How the sun is absolutely crucial to your health-Y's Health

How the sun is absolutely crucial to your health: By:Dr. Randy Wysong; Fundamental to the Wysong Optimal Health philosophy (http://www.wysong.net/optimal_health_page1.shtml) is the fact that we are integrally linked to our genetic heritage. We are what our genetics dictate, not what we impose upon ourselves by modern circumstances we artificially create. This understanding is a master key to health, a heuristic foundation for making decisions about food and lifestyle.

Now then, what does this philosophy say about the sun? Dermatologists tell you to hide from it and modern living would lead us to believe we can do just fine by living in caves – offices, homes and automobiles. But our genetic roots tell us we should be naked and in a climate where we can be so. That is our origins – and what was the norm for 99.9 % of our history. Should we believe dermatologists and modern lifestyle or our genes and history? The answer is obvious but few live by its wisdom.

This discussion of vitamin D will provide incredible and surprising proof of the Wysong philosophy and give you a fundamental ingredient for your health success.

The Sun Vitamin
Vitamin D (actually a hormone) is manufactured in the skin by the action of ultraviolet light from the sun striking a precholesterol molecule (7-dehydrocholesterol). This converted cholesterol molecule (provitamin D) is further modified (hydroxylated) in the liver and kidney creating the active 1,25 dihydroxycholecalciferol molecule (1,25 dihydroxy vitamin D3=calcitriol). The UV-B wavelength that produces vitamin D from the sun (282 nm) does not significantly penetrate glass. So regardless of windows, when we are inside we can pretty much figure vitamin D is not being generated. Clothing of course further seals our fate as does sunscreen with SPF above 8 (reduces vitamin D production by 95%). Living in the northern half of the country (even above 30 degrees latitude, the Florida panhandle) also dooms people to inadequate sun for almost nine months of the year. If you are dark-skinned you will need as much as ten times the amount of sun as a fair skinned person to produce adequate levels of vitamin D. It’s unnatural enough when fair skinned people live in latitudes requiring clothes, dark skinned people are really fish out of water there and suffer severe consequences as a result.

Food sources of the vitamin include cod liver oil, sardines, salmon, tuna, mackerel, liver, egg yolk, butter, dark green vegetables, algae, mushrooms, phytoplankton and fortified milk. (Plant source vitamin D is the D2 form known as ergocalciferol and is not as active as the animal sources.) But in the main, food sources provide inadequate levels unless they are eaten raw (the triene structure in vitamin D is degraded by acid and light-catalyzed isomerization) and in sufficient quantity – most of us do not do that. Our by and large hairless bodies (forcing us to wear unnatural clothes and dwell in artificially heated environs) and the fact that there is no negative feedback shutting down production of vitamin D in the skin, strongly argues that we are intended to be in the sun, not dependent upon food scientists to fortify milk.

Older folks have decreased ability to synthesize vitamin D in the skin, have poorer digestive efficiency and decreased liver and kidney function to convert vitamin D into the active forms. There is a reason the elderly go south and feel better doing so. They might not know exactly why other than not wanting to shovel snow, but ole sol does. Also, those people with malabsorption problems, Crohn's disease, cystic fibrosis, pancreatic, liver and kidney disease or deficiency, or who have had part of the digestive system removed are at increased risk of vitamin D deficiency. Vitamin D requires precholesterol and is fat-soluble and thus "low fat" diets and "low cholesterol" diets put elderly people already deficient at even greater peril.

Some forms of artificial sunlight can produce vitamin D in the skin. Tanning salons (not recommended because you do not – and neither does anyone else – really know what you are being exposed to) can produce vitamin D in the skin if the highest UV-B:UV-A ratio is used.

As little as 15-30 minutes of skin exposure (as much as you can bare without getting arrested) to midday sun three times per week is believed sufficient to meet vitamin D needs. The vitamin is fat soluble and is stored in the blood and adipose tissue to create some reserve, but daily sun-synthesized vitamin D is believed optimal.

Pregnant and nursing moms who do not get out in the sun, or have an improper diet, are poor sources of vitamin D for their infants. Not only will the baby's bone health be affected but just about every other health parameter will be as well.

The Master Hormone
Vitamin D is arguably the most important hormone in the entire body. We are taught in grade school that vitamin D enhances the absorption of calcium and phosphorus from the intestinal tract, and that drinking fortified milk will prevent rickets. But bone health is only a small part of the story. Research has now accumulated demonstrating that our link to the sun and the vitamin D it produces touches virtually every aspect of physiology.