Sun lamps help unborn babies beat osteoporosis

A major British newspaper this week published a story under the headline, “Sun lamps help unborn babies beat osteoporosis” — further evidence that the value of regular UV exposure is getting through to the press as part of the unfolding vitamin D story.

“Women due to give birth in winter should use a sun lamp during the final three months of pregnancy to protect their child from osteoporosis in later life, doctors have suggested,” Britain’s Sunday Times reported April 27. “They made their recommendation as research found that children born to mothers whose final three months of pregnancy included a summer month were 40% less likely to suffer the bone-wasting condition in adult-hood. A mother’s exposure to sunlight in that final period ensures the developing baby receives enough vitamin D to form strong bones.”

The Times quoted Dr. Marwan Bukhari, a rheumatologist in Lancaster who authored the study, as saying, “You only get good sunlight [when you make vitamin D] between May and September in this country. Pregnant women should have vitamin D supplements or should have lots of good sunshine in somewhere like north Africa or the southern Mediterranean [in winter].”

According to The Times, “Bukhari and colleagues studied 17,000 patients, mostly women and 95% of whom were white. They had all had scans carried out at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary between 1992 and 2004. … They found that patients under 50 were 40% less likely to have developed osteoporosis if their mother’s last trimester of pregnancy included a summer month.”

The study comes on the heels of heightened recommendations for vitamin D in North America for expectant mothers. The Canadian Pediatric Society this year recommended that expectant mothers get 2,000 IU of vitamin D daily to be able to pass any vitamin D onto children prenatally or while nursing. That’s 10 times the current government vitamin D recommendations, and some vitamin D experts have suggested the number should be as high as 6,400 IU daily.

Older patients were 20%-40% less likely to have osteoporosis if their mothers’ late stages of pregnancy were in the summer.

Doctors suggest that women whose last trimester of pregnancy does not fall between May and September should consider taking a holiday in the Mediterranean.

As flying is not advised in the late stages of pregnancy, however, they suggest that women may need to settle for a sun lamp or vitamin D supplements.

Bukhari added: “Sun lamps are an option. It needs to be the right kind of sun lamp to convert fat under the skin to vitamin D.”

Michael Holick, professor of medicine at Boston University in America, said a lack of vitamin D, caused by overzealous avoidance of the sun, was leading to thousands of unnecessary cancer deaths each year and increasing vulnerability to rickets.

“The vitamin D levels now being suggested are consistent only with levels one could get naturally through UVB exposure,” Smart Tan Vice President Joseph Levy said. “There is no way to get there naturally through diet, and the safe upper limit for vitamin D supplements — which, unlike sun exposure, are linked to the possibility of toxic overdose reactions – is still only 2,000 units a day. It is becoming more and more obvious that regular UV exposure isthe only real natural and intended pathway for natural vitamin D production and that high-dose supplements are, at best, a good second option.”

The North American tanning community generally suggests that pregnant women consult a physician before tanning during a pregnancy. UV exposure does not pose any threat to the fetus — it does not penetrate beyond the mother’s skin, contrary to urban legend, but any excessive heat and discomfort can be an issue for the mother.

Exposure position in the third trimester of a pregnancy can also be an issue. A pregnant woman laying on her back can put extra pressure on her spine.

“The study will revive the debate over whether excessive caution about exposure to sunshine is creating other health problems,” The Times reported.

To read The Times’ story click here.

CDC Finds 97% of Americans Contaminated by Sunscreens

by Ellen Holder (NaturalNews)

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) released a new study showing that nearly all Americans are contaminated with oxybenzone, a widely-used sunscreen ingredient.

This chemical so far has been linked to allergies, hormone disruption, and cell damage, as well as low birth weight in baby girls whose mothers are exposed during pregnancy.

Oxybenzone is also a penetration enhancer, a chemical that helps other chemicals penetrate the skin. So where has the FDA been on this?

Apparently in the back pocket of the sunscreen industry, The Food and Drug Administration, again, has failed in its duty to protect the public from toxic chemicals like oxybenzone.

