The Sunshine Vitamin
Sun Exposure Is the Best Way to Optimize Your Vitamin D Levels
Most vitamin D researchers agree that sensible sun exposure is the ideal way to get your vitamin D. Supplements do not confer the identical effects as the vitamin D your skin generates in response to UV exposure. Secondly, sun exposure has additional health benefits that are unrelated to vitamin D production.
For example, UVA exposure produces nitric oxide (NO), which has a blood pressure-lowering effect. In fact, the entire solar spectrum is important for optimal health. We’re not dependent solely on the narrowband wavelength of about 295 nanometers (nm), which is where vitamin D is made.
However, unless you make a concerted effort, chances are you’re simply not getting enough sun exposure to raise your vitamin D level. Your lifestyle, location, age, ethnicity, time of year, weather conditions and a number of other factors influence how much vitamin D your skin will make in response to sun exposure. The fact that vitamin D insufficiency and deficiency is widespread even in sun-drenched areas like India attests to this difficulty.
A growing body of evidence shows that vitamin D plays a crucial role in disease prevention and maintaining optimal health. There are about 30,000 genes in your body, and vitamin D affects nearly 3,000 of them, as well as vitamin D receptors located throughout your body.
DBM Protocol – Adjunct Therapy – Vitamin D Optimisation
- To optimize your levels, you need to expose large portions of your skin, such as your back, chest, legs, and arms, to sensible sun exposure – at least 80% of your body.
- Contrary to popular belief, the best time to be in the sun for vitamin D production is actually as near to solar noon as possible.
- During this time you need the shortest exposure time to produce vitamin D because UVB rays are most intense at this time, because when the sun goes down toward the horizon, the UVB is filtered out much more than the dangerous UVA.
- Just be cautious about the length of your exposure.
- You only need enough exposure to have your skin turn the lightest shade darker.
- Once you reach this point your body will not make any additional vitamin D due to its self-regulating mechanism.
- Any additional exposure will only cause harm and damage to your skin.
- Avoiding processed foods is another important consideration, as they tend to be loaded with the herbicide glyphosate (used on most conventional and genetically engineered food crops), and glyphosate has been shown to interfere with enzymes responsible for activating vitamin D in your liver and kidneys.
For more information on Vitamin D and why we prefer NOT to supplement with tablets to optimise our Vitamin D levels – follow the links.