Stop Avoiding Sun

Stop Avoiding Sun

Stop slathering toxins on your skin, or getting a "pretend" tan with a spray. Pretend tans don't protect your skin from excess UV and your skin can absorb almost anything you put on it. Besides, check out the skin cancer rate at the equator--I think you may be surprised. Read on to find out how sun exposure also affects blood cholesterol levels and don't forget the links at the bottom for authoritative discussions on the subject.

I'm not suggesting that you bake, but a half-hour of sun between 10 and 3 will boost vitamin D, which is really a hormone. Vitamin D protects against many forms of cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and multiple sclerosis. I have my own theory on how it does this. Since vitamin D must help the immune system (interesting that vitamin D deficiency in December coincides with "flu" season), it may prevent infections. People with 2 simultaneous infections, especially those that involve the sinuses, appear to have a much greater rate of MS. Also, relapse rate of MS symptoms is 33% in MS patients following an infection.

Even Medscape has an article about the studies that suggest that sunshine exposure in childhood appears to reduce the risk of multiple sclerosis by 60%! You can read the article if you register--it's free.

Canada has taken a national initiative to supplement vitamin D because their latitude is so far north that no one can be expected to make enough vitamin D there from just sun exposure.

Vitamin D is now the leading vitamin deficiency in Canada, the U.S., and Great Britain. If you have a dark complexion, you are at even higher risk for vitamin D deficiency. I believe that this is a factor in the health disparity between American blacks and whites, especially as it relates to diabetes.

For those of you who think you're getting all the vitamin D you need in your milk, but are drinking skim milk--think again. Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin.

I'm waiting to hear that the cholesterol lowering drugs affect vitamin D production. Cholesterol is the substance in the skin that undergoes conversion to vitamin D following sun exposure. By the way, in one experiment, 97% of subjects experienced a 13% decrease in serum cholesterol two hours after exposure to ultraviolet light, and 86% maintained the drop in cholesterol 24 hours later (Circulation. 1953. 8. 438).

Svroll down to the links for great discussions of Vitamin D (actually a hormone) benefits.
Vitamins A & D, Cod Liver Oil-Clarifications-by Sally Fallon, Mary Enig, PhD
http://www.westonaprice.org/basicnutrition/clarifications.html
Weston A. Price Foundation-The Miracle of Vitamin D-by Krispin Sullivan, CN
http://www.westonaprice.org/basicnutrition/vitamindmiracle.html