Most people are aware that vitamins are essential for good health, and that there are many different types of vitamins which affect different bodily organs and functions.
Whilst we are all familiar with the more common vitamins and where they come from such as the presence of vitamin C in citrus fruits, blueberries and vitamin A in dark green and yellow vegetables, many are less well aware of vitamin D for a few reasons.
The first reason is suggested by the fact that most know that you can get vitamin C from oranges and vitamin A comes from broccoli, but they have no idea what foods vitamin D comes from. Secondly, whilst many people could make a recently educated guess at what the more commonly recognized vitamins do, very few would have any idea about the purposes of vitamin D.
To a large extent therefore, vitamin D is the ‘forgotten vitamin’ in terms of public perception of health and wellness. However, it is in reality an extremely important nutrient that is responsible for many critical medical functions in your metabolism.
For example, because the primary function of this particular vitamin is to promote healthy calcium flow throughout your bloodstream, you are likely to suffer many calcium related problems if vitamin D is not present in sufficient amounts. Such conditions as brittle and misshapen bones are likely to be a result of vitamin D deficiency, whilst there are also indications that a deficiency may play a part in fibromyalgia, immune system weaknesses and so on.
On top of this, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that many people suffer psychological problems or depression as a result of vitamin D deficiency, with most cases of what is known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (‘winter depression’ or the ‘winter blues’) being related to a lack of this particular vitamin.
All of this is relevant when considering the positives and negatives of exposure to sunlight (the ‘for’ and ‘against’ as it were) because sunlight is absolutely essential if your body is to be able to process vitamin D properly.
Unlike other vitamins, there are surprisingly few foods from which we can get vitamin D and in every case where we do absorb this vitamin from our foods, it is because the food source has not been able to synthesize the substance property.
For instance, although the richest source of the basic building blocks of vitamin D is fish, these fish only contain these elemental nutrients because they were produced by the algae that they have eaten.
It is important to understand that the basic components of vitamin D are essentially inert, inactive until they are activated in your body. And the primary way that these inert vitamin components are converted into an active nutrient is through the action of sunlight on our skin.
The fact that a significant number of otherwise healthy, happy people suffer depression in the depths of winter when there is no sunlight is evidence of the fact that without sun, we go without vitamin D and perhaps suffer the adverse health effects caused by this deficiency as a result.
Indeed, one of the main forms of treatment for ‘winter blues’ sufferers is through the exposure to artificial (and extremely low powered) ultraviolet light as this is the only way they can make the necessary vitamin D to stave off these blues until the sun comes out again.
This counterargument to the one presented by the ‘skin cancer lobby’ has just as much validity as does the other side of the debate. It is undoubtedly a fact that without sunshine, we are not capable of processing vitamin D effectively and that without it, most people will suffer physical health problems, whilst many will also endure psychological difficulties as well.
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