In two recent posts, one published on May 8 and one on May 9, blogger Jacki Donaldson writes about the new recommendations for covering up to prevent skin cancer. As I was reading this, I thought that it made a lot of sense and that I should certainly pay more attention to what I am wearing and how much sunscreen I wear when I am outside. Good advice, right?

Maybe not. I have read a couple of articles recently that talk about Vitamin D deficiency and studies that point to this deficiency leading to cancer. The Globe and Mail reported that there is a U.S. study that will announce the first direct link between cancer prevention and Vitamin D. They found that women had about a 60 percent reduction in cancer when they took the vitamin as opposed to those who did not .

The problem with Vitamin D is that it is made when we have unprotected sun exposure -- the recommendation is 10 to 15 minutes a day. It is a problem because the same sunlight that makes Vitamin D causes skin cancer.According to proponents, the recommended dose of vitamin D supplements are too low to have an impact on cancer prevention and the amounts we get through foods are minuscule. They argue that we are trading in protection against one cancer which is easily detectable "for an increased risk of the scary, high-body-count cancers, such as breast, prostate and colon, that appear linked to vitamin D shortages."

I am certainly going to follow developments in this area and will be on the lookout for this study (coming out in June, according to the article). In the meantime, I will go out in the sun for a little bit each day and then cover up -- or is that just sitting on the fence? Also read Jacki's most recent post on Vitamin D, posted on May 11.