Life On the Rocks
Why are there No Tan People in Ireland?
WHY ARE THERE NO TAN PEOPLE IN IRELAND?
THEY DIED BEFORE THEY COULD BREED.
WHY DID THEY DIE SO YOUNG?
IF YOU TAN IN IRELAND, YOU WILL BE
VITAMIN D DEFICIENT
AND MORE LIKELY TO GET CANCER OR HEART DISEASE AND DIE YOUNG...
at least that's my theory.
I remember a class at Columbia University (I was at Barnard. This was a class across the street, with the boys.) in Evolutionary Biology.
We studied the relation of skin pigment to sun exposure. Tropical people have lots of pigment in the upper layers of their skin to protect them from skin cancer and deadly sunburns, but pigment in the upper layers lowers the skin's capacity for synthesizing Vitamin D. However, in the Tropical latitudes, the abundance of sun makes a Vitamin D
deficiency highly unlikely.
Temperate Zone people have pigment that migrates up and down in response to sun exposure for the same reasons.
IRISH PEOPLE, like me, have skin whose pigment NEVER rises into the upper skin levels.
WHY SHOULD THE IRISH LACK PIGMENT in the upper skin levels? Is there something so important in sunlight that to be even slightly tan for a day or two in Ireland's sunless climate leads to a death too early to breed and pass on the tanning gene?
IRELAND is very far north, roughly the same latitude as Sitka Alaska, and thus even the summer sun is weak; in winter daylight sinks to 7 1/2 hours per day, and the misty isles of Ireland are in the middle of the stormy, northern Atlantic, with lots of overcast skies.
On the JERSEY SHORE, in my youth, everyone striped down to bathing suits and got gloriously tan. Even my mother's Swedish friend. I had to be covered up, swim in a tee shirt and hat. And even then, I usually got some painful sunburn somewhere, my nose, my arms, my feet, the back of my neck. WHY WOULD ANYONE HAVE SKIN THAT COULD NEVER TAN???? IT'S PRACTICALLY A FATAL CONDITION.
In the 9th Century, (800 AD) and on, the Vikings raided Ireland and settled it extensively. And yet by at least 2013, and most likely even earlier, there are no GOLDEN TAN SWEDISH MODEL TYPES in Ireland. No, very quickly those with the gene that lets you tan were WIPED OUT COMPLETELY. The tanned, golden Swedish, Norwegian, Danish Viking types who conquered Ireland must have died in great numbers before they could pass along their tanning gene, leaving only those descendants who had the 'no tan gene', which seems to be associated with red hair.
SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT. If an IRISH PERSON, living in a land with absolutely minimal sun, gets even lightly tan, even briefly, they die before they can pass on that gene.
Research shows a connection between cancer tumors and Vitamin D deficiency.
DOES THE INTRODUCTION OF SPF, which inhibits the skin from producing Vitamin D, combined with the dietary exclusion of the high Vitamin D containing foods, CREAM, BUTTER AND EGGS, to lower cholesterol, provide some insight into the rise of breast cancer after 1980?
Why did breast cancer rates begin to rise significantly around 1980, the same year that SPF sunscreen became widely available from Coppertone?
Why did only one of my mother's, (born in 1923), friends die of breast cancer, and that one was a woman whose mother, grandmother and sister had died of it also. They had the breast cancer gene, which is pretty rare.
Why did NONE of my mother's other friends and sisters, (she had two), who were all quite overweight, had babies at forty, drank regularly, rarely ate fish, fresh fruit or vegetables, ate butter, cookies, eggs, fried food, some smoked, none
jogged or exercised, and yet they never got breast cancer?
Why suddenly in my generation, (1950) and beyond, did so very many women get breast cancer?
Was it the difference in breast feeding habits? I found my mother's hospital record for breastfeeding me. She did it partially for six weeks. I can't imagine her friends were much different. Formula was practically required by doctors in those days.
I panicked about getting breast cancer. What can be causing this EPIDEMIC?
After panicking, I put together all the facts I could think of, even from my distant college past, and came up with my theory.
I'm writing this because of all the wonderful women who died of breast cancer and those of us who live in horrible fear of breast cancer. And for the lovers, husbands, and children who lost their precious women to this terrible disease. It's just my 'I WONDER'.