DWQA QuestionsCategory: Divine GuidanceA viewer asks: “There have been fields of therapy which promote the benefits of Sun exposure, and many youthful and less youthful people think that lying around in the Sun is great for you. We know that vitamin D is generated by skin exposure to the Sun and research indicates that sunscreen blocks that to a large extent (about up to 95%). Will using sunscreen really allow us to receive the benefits of sunshine? Is sunscreen again really the best defense against skin photoaging, and cancers?”
Nicola Staff asked 3 years ago
There is a negative from using sunscreen in blocking the benefits of sunlight, but there are clear levels of damage that can happen from excess UV exposure particularly, due to the photoaging of the skin as well as potential for generating cancers locally. This is hard to quantify. It will depend on many, many variables—the timing and length of exposure to the Sun, the conditions of vulnerability from other respects, what is the percentage of skin area exposed, the past history of the individual, the level of melatonin in the skin to begin with which may have a protective effect, as well as the gene expression patterns governing vulnerability to adverse consequences of the radiation exposure, and on and on—many layers of karmic influences due to many, many variables. So we hesitate to make hard and fast rules here. Throwing caution to the wind is never a good idea. So while there are some exaggerated fears about this, there are those who would dispense with caution entirely if sunlight were given a clean bill of health to indulge in. This is clearly not true for everyone and will be highly variable. The rule of thumb most reliable is that anything causing sunburn represents an overexposure and an endangerment to the individual. So there is a built-in feedback mechanism to govern one’s habits with respect to allowing Sun exposure and the consequences. There are more damaging consequences of other energies at this point in the human environment than sunlight, and that is a separate issue. Sun is not the sole culprit in causing skin lesions and dangerous cancerous conditions. Sunscreen will have no effect on other types of radiation.