The Benefits of Sunlight

[Guest guest]

The Benefits of Sunlight JoAnn Guest Jun 15, 2003 14:28 PDT

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 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

mrsjo-

DietaryTi-

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

 

 

 

The complete " Whole Body " Health line consists of the " AIM GARDEN TRIO "

Ask About Health Professional Support Series: AIM Barleygreen

 

" Wisdom of the Past, Food of the Future "

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

SBC DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!

 

 

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 6/15/2003 2:36:54 PM Pacific Standard Time,

angelprincessjo writes:

 

>

> 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.

 

What are anyone's thoughts of using a suntan booth? Is there any benefit for

those long winters with no sunlight.

JJ