Sunlight and Vitamin D

What is going on beautiful people. I am finally back from a temporary hiatus. Yes, after hearing many of you and my friends giving me shit from not producing podcast episodes, I am finally back. I have been working on a new coaching program that I am pretty excited about. It includes primal weight loss strategies, nutrition plans without counting stupid macros and calories, strength training methods and easy badass lifestyle methods that anyone can implement to get more energy into their life. If you are interested, we first start off with a free 45minute to 1-hour phone consult to find out your goals, needs and desires. Based off this call, we will formulate an extremely detailed plan tailored to your individual needs. With Over 15 years of experimentation of every diet and exercise regimen imaginable, I know what works for some and doesn’t work for others. For instance… those people who have had their gallbladder removed will likely not do well on a ketogenic diet.. because breaking down fats efficiently requires a healthy gallbladder. Many so-called healthy diets will not work for everyone. Not even close. That’s why you have not gotten the results you wanted or desired because it was not tailored to you. I have helped many people attain the life they deserve, so if you’re ready to finally get that body or achieve your many health goals, Facebook message me at TJ Woodham and let’s get started on making you a badass for the rest of your years.

 

On today’s episode we are talking about the benefits of Sunlight and why it has been demonized over the years for fear of cancer. In fact, newer findings suggest that moderate amounts of sunshine does not lead to skin cancer, but rather moderate amounts of sunshine actually helps prevent several types of cancers, especially breast cancer, colon cancer and prostate cancer.

 

We are also going to talk about why vitamin D aka hormone D is so damn good for you. Oh and before we start, I wanted to let you know nearly 1 billion people world-wide are currently vitamin D deficient. Why do you ask? Well because we sit inside play video games, watch tv, play with our iPads, scroll through social media and the list goes on… Let’s get into it.

 

First lets discuss why humans must get sunlight (health benefits)

The reason why sunlight is amazing for your health is the stimulation of vitamin D synthesis. Vitamin D does many things for our body such as creating strong bones, strong immune system so you don’t get sick, protection against dementia and Alzheimer’s, increased mood and natural hormone cycles, increased energy, strong teeth, nails and hair, helps with absorption of food and those with digestive disorders. Vitamin D via the sun also helps with skin disorders like PSORIASIS and ECZEMA. I can 100% confirm this.. as I had a bad case of eczema and the sun did wonders for my skin.

 

The light that comes from the sun is called ultra-violet light. However, there are three types of ultra-violet light. UVA, UVB and UVC. UVA has the longest wavelength and least energy, UVB has shorter wavelength and UVC has shortest wavelength and highest energy. In general, we as humans only want moderate exposures to UVA and refrain from UVB and UVC exposure if possible. However, we know that cancer and aging can still come from long term exposure to UVA. That is why sun exposure, in general, needs to be monitored by time out in the sun.

 

When your skin receives enough sunlight without burning, your skin will exhibit what we call the browning affect aka getting a tan. This is because the UVA rays stimulate this cells called melanocytes which produce a skin pigment known as melanin. The more melanin you have, the more tan or dark you will be. So if you think about it this way… black people typically have more melanin than white people because their skin is darker than white people. The cool thing is that melanin actually protects the skin against harmful sun rays and will allow you to tolerate more exposure to sunlight. In essence, if you are tanner, it will take longer for your body to have any kind of harm done to it. This is also due to the skin becoming thicker and will disallow penetration of rays over time… this is of course if you are getting moderate sun exposure and not burning your skin.

 

Now let’s quickly talk about the burning effect of the skin. When your skin gets burnt it is because of the UVB rays attacking the immune cells in the skin and the release of histamine aka an inflammation molecule. This histamine causes tiny blood vessels to dilate which will promote a visible redness. Some of these cells will be injured by the sun and a flaking process will occur which causes the upper layer of your skin to peel.

 

Two other things that can be acquired from poor sunlight control are basal cell carcinoma and melanoma. Basil cell carcinoma typically come from brown spots caused from both UVA and UVB rays. It looks like brown flaked or brown spots. Typically this cancer is harmless but can in fact become harmful.

 

On the other hand overexaggerated UVA and UVB exposure can lead to malignant melanoma in which melanocytes have been transformed into cancer cells. Melanoma typically evolves from birthmarks. It can spread very rapidly and evolve into serious diseases. Typically melanoma can be identified as an abnormally shaped and abnormally colored birthmark. Those people who had serious exposure to sunlight as young children are at a higher risk for melanoma. This being said, you might want to check your skin for any strange spots. Have your spouse or family member help you. If you find something concerning, do not self-diagnose. Go see a dermatologist or skin specialist first.

