Posted by simon on 11/23/2006 on simon's blogNews that marathon runners and other endurance athletes may be at increased risk of skin cancer shouldn’t have come as a surprise.
Mainstream media focused on the idea that it was increased exposure to the sun that was to blame, and almost universally carried warnings for runners to slap on the sunblock. In doing so they completely missed the point – which is that training and racing suppresses the immune system.
It’s the immune system that controls cancer, not how much sunlight you are exposed to. Distance runners are more likely to develop cancer because they artificially – and chronically -- suppress their immune systems. To add insult to injury, most runners are not nutritionally protected, or at best only partially protected, against the overt stress of protracted exercise.
| 
