Supplements not sun best for boosting vitamin D

By Anne Harding

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Sunbathing intentionally 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 photoaging," Dr. Barbara A. Gilchrest of Boston University School of Medicine, co-author of a comprehensive review on vitamin D requirements and UV radiation, told Reuters Health.

The public is getting a mixed message on sun and health, she adds, because advocates of increased UV exposure, like the indoor tanning industry, are advocating sunbathing as a means of getting more vitamin D for everyone, including young light-skinned people who face the greatest skin cancer risk -- and are 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 added. "The public message has gotten very mixed up."

New research has 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, will benefit from getting more vitamin D than is currently recommended by the US Department of Agriculture, she and her colleague Dr. Deon Wolpowitz note in their report in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.

There's also evidence that people with very dark skin and those who live in northern climes may be deficient in the vitamin, which is essential for bone health.

But such deficiencies can always be handled with oral supplementation, Gilchrest said.

If you are worried that you're not getting enough vitamin D, Gilchrest advises, take a vitamin pill, and if that doesn't seem like enough, take two. "Vitamin D is very safe to take in the form of oral supplements," she notes.

SOURCE: Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, February 2006.