Is sunlight essential for health?

Not needed

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by Jane Allyson

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Is sunlight essential for health? The question can be answered by looking at the benefits that the human body receives from a daily dose of good old fashioned sunshine.

There is no doubt that the sun can encourage you to feel more active and energetic. After a long winter, which can leave you feeling lethargic and a little depressed, the sun brings happiness and a feeling of balance and harmony.

You feel good about yourself and you know that by going out into the sunshine, that you are providing your body with vitamin D, which is essential for building bones and teeth.

However there has been a great deal of controversy about how much sunshine we really need. Do we REALLY need to expose ourselves to the sunlight to manufacture this naturally occurring vitamin, or is it possible to get it from other sources?
Are you aware that you only need five minutes of sunlight exposure to your bare skin to provide you with enough of the vitamin for a week?

Sunshine is useful for the human body because it provides this vitamin free of charge and you can get it very easily, but did you know that you can also get it by eating oily fish like salmon and mackerel? These foods are abundant in vitamin D, and although to get enough of the vitamin, you would have to eat it at least 3-5 times a week to maintain a healthy system, at least it is possible to take on enough vitamin D if for some reason you couldn't get to a sunny spot.

Even though we are told about the benefits of sunshine we must still remember that sunlight is a powerful radiation, and there is the potential for harm if we are exposed to it for any length of time. Many times it has been seen to do more harm than good, and people who welcome the warm rays from the sun, believing that they are benefiting their system, are merely inviting damage to their genetic DNA make-up and promoting premature aging of the skin if they overdo their exposure.

The World Health Organization designates the sun as being a human carcinogen, and attributes over 1 million annual cases of skin cancer as a result of overexposure to the sun. This represents 55% of all cancers in the USA. Although these types of cancers are rarely fatal, it can be argued that the statistics do not indicate that the drawbacks of sun exposure outweigh the benefits. Especially when you can consider that it is possible to obtain vitamin D from other sources.

The crux of the problem is that even though you need very little sunshine to provide you with the benefits that it can give, the drawback is that many of us would unintentionally become overexposed to its potentially harmful rays.

So apart from vitamin D, which we know we can already get from other sources such as dairy products, fish, oysters, fortified cereals and margarine, what else does the sun give us?

The sun is instrumental in regulating the levels of melatonin in our bodies. It is a hormone that is fed into the bloodstream by the pineal gland. Signals from the eyes regulate the secretion of melatonin and the amount produced will decrease and increase with the rising and setting of the sun. This hormone is what governs our internal clock, giving the individual a 24 hour awake/sleep cycle.

Studies have shown that taking a melatonin supplement can increase your lifespan by an average of 25%. This is like saying that you will get a 20 extra years in human terms. Wow! Wouldn't that be great? Melatonin has also shown to prevent both the initiation and promotion of cancer. However, when the amount of melatonin is reduced, it leaves the cells of the body in a vulnerable state and more prone to cancer-causing agents.

By going out in the sunlight, it has the effect of suppressing the activation of the hormone melatonin by producing an important compound called serotonin. This is what stops us from falling asleep during the day. The serotonin stops the body from absorbing the melatonin and when the sun goes down, so does the level of serotonin in your bloodstream, which then triggers a release of melatonin. (And so aids restful sleep)

Can we buy this hormone in supplement form? The answer is yes we can, so if we do have trouble finding that sunny spot and producing enough serotonin, we can always dose ourselves up with some more. So what do we need the sun for?

Melatonin is a very safe and natural supplement, but it must be used properly. The trick is to take enough what your body will use and then let Mother Nature take over again by taking simple rest. The appropriate dosage should be between 3 to 6 mg 1 hour before bedtime.

It can be argued that the sun is Mother Nature's way of keeping our bodies working with a sense of harmony and rhythm. Most animal life on Earth has evolved a physiological system that has been designed to live and gain direct benefits from this powerful entity.

However, is it true that we cannot do without the sun? Can we live a healthy life without its invigorating presence?

Although it is true that the sunshine makes us feel good. It can lower the incidence of depression and tiredness and irritability. It provides us with the essential vitamin D and promotes the feel good factor, serotonin. It cannot hoever, be considered to be totally essential in the real sense of the word because we have a choice in how we obtain these elements. Sunshine is not a unique source for vitamin D and the compound melatonin can be taken as a supplement if our bodies cannot manufacture an adequate amount.

Even the compound serotonin can be taken as a medicinal drug for conditions such as sleeping disorders and depression.

So in conclusion, sunshine can be beneficial in small doses, but there is also potential harm from overexposure. It is not totally essential for our health because we have other means to manufacture synthetically, what the sun gives us naturally.

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