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Comment by eholk | Hacker News Reader

I'd be really interested to see a comparison of the relative risks between skin cancer and vitamin D deficiency.

A lot of what I've read lately suggests we're discovering a lot of benefits of vitamin D that were previously unknown, and some evidence that the recommended vitamin D levels should be higher than they are.

For a generation or so we've told people the sun is dangerous because of skin cancer, and obviously skin cancer is really bad. But I wonder if we have a case of need to weight risks that are high cost, low probability (skin cancer) compared with low cost, high probability (low vitamins D complications). What is the overall effect of these two things?

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This article gets into that: https://www.outsideonline.com/2380751/sunscreen-sun-exposure...

Short excerpt: People don’t realize this because several different diseases are lumped together under the term “skin cancer.” The most common by far are basal-cell carcinomas and squamous-cell carcinomas, which are almost never fatal. In fact, says Weller, “When I diagnose a basal-cell skin cancer in a patient, the first thing I say is congratulations, because you’re walking out of my office with a longer life expectancy than when you walked in.” That’s probably because people who get carcinomas, which are strongly linked to sun exposure, tend to be healthy types that are outside getting plenty of exercise and sunlight.

> The most common by far are basal-cell carcinomas and squamous-cell carcinomas, which are almost never fatal.

My grandpa died due to complications from a basal-cell skin cancer. He was almost 90 years old. The cancer itself was a few decades old. He served in the Navy during WWII, and likely got it from years of tropical sun exposure with no sunscreen.*

So, yeah, as far as cancers go, that's one you'd rather get if given a choice.

* (Well, and the additional years of fishing and other outdoor activities. Obviously the cause can't be pinpointed like that, but it must have contributed)

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