Good Rays or Bad?

One of the key elements to our health is maintaining balance.  Just about anything, taken to an extreme can have bad consequences.  It is important to utilize one of our greatest, but often neglected, God given gifts: common sense.  No where is this better exemplified than in how we deal with sun exposure.

We have learned that excess sun causes skin cancer.  In the form of melanoma, it can be a rapidly progressive, deadly disease.  The medical community has gotten the word out.  Stay out of the sun.  Use sunscreen.  Protect yourself.  This is all true.

Now, shutting yourself inside all day and avoiding the sun's rays at any cost is not necessarily a good thing.  When the sun is out we all feel a little better.  Just as it awakens our plants and helps them to grow, it has been shown to decrease our propensity to depression and lift our moods.

There is one are of our health that the sun is essential to our metabolism.  It has to do with calcium.  Calcium keeps our bones strong.  It triggers our muscles to contract.  Without it, our heart could not pump.  It is very tightly regulated in our blood stream.  One of the ways in which this happens is through Vitamin D.  There are several sources of vitamin D in our diet but the active form which helps us absorb calcium, is formed through an enzyme that requires sunlight through the skin.  Without vitamin D our body does not function well.  I am finding in my own practice of medicine many, many people who have low Vitamin D levels.  When I was in medical school, I was taught to consider Vitamin D deficiency in mostly older patients with thin bones who never get outside.  We now live in a society where we go all day long without being outside.  Instead of walking or biking to work, we drive.  We sit all day long in buildings whether at work or at school.  When we arrive home, we rush to the computer to talk to our friends on facebook or write on our blogs!  We need more sun.

Sun exposure is bad, you say.  In excess, of course it is.  Just 10-15 minutes of sun exposure, three days a week is sufficient to maintain adequate levels of vitamin D.  Grab a hat, wear your sun screen but get outside and enjoy those rays.  Remember, keep everything in balance.