Regularly getting outside on a sunny day starting in our youth may benefit our prostate health in the long run, according to findings of an early 2007 study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. While exposure to sunlight as an adult still had the benefit of lowering prostate cancer death risk, men who got ample sunlight in early life, as well as in adulthood, were less likely to develop prostate cancer in the first place.
Such findings were similar to those in a 2005 large-scale study published in Cancer Research, in which researchers determined that the risk of developing prostate cancer was cut in half for men with greater amounts of sun exposure compared to those who received little sunlight. What’s more, for men with certain gene mutations, sun exposure lowered the risk of prostate cancer by 65%. However, this doesn’t mean that people with prostates should spend hours baking in the sun. Rather than the UV rays themselves providing the benefit, the researchers point to the production of vitamin D as the protective mechanism, emphasizing that there are plenty of ways to get adequate amounts of vitamin D that don’t increase the risk of skin cancer.
