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Lack of Sunlight Could Lead To Early Death
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Members of this community may want to venture out of the basement more often, because Dr. Harald Dobnig and his team have found that vitamin D deficiency leads to increased mortality. These results still hold when they take into account such factors as exercise and heart disease. Low vitamin D status has 'other significant negative effects in terms of incidence of cancer, stroke, sudden cardiac death and death of heart failure,' Dr. Dobnig said. The evidence of ill effects from low vitamin D 'is just becoming overwhelming at this point.' Vitamin D3 is usually produced by exposure to the UV-B in sunlight, but in high latitudes, especially in the fall and winter, insufficient UV-B gets through the atmosphere to produce enough vitamin D3, even with hours of exposure. The researchers are recommending that people at risk for deficiency take 800 IU of vitamin D3 daily. Just don't go overboard — as a fat-soluble vitamin, D3 is more capable of causing adverse effects at unnaturally high dosages. The human body tops out at producing about 10,000 IU per day." According to the Wikipedia entry linked above, the D2 (ergocalciferol) version -- available as a vegan product -- works approximately as well to supply humans with their needed vitamin D.
60 thousand years of human existence can't be discounted overnight.
60 thousand years of short lifespans and high mortality rates.
There's plenty enough light coming through even in winter. It's just that you usually don't really get exposed to much of it while sitting in a frickin' cubicle during the decidedly short days in winter.
I do not trust studies that tell me I have to take stuff to be healthy. Going out an hour a day is enough to produce enough vitamin D. We need so little of it to properly function. The true problem lies in the fact that we just are either too lazy to get out or have built our society around a schedule that doesn't allow for it.
This dude, in my opinion, is in the pockets of the pharmaceutic industry, trying to sell us more stupid medicine we don't really need.
The article acknowledges its own shortcomings: Vitamin D levels could possibly be used as a measurement of sunlight exposure in people not taking supplements and not conscientiously eating the proper foods. So when someone's chronically ill or massively overweight and doesn't go outside to exercise, their vitamin D levels will be decreased. Those people already have an increased 8 year mortality regardless of how much vitamin D they consume or have in their diet. It's like the studies "linking" coffee to lung cancer years ago: once it was realized that lots of people smoke when they drink coffee, those studies looked ridiculous. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confounding_variable
"OK wise guy... now explain California!"
Easy. It's even more dangerous to mix basement-dwelling troglodytes with sunshine-loving surface dwellers. They may not interact much, but when they do all sorts of horrible side-effects can occur (read George Wells' "The Time Machine" for examples).
Cancer is only one potential risk. The sun worshipers I've known still are wrinkled way beyond their years.
There's a difference between sun worshippers and people who go out in the sun, just as there's a difference between binge drinking and a glass of wine on a saturday night.All things in moderation.
Perhaps ironically, most of the people I know living here in Phoenix have much healthier, younger looking skin than people living in Michigan, where I'm originally from. My hypothesis (just a hypothesis -- I'm not a scientist, have done no case study, and am just throwing an explanation out there with no scientific evidence to back it) is that daily, frequent, regulated light exposure makes skin healthier. In Michigan, we tend to hibernate from October to April, so when the sun finally DOES come out, most of us get severe burns. Since moving here, I've been able to keep a perpetual tan just walking to and from my car everyday, and only ever burn if I'm in the sun significantly longer than my usual routine -- and the burns never last as long, and rarely are severe enough to cause peeling, as was frequently the case in Michigan. (I'm very fair skinned.) Another observation: in Michigan, particularly in the winter, my hands would dry out, crack, and occasionally bleed. Lip balm was equally essential to deal with drying. Naturally, you'd think moving to a significantly drier climate would do the same thing, but equally ironic, my skin has gone from normal to oily. The human body has an AMAZING ability to adapt. As one user points out, it's all in moderation. Most researchers point out that 15 minutes of intense, mid-day light exposure is enough to produce sufficient vitamin D. I'd say, if you live in a significantly sunny climate, just going about your daily routine is probably sufficient. If you don't, particularly in the winter months, it's important to spend as much time as humanly possibly outdoors to get sufficient sun rays, particularly in cloudy environments. But, when the sun DOES start to shine, make sure your exposure is minimal, and you slowly work up your body's ability to handle the sun, so you don't burn to a crisp, like most of us do.
I can understand why MS patients lack vitamin D, but it may be BECAUSE they have MS tht they have less vitamin D.
As George Carlin would have said:
This is far from a non story. There is a growing body of good research that indicates vitamin D to be one of the most important contributors to health. As a light sensitive chemical, it shows up early in our evolutionary history, and as such, has been incorporated into all kinds of biochemical pathways.
As the summary says, the body can produce 10,000 IUs a day, far more than a multivitamin will provide.
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