Is it safer to spread chemical creams all over your skin, or to bathe your body in vitamin D producing sunlight? After decades of doctors telling people they must wear sunscreen when out in the sun, science is perhaps reconsidering. After all, before sunscreen, humans spent their entire lives in the sun without it. Allysia Finley reports in The Wall Street Journal:

Humans evolved over tens of thousands of years to coexist with the sun, and essential physiological processes depend on exposure to sundry solar wavelengths. Yet experts advise people to avoid the sun and religiously slather on sunscreen whenever they step outdoors—rain or shine—and even indoors.

This advice may be doing more harm than good, especially for people with darker skin, Mr. Jacobsen writes. True, too much exposure to ultraviolet light heightens the risk of skin cancer and can cause wrinkles. But skin cancers other than melanoma are rarely fatal, and the connection between melanoma and sunlight is complicated.

Melanomas tend to occur in parts of the body that are less exposed to the sun. Genetics, tanning beds and sunburns in childhood have been found to increase the risk of melanoma, but its association with lifetime sun exposure is weak. Sunlight also triggers protective mechanisms that limit and repair DNA damage. That includes increased production of melanin, which absorbs UV light.

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Read more about Vitamin D here:

• Can Vitamin D Help Fight Cancer?
• Vitamin D and the Flu
• Lowering the Risk of Cancer with Vitamin D
• Are You getting Enough Vitamin D?
• Just How Important Is Vitamin D to Your Health?
• The Mounting Evidence in Favor of Vitamin D
• Can Vitamin D Reduce Cancer Mortality?
• The Possible Benefits of Vitamin D and Fish Oils