We have lived in harmony with the sun for thousands of years, and need what it has to offer in many ways!
The energy of the sun helps our bodies produce a very powerful and beneficial hormone called Vitamin D (most of us are vastly deficient). You don’t want to get sunburned, but you DO need to get in the sun regularly.
Be careful with sunscreen as the skin is the body’s largest organ and will absorb what you put on it. Make sure the ingredients are beneficial for you. Check out the best recommendations at EWG.
“The recommendation to avoid sun exposure at all costs is inadvertently killing people while saving very few if any from deadly melanoma. Outside magazine likens it to the public health recommendation to trade saturated fat for trans fats — a public health policy that has since been found to have killed millions by causing the very problem it aimed to prevent.”
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
- Researchers call for an immediate revision of public health recommendations on sun exposure, noting that “nonburning UV exposure is a health benefit and — in moderation — should be recommended as such”
- The public has been misled and misinformed about the health ramifications of sun avoidance, as there are significant hazards associated with vitamin D deficiency, including a heightened risk of heart disease and several cancers, especially internal cancers but also lethal skin cancer
- Sensible sun exposure is the most effective way to optimize your vitamin D level. Sun exposure also has health benefits beyond vitamin D production that help lower your risk of chronic disease and death
- When you’re deficient in vitamin D, your health can deteriorate in a variety of important ways, because your cells require the active form of vitamin D to gain access to the genetic blueprints stored inside the cell
- An estimated 12 percent of all U.S. deaths may be linked to inadequate sun exposure, and sun avoidance is as potent a risk factor for death as smoking
For decades, the concern over skin cancer, most of which are nonlethal, has taken the front seat. As a result, other far more serious chronic health conditions such as depression, heart disease and internal cancers that claim far more lives than melanoma have been allowed to proliferate. It’s high time we straighten our priorities.
From Mercola
