Sun Avoidance and the Risk of Developing Breast Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: A relationship has been hypothesized between moderate solar ultraviolet radiation (UVR) exposure and breast cancer. This hypothesis centers on the anti-proliferative and apoptotic properties of vitamin D, as well as increases in nocturnal melatonin concentrations which have been shown to slow cellular proliferation. To date, the literature on the effects of exposure to UVR and breast cancer risk have not been systematically reviewed and synthesized. Furthermore, the effects of sun avoidance (low amounts of time spent in the sun) in different exposure windows (adolescence vs. a period relevant to diagnosis) have not been compared.Methods: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to investigate the association between sun avoidance (defined as less than an hour of sun per day) and the risk of developing breast cancer. Associations were estimated using random effects models. Heterogeneity was investigated through subgroup analyses and I2 statistics.Results: Seven studies were included in this review with the majority (n=5) being conducted in Canada or the US. We observed an increased risk of breast cancer for individuals obtaining less than an hour of sun exposure per day during summer months compared to individuals that obtained greater than an hour (pooled relative risk (RR) = 1.15; 95% CI: 1.09-1.20). Heterogeneity among this body of literature was minimal (I2 = 2.7%) Among studies that measured sun exposure over different life periods, sun avoidance during adolescence appeared to confer a qualitatively greater risk of breast cancer than that closer to diagnosis (pooled RR = 1.18; 95% CI: 1.05-1.30 vs. 1.05; 95% CI: 0.88-1.25).Conclusion: This is the first meta-analysis to estimate the risk of developing breast cancer associated with sun avoidance. The results of this study suggest that obtaining less than one hour of sun per day during summer months, especially in adolescence, could increase the risk of developing breast cancer.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.007 | 0.025 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.015 | 0.030 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.005 | 0.007 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".