In almost every set of new lay articles that we read in class, there was one that discussed a new natural way to decrease inflammation. Most of these were diet associated and included spices like turmeric and ginger. Sunlight is another answer! I found many articles discussing the effects of increasing Vitamin D as a great way to decrease inflammation. Most of us get our Vitamin D from the sunlight or from diet. These articles are recommending at least 20 minutes of bright sunlight, without sunscreen, on a biweekly basis. This is supposed to ensure that the person is storing enough Vitamin D to compensate for what one will probably lose in sweat.
Research from a few articles has shown that Vitamin D deficiency can cause higher levels of the parathyroid hormone. This can lead to higher insulin resistance levels, which would cause diabetes, hypertension, inflammation, and increase cardiovascular risk factors.
Most of the articles discuss how Vitamin D lowers the nonspecific C-reactive Protein. IL-6 was also shown to be decreased with small amounts of Vitamin D. Patients that were Vitamin D deficient showed higher levels of these inflammatory markers.
Whether the impact of Vitamin D is as drastic as some of these articles seem to imply, we do get our share of sunlight here in Arizona really easy!
Have more fun in the sun to try to lower your inflammation!
http://bodyecology.com/articles/eat-drink-be-merry-heat.php
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0735109708031756
http://www.vitamindspray.com/vitamin-d/can-vitamin-d-lower-inflammation-2/
I remember reading something about Arizona having a very high rate of skin cancer because our extreme hot weather restricts people to want to go outside and obtaining vitamin D. It's ironic that Arizona is so wealthy in sunlight that its residents take advantage of it. I'm sure people would appreciate our weather more often if they were aware of many benefits of sweating a little.
ReplyDeleteAs an earlier blog stated that exercise is an anti-inflammatory, exercising out in the sun (to a certain intensity level) would have double benefits then! With proper hydration levels of course, specially with our summer heat. Enjoy a walk/run up Tumamoc everybody!
ReplyDeleteSounds like there some sort of "equilibrium" amount of sunlight that must be reached here. If too less than it causes inflammation, diabetes, hypertension, etc and if too much than you get skin cancer...I think were much better off obtaining the right level of Vitamin D through our normal diet. But how can complain! Its a free source of Vitamin D! Anything free is good!
ReplyDeleteI want to share with you guys what I learned from the physiology class in terms of various benefits of having vitamin D in our body. The most interesting one I learned was blocking the cacnerous tumor growth e.g. colorectal cancer via vitamin D. The basic physiology behind this was to activate the VDR (nuclear receptor of steroid hormone) for enhancing the positive gene expression like promoting E-cadherin (tumor suppressor gene) and inhibiting beta-catenin (proto-oncogene responsible for colorectal carcinogenesis). In other words, vitamin D can affect at the trascription level to positively enhance the gene that can supress the tumor growth.
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