The Balance of Getting Sun

You know as I have read the literature about the amount of disease that could be prevented by getting enough sunshine, I have wondered about the balance of decision making in the medical industry.  I know that the argument about treatment versus prevention has gone on for a long time, especially since the medical insurance industry has arisen to be such a giant in the economy.

It seems like the warnings were coming on two fronts:

  • That is if we spent too much time in the sun we would get skin cancer and die.
  • The other front was less understandable by the average person that was that if we got too much vitamin D that we would die because of absorbing too much calcium.  Let’s see that warning that I got when I told my physician that I was going to take 5,000 IU of D3 a day:  “I learned in medical school that if you get too much vitamin D that your organs will turn into calcium rocks and you will die”.

What was this fear and where was it coming from.  Certainly skin cancer rates had gone up significantly since the 1960’s.  Let us see what else happened in the ‘60’s, oh yes that is when sun screen started to be promoted with extreme vigor. Maybe we can make some sense of this decision making by drawing a sketch of the weight of disease.

balance

Wow that does not seem to make too much sense does it.  Where is the balance?  What could be going on to make some sense of the decision making.  What about the medical economy that is generated from the treatment of all those chronic diseases so that there will be lots of jobs and extra cars and houses for people in the medical insurance industry:

balance1There now that seems to be a better balance.  But what do we do with this box?

balance2 – Pandemic Survivor

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