While many people believe that sun tanning is very bad for you and causes cancer, there are many natural benefits to sunlight!
I know you may have been shocked when we told you the benefits of drinking coffee – strap yourself in for this one….. I know that fair-skinned people come into our offices for appointments and wonder “why does Dr. Nelson look so tanned?” Isn’t she about promoting health and in the meanwhile, exposing herself to the cancer causing sun rays? We used to belief this lie (even though we knew that we felt better and our skin looks better when we would lay out in the sun). Go figure…..
Well, I want to start off with some bullet points – if this is all you read,
well, then that will be enough!...
- 5 out of 6 sunscreens tested have cancer-causing ingredients in them!
- Skin cancer is caused by being vitamin D and vitamin F deficient (vitamin D comes from the sun how is that for a contradiction?)
- Sunlight stimulates the pineal gland which promotes more restful sleep, and improves your mood (don’t wear a hat when you go outside - the sun needs to hit the top of your head to stimulate this gland)
- In hospitals, patients recover more quickly on the sunny side of the hospital
- Cholesterol is higher in the winter months and more heart attacks happen in the Northern states between November and February due to lack of sunshine exposure
- Even chickens that are outside versus inside have 25% lower cholesterol in their eggs.
- Proper vitamin D levels can help prevent 70% of all cancers – where do we get vitamin D –
yep, from the sun or from foods that help absorb it from the sun. Dr. Nelson personally takes 5,000 IU per day of Vitamin D3 in addition to going in the sun. If you ever have blood work done, always ask for your D3 levels -- for optimum health, you want your levels to be between 70 - 100 on the lab results. If you are not at least 70 on the lab results, be sure to supplement with extra D3. Some integrative cancer doctors put their cancer patients on up to 20,000 per day.
Scientists are baffled by the results of a study published in the Feb. 2, 2005 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. In this study, we learn that exposure to sunlight actually reduces the risk of skin cancer.
This is important evidence backing up what doctors like Dr. Michael Holick, author of "The UV Advantage," have been saying for years: Sunlight is actually good for you. In fact, the risk of many cancers increases when you do not have sufficient exposure to sunlight.
It's remarkable just how baffled the scientists really are with the results of the study. They can't believe everything they've been told all these years could somehow be false. Remember, the conventional medical community has been taught that sunlight is bad for you. You must cover up your skin, wear sunscreen and avoid any sunlight exposure at all if you want to be healthy, they've said. This is the line of propaganda pushed by the sunscreen industry, and of course, the dermatology industry, which has been largely funded by the sunscreen manufacturers – follow the money trail!!! They've been telling people sunlight causes cancer, and you must avoid the sun at all costs.
That’s all hogwash.
Sometimes you just have to use common sense – If I take the plants in my home and put them in a dark closet with plenty of water and even some plant food, what will happen?? They will DIE AND WE ARE SLOWLY DYING AS WELL BY AVOIDING THE SUN.
What about the teenagers that go out and lay in the sun and their acne clears up – the sun is destroying the bacteria that is causing the acne. No wonder the dermatologist don’t want all of those teenagers doing this – there goes all of their acne patients! “Avoiding” the sun is VERY GOOD for lining the pockets of the dermatologist that tell you to avoid the sun – just think about it....
The human body was designed to live in harmony with sunlight. We evolved under natural sunlight, not under fluorescent lights with a lifetime supply of sunscreen on the shelf. We need sunlight in order to be healthy. Now we have additional evidence backing up that notion, and it may finally begin to turn the tide and help doctors and researchers realize they need to stop telling people to avoid sunlight and start telling people to get more sunlight.
Of course, it's all about sensible exposure, which is determined by the pigmentation in your skin. The darker your skin, the more sunlight you need in order to generate vitamin D. The lighter, or fairer, your skin, the less sunlight you need. By the way, one of the people commenting on this study was so baffled by the results they said, "It must all be due to vitamin D, and if you want vitamin D, there are better places to get it like drinking milk." It's typical advice from conventional medicine. They’re still telling people to avoid the sun and, instead, drink lots of cows' milk. How's that for lousy health advice?
You see, milk doesn't really have much vitamin D in it, especially if it's offered in those typical translucent containers, because light destroys the vitamin D content. Also, this whole line of thinking by conventional medicine misses the point that there may be other characteristics of sunlight that encourage human health aside from just vitamin D. In other words, there's a lot more going on here.
There is probably a phototherapy effect that goes well beyond the biochemistry of vitamin D production. Even if you're just looking at vitamin D, there are so many healing benefits of vitamin D that it's worth promoting sunlight exposure for that reason alone. Vitamin D regulates the growth of cancer cells. It impairs the proliferation of cancer tumors in the body, and at the same time it is extremely important for absorption of calcium in the small intestine.
(This, by the way, helps explain why so many senior citizens get osteoporosis today even though they think they're taking plenty of calcium supplements. The reason is they don't have enough vitamin D to actually absorb the calcium. So they start out with a vitamin D deficiency due to lack of sunlight, and they end up with a calcium deficiency even though they're taking lots of calcium supplements. The end result is, of course, osteoporosis or osteomalacia, the advanced stage of osteoporosis. Once that's diagnosed by conventional medicine, they're usually given hormone replacement therapy or a variety of prescription drugs rather than simply being told to get more sunlight and engage in some form of physical exercise to enhance bone mineral density.)
In the UK, doctors have already been told they're doing a disservice to patients if they tell them to avoid sunlight. They're already being advised to tell people to get more sunlight and not to wear sunscreen every time they go outside, at least not for the first few minutes of sun exposure. So the UK is well ahead of the U.S. in this thinking. The U.S. seems to be the last country in the world to acknowledge any healing benefits of therapies outside of drugs, surgery and radiation. It seems to take forever for U.S. doctors to come around to the idea nature has some wisdom when it comes to healing. Here we're seeing yet another example of how nature actually prevents and even reverses cancer in the human body.
In review, medical doctors will say that your normal Vitamin D levels should be between 30 - 100 on blood work, but really they should be within 70 - 100 for optimal health.
It is not an exaggeration to say sunlight and vitamin D can prevent and even reverse cancers in the human body. We're talking about prostate cancer, breast cancer, cervical cancer and now, skin cancers as well. In fact, there seems to be a systemic anti-cancer effect provided by sunlight exposure and vitamin D.
Soo, go out there and soak up some rays!!! It is highly recommended by Dr. Nelson!!
- Jenna, Certified Nutritional Counselor
