Multiple Sclerosis Linked to lack of sunlight

[Guest guest]

Sun Exposure May Reduce MS Risk JoAnn Guest Apr

02, 2005 20:29 PST

 

Multiple Sclerosis Linked to Lack of UV Radiation,

Vitamin D

By Cherie Berkley, MS

WebMD Medical News Reviewed By Michael Smith, MD

on Thursday, August 07, 2003

 

Aug. 7, 2003 -- A new study shows that lots of sun

exposure --

particularly when you're young -- may lower your risk

for multiple

sclerosis.

No one is recommending that you let your kids bake in

the sun for

hours on end. But previous studies have shown that

multiple sclerosis

is

more common in areas of the world with less sun

exposure -- areas

further from the equator. So in the furious search for

a multiple

sclerosis cause, researchers looked at

the lack of sunlight as one possibility.

 

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disease of the nerves

that can cause a

variety of problems, such as lack of muscle control

and strength,

blurry

vision, trouble with balance, and numbness.

 

 

Researchers compared 136 people under age 60 with

multiple sclerosis

to nearly 300 people without it. The volunteers were

all natives of

Tasmania, an area that gets little sunlight in the

winter and has a

high

prevalence of multiple sclerosis. The new study

appears in the August

issue of the British Medical Journal.

 

Researchers asked volunteers questions about their sun

exposure,

including how they protect themselves against the sun.

They were also

asked about their use of vitamin D supplements between

ages 10 and 15

since previous studies have suggested that vitamin D

may help protect

against multiple sclerosis.

 

In addition, vitamin D is produced in the body when

the skin is exposed

to the sun.

Higher sun exposure from ages 6 to 15 -- an average of

two or three

hours or more a day in the summer during weekends and

holidays -- was

associated with a 70% drop in multiple sclerosis risk.

 

 

Fairer-Skinned People at Higher Risk

Researchers also looked at skin damage and skin color.

It turned out

that fairer-skinned people were at a greater risk of

developing

multiple

 

sclerosis earlier in life.

 

People with higher sun exposure between ages 6 and 15

and those with

greater skin damage from the sun had a decreased risk.

 

 

The season of the year also played a role. Higher

exposure in the

winter seemed to decrease risk more than higher

exposure in the summer.

This may explain why

the number of multiple sclerosis cases in Tasmania is

high.

 

 

Researchers say the findings suggest there may be a

link between

multiple sclerosis and insufficient ultraviolet

radiation or vitamin D

-- or both.

--

 

-----------

SOURCES: British Medical Journal, August 2003. News

Release, British

Medical Journal. WebMD Medical Reference provided in

collaboration with

The Cleveland Clinic: What Causes MS?

_________________

 

Post subject: The benefits of Sunlight

--

 

The benefits of Sunlight

 

 

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

makesure the calcium you do eat can do its job, you

also need a good

supplyof 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

departmentof 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 llness.

 

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.

 

Lower 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 bodyneeds 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

vitaminD,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

andpremature 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

iswhy many SAD sufferers eventually resort to some

artificial indoor

light-box treatment.

 

One intriguing new and, as yet, untested suggestion is

that during

thesummer, it is possible the body builds a kind of

" sunlight memory

bank " to help those of us living further from the

equator through the

darkerwinter 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

isonly present at ground level from April to

September. This means you

aredependent on the vitamin D store you have built up

the previous

summer.

 

The theory then is that the amount of serotonin your

body produces

inwinter will be directly related to the amount of

exposure to

sunlightyou enjoyed the previous summer.

 

Another reason sunlight is so important to good health

is that you

canonly 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

yearsare still reporting increased rates of malignant

melanoma. These

include

the US, Canada, Australia, and the Scandinavian

countries. The rise

isalso particularly marked in Queensland, Australia,

where sunscreens

werefirst introduced and heavily promoted by doctors.

 

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

mrsjo-

DietaryTi-

www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Genes

 

 

 

 

 

AIM Barleygreen

" Wisdom of the Past, Food of the Future "

 

http://www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Diets.html