Sunlight Is Medicine
Nothing lives without the sun. Except the fear mongers who manage to stay out of the sun … and live anyhow.
Just kidding.
A Swedish study of 20 years concluded that women who opted for less sun exposure died earlier and had more fatal to serious illnesses like (skin!) cancer than women who soaked it up. No mention of depression, the high incidents of suicides and self-harm, of bone problems and new disorders like fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome that proliferate in regions with less sunlight. Maybe these observations were too obvious for the research.
Dr. Pelle Lindqvist, who published the findings in spring 2014, wrote: “The results of this study clearly showed that mortality was about double in women who avoided sun exposure compared to the highest exposure group. We conclude that women who avoid sun exposure are at an increased risk of all-cause death with a twofold increased mortality rate as compared to those with the highest sun exposures. The implementation of restrictive sun exposure advice in countries with low solar intensity might not be beneficial to women’s health.”
At last, a bit of balance to the way we look at the good old sun. It is time we redeem the giver of light and life.
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Going to extremes is not the answer. But the media go overboard in order to sell products and disconnect us even more from nature than is necessary. So what will you trust: your experience of well-being and rejuvenation in the sun, or some manufactured panic?
27 May 2014
I wrote this is 2014, before vitamin D3 / D and sunlight were promoted as something truly good for our health. Because of the pandemic and its echo in 2021, it reads like a current reminder to go out and soak up the sun, while you can and every day.
February 2021
