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Epidemic of Vitamin D deficiency - some important advice!
The sun is a very important source of energy; not only for all life on earth via photosynthesis but also because it provides us with 90% of our annual Vitamin D.
According to a report by the Health Research Forum in the UK; current government policy is not helpful in advising the public correctly about sunlight exposure. The government has been telling people to cover-up as much as possible and apply suncream. However, research from this report shows that people at high latitudes (greater than 45 degrees north) are starved of the vital UVB rays for 6 months of the year when the sun is lower. During this time; their skin can not make vitamin D from sunlight and they are at risk of several illnesses and disease. A lot of the problem is that during spring, summer and early autumn people do not expose themselves to the sun for long enough or frequently enough at the crucial hours when the sun is strongest to maximise vitamin D synthesis. The fact that people work during the week most of the time throughout the warmer months is not helpful; and for fair-skinned people about 40 minutes of maximum bodily exposure to the sun is needed at latitudes greater than 51 degrees north. For latitudes of 41 to 45; about 20 minutes three times a week at noon to 2pm is needed for optimum vitamin D synthesis. Fairer skin will synthesize vitamin D quicker; and thus darker skinned people will need to take supplements if living at these latitudes or consume a lot more oily fish. Once sufficient vitamin D has been synthesized over the spring, summer and early autumn - the reserves can then be stored in both liver and body fats and will last for two to three months to help prevent vitamin D defficiency during the winter. Although darker skinned people or those living in coastal locations and higher latitudes; are strongly advised to supplement with a diet of oily fish and also cod liver oil twice a week.
It is also important to note that conventional suncreams (even weak-factor creams) stop 95% of vitamin D generation from sunlight so the 20 to 40 minute exposure MUST be done without suncream. Please do this while taking care not to burn; i.e. if you have very light skin, then you can make up your 20 to 40 minute full-body exposure in small intervals with periods of cooling. The report also states that simple hands and face exposure are not enough to obtain optimum vitamin D synthesis from sunlight at higher altitudes.
Read the report here: -
http://www.healthresearchforum.org.uk/sunlight.html
According to a report by the Health Research Forum in the UK; current government policy is not helpful in advising the public correctly about sunlight exposure. The government has been telling people to cover-up as much as possible and apply suncream. However, research from this report shows that people at high latitudes (greater than 45 degrees north) are starved of the vital UVB rays for 6 months of the year when the sun is lower. During this time; their skin can not make vitamin D from sunlight and they are at risk of several illnesses and disease. A lot of the problem is that during spring, summer and early autumn people do not expose themselves to the sun for long enough or frequently enough at the crucial hours when the sun is strongest to maximise vitamin D synthesis. The fact that people work during the week most of the time throughout the warmer months is not helpful; and for fair-skinned people about 40 minutes of maximum bodily exposure to the sun is needed at latitudes greater than 51 degrees north. For latitudes of 41 to 45; about 20 minutes three times a week at noon to 2pm is needed for optimum vitamin D synthesis. Fairer skin will synthesize vitamin D quicker; and thus darker skinned people will need to take supplements if living at these latitudes or consume a lot more oily fish. Once sufficient vitamin D has been synthesized over the spring, summer and early autumn - the reserves can then be stored in both liver and body fats and will last for two to three months to help prevent vitamin D defficiency during the winter. Although darker skinned people or those living in coastal locations and higher latitudes; are strongly advised to supplement with a diet of oily fish and also cod liver oil twice a week.
It is also important to note that conventional suncreams (even weak-factor creams) stop 95% of vitamin D generation from sunlight so the 20 to 40 minute exposure MUST be done without suncream. Please do this while taking care not to burn; i.e. if you have very light skin, then you can make up your 20 to 40 minute full-body exposure in small intervals with periods of cooling. The report also states that simple hands and face exposure are not enough to obtain optimum vitamin D synthesis from sunlight at higher altitudes.
Read the report here: -
http://www.healthresearchforum.org.uk/sunlight.html
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Deirdre on -
Vitamin D supplementation is what is actually recommended in instead of increasing sun exposure and thus skin cancer rates.
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Permalink Reply by Persian Paladin on -
You can never get all your vitamin D needs from supplements alone; as some people do not always efficiently biologically utilise ingested vitamin D. Hence this report and the IMPORTANT need for people to expose themselves to the sun more without suncream (but taking care not to burn).
The advice is that after 20-40 minutes of maximum body exposure to the sun without suncream (to enable vitamin D synthesis); you can then cover-up or apply creams to prevent sunburn. There is no hard link between sun exposure and melanoma in people who regularly expose themselves to a healthy amount of sunshine; when you read this expert report. The correllation between sun exposure and melanoma; is not simple and is more affected by regularity or irregularity of sun exposure throughout life, latitude, age, etc. Contrary to what people have read; we NEED sunlight to get 90% of our vitamin D and thus the sun is a good thing and nourishes us and we should make use of it but never be excessive and also make sure we don't burn.
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Permalink Reply by Deirdre on
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I wouldn't hang out your shingle yet. Sensible sun exposure in 2009 is considered the exposure of arms and legs for 5-30 minutes (depending on time of day, season, latitude, and skin pigmentation) between the hours of 10 am and 3pm twice a week ... that's it. I start to burn in 5 minutes at that time of day. My levels are fine because I simply take a supplement.
