Fair Skinned People And Life-Long Sun Exposure

Hey guys,

I have a scenario I would like to lay out regarding fair skinned people and life-long sun exposure. While this is only a scenario, it can and does pertain to those individuals that do have fair skin and happen to live in sunny environments.

But first I want to post a section from Joshua Naterman on sun exposure and plant matter ingestion in a study involving rats:

"There is actually some really neat information regarding rats, sun exposure, and skin cancer. Two groups of rats were used, same lab rat species.

Group 1 was fed a natural diet with lots of plant matter.

Group 2 was fed a diet more similar to the "average american" diet.

Group 1 had a 0% incidence rate of skin cancer. Group 2 had a 25% incidence rate. It would appear, and this makes a TON of sense based on the fact that there are indigenous groups worldwide who exist shirtless and don't get skin cancer currently (not to mention throughout history), that plant matter intake is a critical determining factor in how our bodies respond to prolonged sun exposure."

I would have just quoted this but I don't know how yet.

So, if this is true and holds true for humans, can fair skinned people have a chance of living out their lives and not suffering horrible skin cancers and melanomas? Now, I realize that definitely a person, especially one who is fair-skinned, would see their skin age more than if they remained in an environment that was more cold, overcast, and less sunny. One can even look at the various tribes of American Indians that lived in the U.S. desert southwest region and see that although they didn't seem to have much incidence of cancer, their skin did age as they grew older and often took on a tough, wrinkled, leathery appearance. Still, this is not nearly so serious, cosmetics asside, as any of the skin cancers.

So, let's pick a fair skinned person of european descent. Let's put them in the American Desert Southwest. Lots of sun, lots of heat, and dry air. Far from the cold, dark, often cloudy, wet environment that their ancestors might have lived in in europe; especially northern europe. They could be english, welsh, irish, scottish, etc. This is NOT their ideal environment. Far from it.

If this person were to eat a sound, healthy diet containing large amounts of plant matter including ample amounts of greens, if they VERY GRADUALLY increased their exposure to the sun and darkened the color of their skin if possible, and if they wore long clothes in the other times when they had gotten enough sun; would this person be able to live out a life in this environment and not suffer from skin cancers and major degeneration? Or would they never do truly well outside of the environment that more closely matches where they came from most recently?

You see, in today's world, people have options. They can live in an environment like the southwest because they can work an indoor job with air conditioning and protection from the sun. But, the pioneers and settlers (of whom many were of this northern european descent) did not have this luxury. While they would have worn mostly long clothes, thus protecting them from large amounts of the sun, their hands and face/neck were still exposed all of the time.

What do you guys think? Possible? Or did these pioneers suffer from the sun inevitably?

Joshua Naterman, if you get the time it would be awesome if you could give your input as it was your comment on the research with the rats that got me interested in the first place.

Cancer isn't about the sun, cancer is about the diet. The sun has always been here. The same doesn't apply to cancer.

It's in the n3-n6 ratio, in my opinion. You would need to cut out most of polyunsat. fat. Vegetable oils, margarine and friends.

Falcon said:

Cancer isn't about the sun, cancer is about the diet. The sun has always been here. The same doesn't apply to cancer.

It's in the n3-n6 ratio, in my opinion. You would need to cut out most of polyunsat. fat. Vegetable oils, margarine and friends.

You are drastically oversimplifying cancer. For one a proper diet decreases your chance of getting cancer it does not prevent it. Sun and UV radiation DOES cause cancer, so yes it is about the sun and your exposure to radiation. A more healthy person (on part as a result of diet) will have better chances of withstanding radiation vs someone who is significantly less healthy but in the end the body can only tolerate so much. No matter how healthy you are you can still get sun poisoning if you live in a certain area and spend enough time tanning. Being fair skinned decrease your tolerance. 

As for your comment about cancer not always being there, cancer stretches back to the Neolithic era. Caveman have been found with bone cancer. And who knows how much more before that.