 

Here is the rub. The sun is not your enemy. You should be smart about how long you are exposed to the sun, however. The general rule of thumb is you first need to understand the color of your skin and how either dark or fair skinned you are to determine exposure time to sun. If you are fair skinned and it is the first time being exposed to the sun this year, then 10 minutes is likely the best to start with. As you gain more color and pigment, then you may go up to 15 minutes and possibly 20 minutes. These times are WITHOUT SUNSCREEN by the way. So this means 10 minutes for your front side and then flip on your stomach to get 10 minutes on the back without sunscreen. If you are darker skin toned, then you can start with 20 minutes up to 30 minutes without sunscreen.

 

Okay so here is my beef with sunscreen. It does two things that really piss me off… It first blocks the sun… soooo that’s counterproductive and second, so many sunscreens actually have carcinogens in them already aka cancer causing chemicals. So how does that make any sense? The lotion that is protect us from cancer, is actually promoting cancer. That is amazing. The only time I will advise sunscreen is if you are clearly outside for an extended period of time without long sleeves, long pants and a hat to cover your face. As a rule of thumb, you should still put on face sunscreen even with a hat on because of light reflecting up from the ground. Also our face is exposed much more than any other body part and more prone to skin cancers.

 

There are many organic sunscreens you can purchase on amazon these days. Granted, they will likely need to be applied a little more frequently than commercial grade sunscreens… but wouldn’t you rather keep applying organic sunscreens compared to placing sunscreens that literally have cancer causing chemicals in their formula?

 

There are sunscreens that are free of parabens, free of amino benzoic acid, trolamine salicylate and oxybenzone (which has been known to be the most toxic chemical in sunscreens)

As a side note: oxybenzone The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention routinely detect oxybenzone in more than 96 percent of Americans. Study participants who reported using sunscreen have higher oxybenzone exposures (Zamoiski 2015). Investigators at University of California, Berkeley, reported a dramatic drop in teen girls’ exposure to oxybenzone in cosmetics when they switched from their usual products to replacements that did not contain this chemical (Harley 2016).

In an evaluation of CDC-collected exposure data for American children, researchers found that adolescent boys with higher oxybenzone measurements had significantly lower total testosterone levels (Scinicariello 2016). The researchers cautioned that their results offer a single-day snapshot; they are not a controlled study of the effect of multiday exposures. The study did not find a similar hormone effect in younger boys or females.

Three other studies reported statistically significant associations between oxybenzone exposure during pregnancy and birth outcomes. One reported shorter pregnancies in women carrying male fetuses; two reported higher birth weights in baby boys; and one found lower birth weights in baby girls (Ghazipura 2017).

Intentional dosing studies of people are rare. In one, volunteers applied a lotion containing oxybenzone and two other sunscreen ingredients. Researchers reported a minor but statistically significant decrease in testosterone in men, accompanied by a minor increase in inhibin B, another male sex hormone (Janjua 2004). The researchers concluded these differences were normal variations and not attributable to sunscreen exposure. In any event, critics argue the exposures were too short to be conclusive (Krause 2012).

With this being said you can find sunscreens like

Two Peas Organics https://amzn.to/2YiHWYe

All Good Organic Sunscreen Butter https://amzn.to/2LBcONA

Miami Gorgeous Zinc Stick https://amzn.to/30RZnwp

 

Links to these sunscreens will be posted in the show notes that will direct you to Amazon.

 

Now let’s switch gears onto the conversation of tanning beds.

 

According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services and the World Health Organization’s International Agency of Research on Cancer Tanning beds and sun lamps are carcinogens (cancer-causing substance. Research indicates that even just ONE indoor tanning visit a year increases the likelihood of developing melanoma or the risk of a benign mole progressing to melanoma. The risk is even higher for younger tanners. Many young women have started tanning before the age of 16. Younger skin is more prone to severe sun damage. With tanning beds, the light is meant to be the same strength as the UV light from the sun, and in some cases it can be stronger. Melanoma is the second most common cancer in females ages 15 to 29. In addition to the increased cancer risks, indoor tanning creates oxidative damage and increases the visible signs of aging. Dark spots and a leathery skin texture are signs that there has been significant sun damage to the skin. Another premature aging sign is wrinkling of the skin. Frequent visits to a tanning bed forces collagen production to lessen and the skin become less elastic. In fact, Indoor tanning is estimated to cause more than 400,000 cases of skin cancer in the United States annually. Even on tanning session can increase your risk of melanoma by 20 percent.

 

Many authorities will say both the sun and tanning beds increase your risk for cancer. But I absolutely disagree if you are smart with sun exposure times and refraining from tanning beds.

 

Just to let you know, I personally know people who had melanomas removed in their early 20’s. That to me in scary enough to not go into a tanning bed.

I quickly want to touch on the vitamin D pathway and how it works exactly.

80% of our vitamin D comes from the sun and 20% comes from our diet.