Melanoma is not the only type of skin cancer. Teenagers and people in their 20's are now being seen for skin cancer. It is no longer an older persons-only danger.
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Permalink Reply by Persian Paladin on
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There is no solid correllation between burning and melanoma; if you read this report. Its more complex and is associated with how regularly a person exposes themselves to sunshine at those peak times. Melanoma usually occurs in places that are not usually exposed to the sun and hence there is no hard and fast correllation. It can occur if somebody throughout life has not exposed themselves to much sun; but only periodically spends long hours in hot sun.
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Permalink Reply by Persian Paladin on
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You will still be deficcient in vitamin D; no matter how many supplements you take because of the fat-solubility in orally taken supplements as well as the different ways peoples' bodies can process ingested vitamin D. 90% of it still comes from sunshine and its important to utilise 3 times a week with hands, arms, legs and face exposure in summer, spring and early autumn. You will need 20 minutes in summer and around about 40 minutes in spring and autumn for a 50+ degree latitude. In winter; supplements WILL help support the 2-3 month reserve that the body will have made from the high-season sun exposure.
Again...don't take my word for it. Read the report.
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Permalink Reply by Deirdre on
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My levels are fine. You don't really know what you are talking about and you are clearly not in the medical field. You are not correctly interpreting the medical information you are googling. You are NOT the person to be advising people on health and medicine, sorry.
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Permalink Reply by Persian Paladin on
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Read the report as I said; don't take my words for it alone. My words are all coming from this EXPERT report.
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Permalink Reply by Deirdre on
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Oliver Gillie is a freelance medical researcher and writer ...
Besides, you were the person claiming to somehow KNOW I was deficient in Vitamin D and telling me to get 20 minutes of sun. If I followed your so-called facts in the above post, I would have a bad sunburn. Since my labs show I have good levels of vitamin D, you telling me I am deficient in D is pretty funny.
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Permalink Reply by Persian Paladin on
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Which is why I said that 20 minutes should not be all at once for people with very light skin; it should make-up 20 minutes as a total and in small increments of exposure. And I'm not saying that you are deficient at all; I'm simply stating what is written in this report. And the author is certainly qualified and authoritative. I quote: -
"I have shown this report to a number of colleagues including those who are familiar with and those who are not familiar with the evidence. They have urged me to make as clear as possible the different types of scientific evidence and the strength of risks that are associated with vitamin D deficiency in the case of each disease. I have
attempted to do this so that readers can judge for themselves the strength of evidence in each case. I must take sole responsibility for the content of this report but I am indebted to many colleagues for reading the manuscript and making helpful comments. I would like to acknowledge here the invaluable assistance of:
● Reinhold Vieth, PhD, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Canada
● William B Grant, PhD, Sunlight, Nutrition and Health Research Center (SUNARC), San Francisco, California
● John Carrier, PhD, Department of Social Administration, London School of Economics, London, UK
● John McGrath, MBBS, PhD, FRANZCP, professor of psychiatry, University of Queensland and Queensland Centre
for Schizophrenia Research, Wacol, Queensland, Australia
● Gregory Plotnikoff, MD, MTS, associate professor of medicine and pediatrics, University of Minnesota Medical
School, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
● Lucy Gillie, MSc, Scottish Consumer Council, Glasgow, UK
● Sue Fairweather-Tait, MSc, PhD, head, nutrition division, Institute of Food Research, Norwich, UK
● George Davey Smith, MA, MSc, MD, professor of clinical epidemiology, University of Bristol, UK
● Richard C Strange, PhD, professor of clinical biochemistry, Keele University School of Medicine, University
Hospital of North Staffordshire, Staffordshire, UK
● Bruce W. Hollis, professor of pediatrics, biochemistry and molecular biology, Medical University of South Carolina,
Charleston, USA."
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Permalink Reply by Deirdre on
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That's not what you said in your post to me.
The media is, as usual, ignorantly promoting the latest craze about Vitamin D deficiency without balance. Also as usual, the gullible in the general public will blindly accept the one-sided articles and not approach it with common sense and advice from their GP/PCP (or dermatologist).
Doctors have been aware for several years the need to test D levels, especially in those in high risk groups for diseases, such as Osteoporosis.
If we are going to spend hours googling and then getting on a pulpit with one-sided, biased information, we as guilty of ignorance as the media machine. :(
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Permalink Reply by Persian Paladin on
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Define "one-sided".
This report was produced after consultation; and is not affiliated with any commercial pharmaceutical group or government organisation (which tells people in the UK to cover-up and that only passive hands\face exposure is sufficient).
Never take an opinion from just one doctor or practitioner; you always need second opinions on some things. This is from personal experience in my life with disease as well as my fathers'.
When are your vitamin D levels being measured? Are you sure that they are measuring them at early spring when most peoples' levels are at an all-time low? If you are taking supplements, then thats good. But all I'm saying is that more exposure to the sun is needed for most people at high latittudes regularly (not just when the weather is hot) in order to make vitamin D more efficiently and build up a reserve.
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