Caving to the industry lobbyists, the agency has delayed final sunscreen safety standards for nearly 30 years. FDA issued a new draft of the standards last October under pressure from Environmental Working Group (EWG), but continues to delay finalizing them because of pressure from the industry.

In their online cosmetic safety database, EWG identifies nearly 600 sunscreens sold in the U.S. that contain oxybenzone, including leading brand names like Hawaiian Tropic, Coppertone, and Banana Boat, and many facial moisturizers as well.

On top of that, they also show many of these so-called sunscreens offer inadequate protection from the sun. In fact, they found that sunlight also causes oxybenzone to form free radical chemicals that may be linked to cell damage, which is the exact opposite reason many women mistakenly use the sunscreen – to protect them from damaging free radicals which lead to premature aging!

And interestingly, as sunscreen sales have risen, so has the rate of skin cancers. Go figure.

We’ve been pressured to believe that the sun is our enemy and we need to slather on loads of sunscreen to protect ourselves, when in actuality we need sunlight for our bodies to manufacture vitamin D.

For those of us who are either fair skinned or just plain vain and worry about age spots and wrinkles, limiting our unprotected sun exposure to 20 minutes a day is adequate for our daily dose of vitamin D.

For more fun in the sun, overexposure can be avoided by using a natural or organic sunscreen with a reflective barrier like zinc, instead of chemical sunscreens. Even a small amount of shea butter rubbed into the skin daily offers a bit of natural UV protection.

Whatever you do, don’t wait for the FDA to help you in your choice. Based on their history in this category, it could be another 30 years before safety standards are improved.

References:
1. Environmental Health Perspectives: Concentrations of the Sunscreen Agent, Benzophenone-3, in Residents of the United States: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2003–2004
http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2008/1126…

2. Environmental Working Group: Comments from EWG on the U.S. FDA’s Proposed Amendment of Final Monograph for Sunscreens
http://www.ewg.org/node/25705

3. Environmental Working Group: Americans Carry ‘Body Burden’ of Toxic Sunscreen Chemical
http://www.ewg.org/node/26212

Summer Fitness!

by Scott Eric Barrett

When summer arrives we naturally gravitate toward the beaches, lakes and parks for outdoor activities. For most, this rite of passage usually involves packing away sweaters, parkas and boots and donning shorts, swimwear and sandals.

Wearing less clothing allows our bodies to soak up more healthy rays of sunlight; however, many people who don’t exercise or live healthy lifestyles are reluctant to shed their clothes and fully enjoy summer. Unfortunately, many out-of-shape people won’t even leave the house during summer.

Well, those days are over. Get with the program and set a course for a healthy, fitness- and sun-filled summer.

An Age-Old Friendship

Copernicus declared the sun the center of our universe more than 400 years ago. Throughout history, the human race has enjoyed a special relationship with the sun. Primitive societies in every continent worshiped it as a god for providing warmth and helping crops grow. Hippocrates and Pythagoras wrote extensively on the use of sunlight in the processes of healing. The Romans made use of the sun in training their gladiators, believing the rays strengthened and enlarged their muscles.

Greek physician Antyllus wrote the first positive review for sunbathing more than 2,000 years ago: “Persons expose themselves to the sun, some cover themselves with oil and others do not; some lie down and some are seated, while others stand or play. Those who lie down, rest on sand or a cushion. This sunlight exposure prevents an increase in body weight and strengthens the muscles. It makes fat disappear. It reduces, as well, hydropic swelling.”

Writing in modern times, Dr. Phil Maffetone, chairman and CEO of the Maffetone Report, an alternative health newsletter, says there’s nothing like a clear sunny day, whether it’s spring, summer, fall or winter.

“A bright sunny day makes people feel more healthy,” he says. “Too often we hear about how the sun is bad. The only time the sun is bad for us is when our bodies aren’t healthy enough to benefit from it or when we abuse it. Our skin actually was made for the sun.”

The catchword for taking advantage of the sun’s health benefits is moderation. When ultraviolet rays from the sun come in contact with ergosterol, a fluid found just under the skin, they convert it to vitamin D, which is absorbed into the bloodstream. Studies suggest sunshine may help with depression and ease anxiety.