When sunlight first hits our skin in the epidermis it turns a molecule called 7-dehydrocholesterol into Vitamin D3 aka cholecalciferol. Vitamin D3 is then shuttled to the liver where it is converted to 25-hydroxyvitamin D aka Calcidiol. Calcidiol is then transported to our Kidneys and converts to Calcidiol into 1,25 dihydroxyvitamin D aka Calcitriol which is the Biologically active form of Vitamin D that the body can actually use for bone health, digestive health, hair health, brain health, skin health and hormone health.

 

So just a recap – Sunlight hits skin, skin converts sunlight into Vitamin D3, Vitamin D3 transported to Liver, Liver converts Vitamin D3 into Calcidiol, Calcidiol transported to Kidneys, Kidneys convert Calcidiol into Calcitriol, Calcitriol is now the active and useable form of Vitamin D which gives us unending health benefits.  

 

Here’s the deal… sometimes of the year it is very difficult to get sunlight because of winter and geographical locations not allowing access to the sun. Places further away from the equator suffer from winter time blues because they lack adequate sunlight and vitamin D. These locations are also more likely to suffer from autoimmune diseases. Research is showing that many autoimmune diseases are now linked to lack of sunlight and vitamin D deficiencies.

 

 

Deficiencies in vitamin D can lead to a variety of conditions and symptoms such as:

 

Sleep disorders

Depression

Skin Disorders/Rashes

Autoimmune Diseases

Digestive Disorders

Adrenal Fatigue and Lethargy

Hair Loss

Bone Loss/Osteopenia/Osteoporosis

Joint Pains

Hormone Dysregulation

Mental Disorders

Early Alzheimer’s and Dementia

Decreases Immune System/Getting Sick Often

Delayed wound healing

 

This being said, there are a ton of bad things that can happen to you by being vitamin D deficient… So its pretty dang important to have adequate amounts of vitamin D in your body.

 

If you don’t have access to natural sunlight then you will want to up your food intake of vitamin D rich foods. You can get vitamin D from a variety of food sources. Vitamin D3 is mostly found in animal proteins and Vitamin D2 is found in plant proteins.

 

Sources of Vitamin D include:

Pasture Raised Eggs By Eating The Entire Egg and Yolk

Wild Caught Alaskan Salmon

Liver from Grass-fed Cows

Wild Caught Sardines and Herring

Organic Cod Liver oil

Oysters

Maitake (my-talkee) and Portobello Mushrooms

 

If you don’t like any of the food choices above then I suggest you invest in getting a quality Vitamin D supplement. You can take anywhere from 5-10 thousand IU of Vitamin D a day. Make sure your kidneys and liver are in good condition before starting a regimen of vitamin D. Talk to your doctor about any new supplement regimen if warranted. It is certainly safe to take 5 thousand IU of vitamin D daily. Don’t feed into the whole vitamin D toxicity myth unless you truly have some sort of pre-existing organ dysfunction. I recommend purchasing Pure Encapsulations Vitamin D3 because their purity levels and simplicity is the best in my opinion. I have zero affiliation with this company. I myself only order through them If I can because there are zero fillers of any kind. I will post an amazon link in the show notes for their Vitamin D supplement. https://amzn.to/2Y5iRM4

  

With that being said, that is all I wanted to cover regarding the benefits of sunlight and vitamin D. I hope you got something out of this episode and if you didn’t feel free to yell at me or drop me a line and see what you liked or didn’t like from the episode. I’m always open to feedback and criticism.

 

As I mentioned earlier in the episode, I am accepting applications to work one on one with you. I have been working diligently on updating the unleashed human website to make it more accessible to schedule appointments and it will be up very soon. Again, I am no stranger to weight loss, weight gain, strength training, nutrition coaching and what it means to truly be healthy. I’ve been down the road of sickness and disease. Overcoming a severe case of Eczema and small intestine bacterial overgrowth was one of the hardest times of my life. But I learned so much about myself and how to help others overcome debilitating digestive disorders, self-image problems and how to exude health from the inside out. If you are looking to shred a couple pounds, looking to add some more muscle mass, looking to add strength, looking for nutritional guidance and plans or just looking for general lifestyle clean up, please Facebook message me at TJ Woodham on Facebook so we can find a time to set up a 45min – 1 hour consultation to see if we will be a good fit to achieve your goals and desires.

 

I look forward to hearing from you soon! Depending on when you hear this have an amazing day, week, month and year!

 

 

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RESOURCES COVERED ON EPISODE

Organic and Natural Sunscreens:

Two Peas Organics https://amzn.to/2YiHWYe

All Good Organic Sunscreen Butter https://amzn.to/2LBcONA

Miami Gorgeous Zinc Stick https://amzn.to/30RZnwp

 

Pure Encapsulations Vitamin D3:

https://amzn.to/2Y5iRM4

 

Dr. TJ Woodham:

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