Fwd: [Getting Well] The Benefits of Sunlight

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The Benefits of Sunlight

JoAnn Guest

 

Everyone feels better when the sun comes out, but sunbathing has had

such a bad press for so long that the health benefits of getting out

in the sun have been almost forgotten by a generation that now

believes sunbathing is as bad for your health as smoking. It is true

that the wrong kind of exposure to the sun will increase your risk

of skin cancer, but the right kind of safe sunbathing can still make

you happier and healthier.

 

For centuries, doctors and natural healers relied on something

called Heliotherapy - using sunlight for healing - to mend wounds,

treat bone diseases such as rickets or lung infections like

tuberculosis (TB) and to simply help their patients rebuild strength

after an illness - but all the known benefits of sunbathing were

ignored when researchers began to link the alarming rise in the

number of cases of skin cancer over the last 20 years with over-

exposure to the sun.

 

The damage caused by staying too long in intense sunlight does

increase the risk of skin cancer but safe sunbathing has been shown

to help alleviate a host of problems ranging from chronic skin

conditions including acne, eczema, and psoriasis. It can help build

strong bones and teeth, lower cholesterol levels, prevent heart

disease, and ward off depression. Even better, according to some

health experts, sunshine may even prevent more cancers than it

causes.

 

Stronger Bones & Teeth

Everyone knows you need calcium for strong bones and teeth, but to

make sure the calcium you do eat can do its job, you also need a

good supply of vitamin D - which protects against bone loss. Vitamin

D is not really a vitamin at all but a hormone-like substance that

the body can only make when it gets enough sunlight. Since 90% of

westerners now spend 90% of their waking time indoors, the majority

of people do not get enough exposure to sunlight to make enough

vitamin D. The UK's department of health says we need 400IUs

(international units) of vitamin D a day to stop the body from

leaching calcium from the bones. The trouble is, the typical British

diet only provides, on average, 100 IUs per day. Also, the body is

better able to use the vitamin D it makes itself than that

which it gets from the diet. What all this means is that a growing

number of people who are at risk of being deficient in vitamin D and

thus also at risk of brittle bone disease.

 

Osteoporosis now affects one in every three women and one in every

12 men in the UK. Described by the World Health Organisation (WHO)

as `the silent epidemic " there are often no symptoms until the first

fracture, by which time you may have lost a third of your bone

density. In women, the menopause can accelerate the problem because

levels of the female hormone oestrogen, which helps bones absorb

calcium, declines. But all females naturally start to lose bone

density from the age of 30 - so don't think this is only a problem

of middle age. There may be no symptoms until a bone has fractured

and by the time you are at serious risk of osteoporosis, you may

have already lost a third of your starting bone mass.

 

The World Health Organisation, (WHO), is now predicting that the

number of hip fractures could increase six-fold to over six million

by the middle of this century. This is why osteoporosis is being

called an epidemic, yet one solution could be as simple and as free

as safe sunbathing. In studies of elderly populations who have

suffered a broken hip, up to 40% have been shown to be lacking in

vitamin D. There are also more hip fractures in winter when bone

density is at its lowest.

 

Enhanced Immunity

Sunlight triggers the body to make its own vitamin D, which is

crucial not only for strong bones and healthy teeth ,but for keeping

the immune system healthy too. Studies have shown, for example, that

exposing the body to sunlight or even ultraviolet light from an

artificial source increases the number of white blood cells or

lymphocytes. These are the body's primary defence against the

onslaught of an infection and are an important part of your immune

response to the organisms that cause illness.

 

Vitamin D also plays a role in increasing the amount of oxygen your

blood can transport around the body which, in turn, will boost your

energy levels, sharpen your mental faculties and give you an

improved feeling of wellbeing.

 

Less Cholesterol & Lower Blood Pressure

Few people realise that sunlight actually lowers blood cholesterol

levels and so can be a powerful ally in the fight against the

Western World's biggest killer - heart disease. This works because

the body needs the ultraviolet light in sunlight to breakdown

cholesterol, which at high levels could otherwise block the

arteries.

 

Both cholesterol, which is needed to make the sex hormones, and

vitamin D are derived from the same substance in the body - a

chemical called squalene, which is found in the skin. There is a new

theory that in the presence of sunlight, this squalene is converted

to vitamin D but in its absence, it is converted to cholesterol.

 

Sunlight can also affect blood pressure. Levels are higher during

winter and lowest in the summer. The theory is that without enough

vitamin D, triggered by exposure to sunlight, the body increases

levels of parathyroid hormone. This hormone not only causes calcium

to leach from the bones but also raises blood pressure, leading to a

greater risk of cardiovascular disease.

 

Protection Against Cancers

Population studies have now shown how women living in less sunny

regions in America have a 40% higher chance of dying from breast

cancer than those living in sunnier parts such as Florida or Hawaii.

It was reported that women who lived in sunny regions and who had

high exposure to sunlight reduced their risk of this disease by up

to 65%. This protective effect is believed to be linked to vitamin

D, which has been shown in laboratory tests to inhibit cancer cell

growth.

