Sunlight the right way

The real deal on sunscreen!

Let your body make the Vitamin D it was born to make, and "get sunlight the right way".

The sun's ultraviolet rays keep us warm, give us light, and are the main provider of Vitamin D to our bodies.
Vitamin D is essential and acts as a vitamin and hormone inside the body, influencing the gut, bones, and kidneys.

-The gut- Vitamin D works on the gut by increasing the amount of calcium absorbed from foods you consume.  Calcium is essential for bone health, muscle contraction and much more.


-The bones- Vitamin D is essential for bone health, aiding in bone remodeling, and protecting against osteoporosis.


-The kidney- Vitamin D influences the kidneys to keep the right amount of calcium in the blood promoting all muscle health and contractions including cardiovascular (heart) health.


-Anti-proliferation effect- (decreased cancer risk) Studies have shown that improving calcium and Vitamin D nutritional status substantially reduces all cancer risks in postmenopausal woman.

The recommendation for Vitamin D is 25ug/day

We can get Vitamin D from the foods we eat like fortified milk, oily fishes, and some fortified breads and cereals.  However, the USDA has estimated that the average American diet consists of only 2ug/day of Vitamin D.  

The other 23ug/day needs to come from unprotected sun exposure (without sunscreen).  It has been recommended that hands face arms and legs should be exposed "for a period equal to 25% of the time that it would take to cause a light pinkness to the skin" M. Holick.  For most of us this is more the 30 minutes of unprotected sun exposure per sunny day.  

Sunscreen does have its place, for instance while lounging at the beach for hours with only swim trunks on.  However, overloading on a daily basis with SPF's could be causing you harm. 

So to prevent a Vitamin D deficiency, and to reduce the potential for osteoporosis, fractures, falls, colon cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, pain, multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes, and poor glucose homeostasis put the SPF face moisturizer away, and lay off the sunscreen.  

Let your body make the Vitamin D it was born to make, and "get sunlight the right way".