Research published in the Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology demonstrates that there is a strong inverse relationship between exposure to sunlight and the risk of pancreatic cancer, one of the very deadliest cancers.[1] The researchers assessed the association between sun exposure and the incidence of pancreatic cancer worldwide. Those living in countries closer to the equator would be expected to have greater sunlight exposure that those who lived in darker northern or southern countries. The investigators, however, took it one step further; they adjusted the data for cloudiness, which allowed them to determine if the sunnier countries with greater cloudiness had populations with greater pancreatic cancer risk than those sunnier countries with few clouds, and also the influence of clouds in countries farther from the equator.