 

Not many people realise that the skin cancers or malignant melanomas

that can kill develop most often on those body parts that are not

usually exposed to sunlight – i.e. the back of the legs and the

torso. Also, skin cancer rates are higher in less sunny parts of

Europe than those closer to the equator. Again, nobody can explain

why this should be so but one theory is that sunlight works to

stimulate the body's own defences against all cancers.

 

In the early 1990s, doctors who reviewed all the medical literature

examining the health risks of exposure to the sun concluded that the

benefits of moderate exposure outweigh both the risk of skin cancer

and premature ageing. Their paper, which was called Beneficial

Effects of Sun Exposure on Cancer Mortality was published in the US

journal Preventive Medicine and reported that safe sunbathing would

slash the number of deaths from breast and colon cancers in America

by a third.

 

Better Mood, Better Sleep, Better Sex Drive

Sunlight also triggers the increased production of the feel-good

brain chemical, serotonin - which, as well as controlling your sleep

patterns, body temperature, and sex drive, lifts your mood and helps

ward off depression.

 

The reason so many of us suffer from the winter blues or even a

condition called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) - which now

affects 20% of the population - is that the body makes less

serotonin in the winter. Popular prescription antidepressants such

as Prozac work to increase serotonin levels in the brain and so does

sunlight, which is why many SAD sufferers eventually resort to some

artificial indoor light-box treatment.

 

One intriguing new and, as yet, untested suggestion is that during

the summer, it is possible the body builds a kind of " sunlight

memory bank " to help those of us living further from the equator

through the darker winter months. In the UK, for example, you cannot

make vitamin D from sunlight between the months of October and March

because the UVB radiation with the right wavelength that is needed

to achieve this is only present at ground level from April to

September. This means you are dependent on the vitamin D store you

have built up the previous summer. The theory then is that the

amount of serotonin your body produces in winter will be directly

related to the amount of exposure to sunlight you enjoyed the

previous summer.

 

Another reason sunlight is so important to good health is that you

can only get a quarter of the vitamin D you need from your diet. The

rest must come from the sun. Also, as we get older, our bodies find

it harder to absorb the vitamin D that does come from the diet.

 

Protection Against Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disease of the central nervous system.

It happens when the myelin sheaths, which cover and protect the

nerve fibres, are damaged, leading to symptoms such as tremors and

even paralysis. The cause is not known but what scientists have

noted is that exposure to sunlight in childhood appears to

dramatically reduce the risk of this disease in later life.

 

In Switzerland, for example, MS is much more common at low altitudes

than at high altitudes, where the intensity of ultraviolet radiation

is much stronger. One theory is that greater exposure to bright

sunlight in some way bolsters the immune system to prevent the

damage to the nerve fibre sheaths that underlies this disease.

Again, researchers cannot explain why this should be so, unless

vitamin D is involved.

 

In Norway, there are far fewer cases of MS among coastal populations

who eat more fish - an excellent source of vitamin D - than their

inland counterparts. Also in Japan, where the diet again includes a

large proportion of fish, there are lower than expected rates of

this condition. But as we have seen, the body makes even better use

of the vitamin D it produces itself, after exposure to sunlight,

than the vitamin D it gets from food.

 

Safer Sunbathing

You do not need to burn or tan to get the exposure you need. Just 20

minutes of safe sunbathing a day is enough. The safest way to

benefit from the healing powers of sunlight, say experts, is to

build your exposure slowly throughout the year and to avoid burning

by staying in the shade when the sun is at its most intense or you

are on your holiday.

 

There are two types of burning rays, UVA and UVB. Both cause burning

and tanning but UVB was always thought to be the more damaging of

the two since it causes more rapid burning of the skin. In fact,

until recently when it was discovered that UVA actually penetrates

much deeper, health experts thought UVA was harmless.

 

What they now know is that not only does it penetrates far more

deeply, causing damage to the collagen that gives skin it

elasticity, than UVB, far from being harmless, the UVA wavelength is

more closely associated with malignant melanoma and premature ageing

than UVB.

 

And here's a worrying irony - those countries which have taken the

threat of skin cancers seriously and which have encouraged the

population to use strong sun-protection creams over the last 20

years are still reporting increased rates of malignant melanoma.

These include the US, Canada, Australia, and the Scandinavian

countries. The rise is also particularly marked in Queensland,

Australia, where sunscreens were first introduced and heavily

promoted by doctor.

 

Scientists are now concerned that sunbathers may have been using

high-protection creams that only blocked the UVB rays and that this

might explain why, despite and even because of the use of certain

suncreams, skin cancer rates have risen.

 

To sunbathe safely remember that frequent, short exposures are not

only safer but more beneficial than a prolonged dose of sunlight.

Also, early morning sunshine has been identified as the most

beneficial.

 

http://www.whatreallyworks.co.uk/start/articles.asp?article_ID=451

 

JoAnn Guest

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