Get your Kit Off, Get in the Sun and Live Longer.

Well, well, well! Yet another spectacular u-turn by the medical/scientific community. Yes folks, hang on to your hats, it now seems that they’ve finally come to realise that . . . drumroll . . . SUNSHINE IS GOOD FOR YOU!

Why the sudden change of heart?

What’s made them go from ‘cover up and stay out of the sun between the hours of 4am and 11pm’ to ‘get your kit off and enjoy a bit of sunbathing whenever you can’?

Ok, that’s not what they’re really saying but it does seem that the sun has been given a new lease of life. It has been turned miraculously from big bad cancer-causing bringer-of-death to all-encompassing ailment-curing giver-of-life.

Two very extreme extremes. Now, no-one can deny that over-exposure to the midday sun can damage your skin and also may cause skin cancers or melanomas. But it seems the medical profession now believes that under-exposure to sunlight can have just as disastrous consequences.

So which point of view is correct?

I have never subscribed to the ’stay out of the sun or die’ kind of scaremongering. The one basic fact that nobody can argue with is that ALL life on this planet depends on it. If the sun went out EVERYTHING on earth would die. Period.

So don’t you think that in the few thousand years of human habitation of this planet we might just have come to harness, rely on and adapt to it’s life-giving properties?

And that to try to hide from it or ignore its existence is kind of stupid? I’ve lived in southern Spain for the last four years so I know a thing or two about sunshine. Let me give you a little example of my personal experience of it.

Cell Defenses and the Sunshine Vitamin

Scientific American Magazine – January 7, 2008

Scientists now recognize that vitamin D does much more than build strong bones and that many people are not getting enough of it. Is widespread D deficiency contributing to major illnesses?

By Luz E. Tavera-Mendoza and John H. White

It was called the sunshine cure, and in the early 20th century, before the era of antibiotics, it was the only effective therapy for tuberculosis known. No one knew why it worked, just that TB patients sent to rest in sunny locales were often restored to health. The same “treatment” had been discovered in 1822 for another historic scourge, rickets—a deforming childhood condition caused by an inability to make hardened bone. Rickets had been on the rise in 18th- and 19th-century Europe, coinciding with industrialization and the movement of people from the countryside to the polluted cities, when a Warsaw doctor observed that the problem was relatively rare in rural Polish children. He began experimenting with city children and found that he could cure their rickets with exposure to sunshine alone.

Preventing Cancer through Sun Exposure

In Sub Tropical Environments You Can Be Vitamin D Deficient “If you live in one of these perpetually sunny environments but work the entire week indoors and don’t make a conscious effort to go outside during the weekends you will become vitamin D deficient.” Don’t fear the sunshine. Jergens^® Skincare in support of The Skin Cancer Foundation announces “Glow in the Dark,” a campaign to give up bad tanning habits in favor of alternatives. What is an alternative according to the maker of Jergens? No sun at all, or maybe the new topical drug version sure to be called “Nosunitol.” Goodbye Vitamin D, hello breast cancer. Hello skin cancer. They reference this sobering statistic:

“Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the United States. More than 1 million skin cancers are diagnosed annually.“

What they do not tell you is that more skin cancers are caused by a lack of sun exposure rather than too much. Without adequate Vitamin D and Selenium, you can practically guarantee a dangerous chronic disease of degradation. Unfortunately, most money directed at skin cancer research places undue focus on chemotherapy, radiation and surgery, as if skin cancer is a deficiency of anyone of those things. Our bodies are designed to deal with normal free radical damage caused by occasional overexposure to sunlight, but an apparent inability to look at nutritional deficiencies has condemned one million unsuspecting Americans to skin cancer every year. Healthy sun exposure and food grown selenium could prevent hundreds of thousands of them without wasting a dollar more on dermatological drug research. The truth only hurts drug companies and the politicians that they have lobbied.

You needn’t fear the sun. Learn about the UV Advantage by going here: http://www.uvadvantage.org/.

SunScreen INC.