Sunlight and Vitamin D: They’re Not the Same Thing

Westonaprice   April 20, 2020

ARTICLE SUMMARY
• Sulfate synthesis in the skin captures the sun’s energy. Adequate sunlight exposure to both the skin and the eyes is vital to our long-term health.
• Among other functions, sulfate supports blood vessel health, the body’s electrical supply and the delivery system for important molecules such as cholesterol, vitamin D, dopamine and melatonin.
• Evidence indicates that sunlight protects against cancer, heart disease, hypertension and bone fractures.
• The benefits of sunlight exposure are about much more than vitamin D.

• Many studies show that vitamin D supplementation cannot reproduce sunlight’s health benefits. Moreover, excessive vitamin D supplementation can aggravate systemic sulfate deficiency, which will drive calcium buildup in the arteries.

• Both sunscreen and glyphosate interfere with synthesis and production of melanin—the body’s natural mechanism of sun protection. Aluminum in sunscreen disrupts sulfate synthesis. These disruptions may explain why melanoma prevalence has steadily risen in tandem with the increased use of higher sun-protection-factor sunscreens over the past two decades.

 

We have been brainwashed into believing that the sun is toxic, whereas in fact it is life-giving. I am a great fan of sunlight exposure to both the skin and the eyes. The sun has been a resource for Planet Earth since the beginning of time, and biological organisms evolved with a constant supply of energy they could count on every day with the rising sun. Plants use the energy of sunlight to convert inorganic carbon into organic matter, with the help of chlorophyll. Why would animals ignore such an obvious energy source? Just as plants need sun­light to grow, sunlight plays an essential role in energizing animals, including humans.

I believe that the mechanism with which we safely exploit the sun’s energy is through the oxidation of sulfur to sulfate, with the help of choles­terol. This reaction takes place in the skin—catalyzed by sunlight—and it is vital to our long-term health.

PROTECTIVE SUNLIGHT

People who live in places with little sun have statistically higher risk for many chronic conditions, including multiple sclerosis, diabe­tes, cardiovascular disease, autism, Alzheimer’s disease and age-related macular degeneration.¹ On the other hand, a great deal of epidemio­logical evidence suggests that sunlight exposure protects from many different types of cancer. Ultraviolet (UV) radiation is recommended in treating different skin conditions, including pso­riasis, eczema, jaundice and acne. Sunlight may also be beneficial in healing various autoim­mune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, inflammatory bowel disease and thyroiditis.

Yet chances are that your dermatologist has told you to “stay out of the sun and take a vitamin D supplement every day.” For some, this has seemed like good advice because we have been taught to believe that the sun causes skin cancer and that the only reason to get out in the sunlight at all is to boost vitamin D levels through its UV-stimulated synthesis in the skin. Driven by the belief that the benefits of sunlight exposure are mainly due to vitamin D synthesis, the natural conclusion is that vitamin D supple­ments would achieve the same goal.

The story is not that simple, however. When placebo-controlled studies are conducted on vi­tamin D supplementation, they usually produce disappointing results. I believe the reason is that sunlight exposure is about a whole lot more than vitamin D synthesis in the skin. In a paper published in 2016, Richard Weller wrote: “A substantial body of evidence shows that sunlight has health benefits and that these are independent of vitamin D and thus cannot be reproduced by oral supplementation.”²