In the beginning of November professor Johan Moan visited Stockholm, and gave a seminar exclusive for Ultra Tan. Professor Moan is a leading researcher in the relation between tanning, vitamin D and cancer. Based on own and others research professor Moan recommend moderate tanning in purpose to prevent cancer. Moan works at the Radium Hospitalet and the psychical institution by the University in Oslo and a member of the Royal Norwegian Academy of Sciences.
As many of our readers already know, Johan is one of all the researchers that consider the sun more as a friend than an enemy. What is a little extra plausible is that Johan is an expert in exactly skin cancer, the cancer form that is associated with exaggerated tanning. But according to Johan is the keyword “exaggerated”. With “exaggerated” Johan means you should not tan until you get red; that means that the skin is injured. You should listen to your body; you should not eat until you get fat, not drink until you get intoxicated, and not exercise while you’re sick and so on.
Had the same opinion as the Swedish authorities
Professor Johan Moan is a leading researcher in the relation between tanning, vitamin D and cancer. Like many of these researchers – for example Professor Edward Giovannucci at Harvard School of Public Health – Johan is critical to the advice that we ought to avoid the sun in general and in particular solarium:
– I understand the Swedish authorities care for people’s health, but I do not se the entire picture, says Johan Moan. They ought to take a closer look at the research around vitamin D, tanning and cancer before them advice against tanning. I had the same opinion as the Swedish authorities before I began my research round sun, skin cancer and vitamin D for 10 years ago, but I have been forced to abandon my old standpoints, says Moan.
One of the sun advices according to Johan which is completely wrong is the idea to avoid the sun in the middle of the day; since it is at that time the sunlight creates vitamin D.
– That means we can also tan in solariums, especially wintertime. From November to February we live in a constant afternoon in Scandinavia.
But is not the natural sun better than solariums?
– Light consist of photons. And one photon is a photon, it does not matter where it comes from. As long as the light has the right wavelength it is entirely unnecessary where the source come from, says Johan.
Invented the cream that cures skin cancer – without funding
When you count Johan’s scientific qualifications it is easy to get a picture of a man who gains approval in the scientific establishment. But the story isn’t so easy. Johan is a type of Renaissance man; he recites Tranströmer with feeling, declares complex scientific relations for a layman to understand and hunts elk every year with his childhood friends around Åfjord in Sør Trøndelag. Besides he plays both violin and flute.
A consequence by Johan’s orthodox personality is that he did not get grant from the Norwegian research council. In Norway there suppose to be big scientific programs with lot formalin; professors with messy workroom that think outside the frames should not bother. Johan’s total grant for the research totally cost 30 000 Swedish krona, a trifling sum in the context. The result of Johan’s research hit like a bomb in the scientific society:
- We managed to bring out a crème that cures cancer, says Johan. You put the crème on your skin, three hours later the skin light up by red light. All the cancer cells die, but none of the healthy cells. Afterwards the skin is smooth and nice without scars.
The method is today probably the only medicine that completely is developed and commercialized in Norway.
Good cooperation in Norway
Johan’s opinions of the sun’s charitable effects (see the facts in the square) are of course provocative for the men of darkness that have built there career on resistance in the sun for every price. Same thing happened in Norway when Johan seriously started to present his research results about tanning. The difference in Norway is the good cooperation between solarium industry, authorities and the science. You listen to each other and have trusting conversations, they respect risks and benefits, threats and possibilities. How do Johan look at the relation between risks and possibilities?
– In Norway approx. 250 people die every year in skin cancer. It is at least ten times as much who is saved because of the protection the sun’s vitamin D gives.
As known it is the vitamin D which is the key. Could you eat nutritional supplements instead or a lot of fat fish for example?
– The recommended levels are probably to low. Besides you have to drink whole bottle transaminases. To receive as much vitamin D as in a half an hour tan in shorts.
Johan consider that the human evolution indicates our need for the sun. The human being is as known originally dark, and came from Africa where there is a lot of sun. When the human being walked their way up north they went more and more pale. For example the Eskimos and North American’s Indians are relatively dark, that is because they lived there for a too short time to manage the process of the evolution which takes millennium to achieve.
Facts
Johan Moan about tanning
· Resonable tannings in a solarium give big doses of vitamin D. That solarium would not have any health effects professor Moan dismisses as a myth.
· The health effects of vitamin D are indisputable. To reach corresponding effects from nutritional supplements it takes a considerable quantity.
· The sun gives no vitamin D in the winter on our latitude: The sun is not high enough for the healthy UV-light to push through.
· There are problems with lack of vitamin D in large sections of the population. This leads to increased risk for most of the cancer forms, osteoporosis and depression.
Johan’s Moan’s scientific qualifications
Awards
1993: 2:a award at Oslo University Research Foundation
1995: 1:a Oslo University Research Foundation
1996: The award for innovations from Norwegian Radium Hospital Research Foundation
1998: National award from Sigval Bergesen d.y. and his wife Nankis foundation. (Only one award a year in Norway).
1999: Honorary Prize of the European Society of Photo biology
2001: Winners of Phase 1, Venture Cup, Oslo University
2003: The Birkeland prize of physics. (The most prestigious prize for physics in Norway, awarded every two year.)
Scientific publications
460 original scientific articles (October 08).
Shared editor of six books: "Light in Biology and Medicine, Vol. I and Vol. II ", Plenum Press in 1988 and 1990-91. "Environmental Photo Biology", Plenum Press 1993. "SPIE Proceedings," vol. 2078, 2325 and 2625, (1993, 1994 and 1995).