

…At the side of our health club’s outdoor pool I saw another mother with her long-legged teenage daughter.  Both had naturally dark flawless complexion. As soon as the girl was out of the water, mom abundantly smeared sunscreen over her daughter's shoulders. 



These two women were apparently well-informed of the current recommendations by the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery:

-          Avoid peak sun hours. The rays are strongest between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., so staying indoors during these times is the best protection.

-          Wear the right sunscreen every day. Use products labeled for broad-spectrum protection -- to help block ultraviolet A (UVA) and ultraviolet B (UVB) rays -- and with a minimum sun protection factor (SPF) of 30. Slather on sunscreen about 20 minutes before going in the sun, using about an ounce (the size of a shot glass) to cover your entire body. Reapply every two to three hours spent outdoors. Also, use lip balm with an SPF rating.

-          Wear the right clothing. A typical cotton T-shirt offers protection equivalent to only SPF 6, far below the commonly recommended minimum of SPF 15. Wear clothing with a thicker weave or apply sunscreen under a thin, porous shirt. In addition, a hat with a full, wide brim gives added protection to the face, neck and scalp, and sunglasses help protect the eyes from damage.

-          Ignore skin type and base tans. Everyone can burn, regardless of skin pigmentation and even if already tanned. Sunscreen and clothing, not skin color, offer the best protection.

-          Sunscreen, in fact, should be worn regardless of what you're doing while outside, including swimming. Water doesn't protect against the sun's rays, so sunscreen and, if possible, a sun-protective bathing suit are recommended.

http://health.msn.com/health-topics/skin-and-hair/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100235055

From reading these recommendations I've got an impression that sun was not the major source of our well-being for millions of years, but rather an alien monster suddenly preyed on humanity from a foreign universe. 

And, by the way, has anyone heard about skin cancer among any other living creatures?

It seems like we had again   fallen victims of misinterpreted statistics. As with many other health issues, with regard to negative impacts of sun exposure, the symptoms and causes are probably confused and on these shaky grounds excessive precautions are established.

Apparently (and again, according to stats!) they do not work:

While we cover-up more painstakingly and do not leave our houses without thick layers of sun block, skin cancers are steadily on the rise. They became 'younger', impair body parts  never exposed to direct sunlight and happen to people of various skin shades that, according to the laws of physics, process sunlight differently.

The testimonials are all over the Internet:

‘After being diagnosed with melanoma this summer (at 25), I did some research into skin cancers, and their incidence are on the rise, even among my age group.’

Kelli Black, California, USA

‘I have suffered from a melanoma on the instep of my foot. How can the sun have caused this? My consultant said that melanomas can occur in the mouth, inside the ear etc. Do we really know for sure that the sun does indeed cause melanomas, and not just basal cell carcinomas which are not so deadly?’

Jenny Adams, England

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3142386.stm

Rare voices of reason can be heard today regarding our relations with solar radiation. These voices are timid and uncertain:

‘[Sunscreen] blocks out harmful Ultra violet rays from the skin…; however it can also block your ability to produce vitamin D. If you live in a northerly area or one that receives limited sunlight, it is recommended to get at least 15 minutes of sun a day (this is probably best done with minimal sunblock) and according to personal sun sensitivity.‘

http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Sun+lotion

‘Using newly available data on worldwide cancer incidence, researchers at the Moores Cancer Center at University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine have shown a clear association between deficiency in exposure to sunlight, specifically ultraviolet B (UVB), and breast cancer.’

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080515174000.htm

Thereby, we must avoid sun exposure to protect skin from cancers and, at the same time, we need more sun exposure - to beat  other cancers.

Isn't it a paradox? Wouldn't it be sensible to suppose, that sun has little to do with skin cancers? Can the causes of skin cancers (just as of other cancers) be rooted in our civilized environment, in unwholesome things that we eat, drink, exhale and put on our skin?

These are the very things that drastically deviated in economically developed countries within recent decades - exactly the geography and timing of the growing skin cancer statistic.