As for the OP, yes a proper diet helps but no amount of proper eating can change your genetic predispositions. Fair skinned people are at a higher risk for getting skin cancer and no matter how healthy you eat you'd be insane not to use sunblock if you are pale and are going to be spending a lot of time outdoors in the sun during summer months. 

My family has a long history of cancer on my mother's side. At least one person on my mother's side has died of cancer for the past 4 generations. Some at the age of 86, others at 50. Interestingly enough my mom's side of the family is known for being very physically active and being conscious of what they eat. My great grandmother at the age of 86 still regularly spent time on a farm and did massive amounts of hard labor despite everyone discouraging her as best they could. When she was 70 she use to bring us massive amounts of vegetation from her farm, my dad would struggle carrying one of those suitcases while my great grandmother would run up the stairs with two of them. My mom was an acrobat and is to this day obsessed with eating healthy and exercising EVERY day. 5 years ago she was ready to go on chemo for cancer, 1 day before it was scheduled she went into remission. 

Diet and exercise are great and it will go a long way to keeping you healthy but you can do everything perfectly and still get cancer. It's a scary thought but that is reality. 

AlexX said:

You are drastically oversimplifying cancer. For one a proper diet decreases your chance of getting cancer it does not prevent it. Sun and UV radiation DOES cause cancer, so yes it is about the sun and your exposure to radiation. A more healthy person (on part as a result of diet) will have better chances of withstanding radiation vs someone who is significantly less healthy but in the end the body can only tolerate so much. No matter how healthy you are you can still get sun poisoning if you live in a certain area and spend enough time tanning. Being fair skinned decrease your tolerance. 

As for your comment about cancer not always being there, cancer stretches back to the Neolithic era. Caveman have been found with bone cancer. And who knows how much more before that.

Neolithic era is too soon, the civilization before agriculture - that's what I've been referring to.

And of course you can get cancer from UV, but I don't think anybody with common sense would expose himself that much (sunburn and all that stuff)

Thanks for the opinions guys. @ AlexX, have your family members died of cancer in general, or specifically skin cancer? That's awesome that your mom was an acrobat.

Falcon, you've gotten caught up in marketing hype.

Cancer is about three things, primarily:

1) Mutations that lead to potential cancer

2) Oxidative stress

3) Genetic pre-disposition

Your genetics... change expression based on your lifestyle. By staying more active and eating a variety of natural foods frequently and in the right kcal amounts at each meal, you are doing the most that you can to control favorable gene expression.

Oxidative stress is primarily mitigated by a complex, poorly-understood interaction between known vitamins and known + unknown phytochemicals. What we see, in practice, is that our bodies handle themselves best when they are consuming lots, and lots, and lots of plant matter. Particularly green leafy stuff.

The major dietary change has been a shift AWAY from eating 2-4 lbs of greens and veggies per day. Go to the store, and get 4 lbs of veggies. Make sure 2 lbs of it is greens.

Are you eating that much every day? No? Well, now you know where your first improvements can be.

What's that, you want cheaper greens? Get them flash-frozen for 1-1.5 dollars per lb. That's 3 dollars per day for the best protection money can buy.

Omega-3? For CANCER? Don't make me laugh. First off, research is showing that the chemicals alone have very little effect compared to eating enough fish to get an equivalent dose. This suggests, again, that there are a LOT of other chemicals, in the fish this time, that are responsible for a synergistic protective effect.

I'm not saying they're worthless. I'm saying that if you're going to spend money to protect yourself from cancer, here are your priorities in order:

*NOTE: Please check with your doctor, and preferably a Registered Dietician as well, to make sure that the following recommendations are safe for you. You may have conditions or taking medications including, but not limited to: clotting disorders, blood thinners, atrial fibrillation, etc... and you need to know whether or not the following foods will interfere with your drugs or cause problems with your conditions.

1) Check with your medical advisors (Doctor, RD, etc) to make sure there aren't any vitamins or foods you should be careful of

2) Eat 2 lbs of greens per day. Cook however you want, so long as it is healthy. Steaming first and eating with SOME fat, say 3-5g per 1/2 cup of cooked greens, will ensure proper absorption of fat-soluble vitamins.

3) Eat another 2 lbs of veggies from other colors of the rainbow. You don't have to hit all the colors each day, but focus on one per day if you don't. Try to expose yourself to the entire rainbow at least once per week.

4) Exercise, both moderate aerobic work and higher intensity anaerobic work as well as strength training.

5) Eat cold-water fish and grass-fed red meat when you want meats. Same goes for milk: Get it from grass-fed animals.

That's it. That's what we know. Taking fish oil capsules for cancer is like wrapping a t-shirt around a broken leg... sure, it's technically better than nothing, but it is not the proper treatment.

You want to take fish oil to balance out your diet's omega 3-6 ratio at each meal? I support that. Just don't think it's your magic bullet against cancer.

ONE gram of fish oil (300mg combined DHA + EPA), per meal, will put you in a 2:1 or better omega 6: omega 3 ratio, and that's with conventionally sourced red meat.

You never need more than 2 capsules per meal, seriously. If you DO have meals that contain more omega-6 (in raw numbers) than 600-1200 mg per serving then you are not eating right. These foods almost always have omega 3's already in them, so don't freak out. It doesn't take very much to turn a 20:1 ration into a 2:1 ratio.

Real world example:

http://www.scielo.br/pdf/rbcf/v42n1/29865.pdf

Please look at page 5 (or page 113, if going by actually journal page #).

You'll see that there's a ~11:1 omega 6 to 3 ratio in dark chicken meat as well as fattier beef cuts. OH NOES!!!! THIS IS TERRIBLE.

Wait... wait... there's 22mg of omega 3 and 237 mg of omega 6. In fatty beef. 775mg n-6 compared to 62mg of n-3 in dark chicken.

So it takes ONE standard fish oll capsule with 300mg of n-3 fatty acids to actually give you nearly 1.5 to 1 n-3 to n-6 in the beef, and to give you 2:1 n-6 to n-3 in the chicken. 2 capsules makes it about 1:1 for the chicken.

That's for 100g of raw meat, which is something like 3.5 oz. raw. A standard serving is about that. For the chicken you'd probably want to have 2 capsules.

See what I mean? Learn what to do with real numbers, so that you can actually protect your health and not damage it.

Don't get caught up in a bunch of Paleo broscience. As soon as you get past the basic idea of "Stop eating all that processed garbage!" the whole Paleo thing is primarily a house of cards that is contradicted nearly completely, in its current form, by both research and high intensity athletic performance.

Learn to recognize what is intelligent and then go educate yourself on the proper application of these intelligent concepts.

What I am doing is putting together a practical application guide for you all. Whether I decide to publish it as a book or not remains to be seen, but at the very least the most important basics are right here.

What Joshua said actually reminds me of when Poliquin said that around 16 servings of vegetables a day was where you would have a great chance with fighting cancer. (He will also make fun of you if you say you are "paleo" and correct you with saying you are "metro"paleo ) That is a lot of vegetables and something I want to work to achieve. But even with the healthiest diets, humans are still prone to certain issues. Especially with genetic predispositions. I would much rather have all the tools to fight it though.

HAHAHA metro paleo That's a good one!

16 "servings" is a reasonable start, I'd say According to the food bags, I am getting... around 8 servings of greens and maybe 5-6 of other veggies. Not enough yet.

Thanks everyone for the replies. Joshua, thank you very much for the length post, I love those things!

So, anyone, how well do you think a fair skinned person would have made it in the environment specified and in the conditions specified?

Falcon and AlexX have voiced opinions but I am curious as to what everyone else thinks. I know it's just a scenario but I am curious to learn more about what the body can handle if properly taken care of.

Joshua Naterman said:

Falcon, you've gotten caught up in marketing hype.

Okay, so, correct me if I'm wrong, I know there is more to it, but I've always thought that cancer is about how your immune system deals with cells that go out of control - and if your n3-n6 ratio is screwed, then the immune system is supressed and well, you have a problem.

http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0140673671910865?via=sd&cc=y

I'm not trying to say you are wrong, I'm just saying that I've heard it this way. Feel free to correct me if what I'm saying is wrong.