sun and skin vitamin d

the body's ability to repair DNA damage declines with age, which causes gradual cell demise, overall bodily degeneration and greater susceptibility to cancer so post sixty and sun and uv lamp exposure is a very different thing from being in your thirties and forties !

i live on a latitude of 41° south and have been sunbathing at solar noon over summer for several years with a solartech 6.4 uvb meter to measure what i am getting from the sun

my observations are that that main variables are cloud which can amplify/reflect or reduce UVB, stratospheric ozone and of course sun altitude (height of the sun above the horizon)

in the northern hemisphere you will have to factor in atmospheric clarity of course, and even in the southern with dust in inland australia !

i always find it amazing what a difference cloud makes, you can get a 10-15% enhancement if the cloud's right ! for the best effect you want some very high haze/faint cirro-stratus with some alto-cumulus lower

cumulo nimbus in the right place also can considerably help !

stacked lenses and mirrors so to speak

i have also learnt that for uv you need a meter and absolutely cannot tell what the levels are because what you feel on your skin is infrared and and near infrared !

sometimes the sunlight can be a tad darker compared to full bright, yet the uvb level is higher for the tad darker !

did you know the skull has sutures which can guide sunlight down into the brain, the red and near infra-red components of which have a healing and growth promotion effect as well as the blue/turquoise/white component possibly having an effect on receptors that help synchronise the circadian rhythm ?

i strongly recommend a uvb meter as it is very difficult to accurately tell uvb levels otherwise !

knowing the exact uvb level allows you to optimize the sunbathing much more !

if you have a good scrub before sunbathing so the skin is somewhat exfoliated you make quite a bit more vitamin D by significantly reducing the barrier to uvb penetration

interestingly glove or scarf type exfoliators that really rasp the skin are much more effective than a pig bristle type brush !

exfoliation is so effective that the greatly increased amount of vitamin D inducted will make you very depressed for about 24 hours, but on balance i think it does something useful !

solar altitudes below about 62° offer marginal benefit and indeed it's really sun angles of 72 - 76° ? that rock, maybe 69° as a minimum for the “right sun”

66 - 67° and 275 dobson, even with good cloud reflection and a meter reading of aprox 88 iu/min has a higher amount of uva compared to uvb than for the same iu/min reading at a solar noon altitude of 71, so this 66 - 67° is not really "right sun" and it's pretty well losing it, though bilirubin processing is still good !

bilirubin processing/depletion is a very important benefit of higher sun altitude angles, however slightly elevated levels of bilirubin do provide a cardioprotective and anti-oxidant effect !

both supplemental and solar skin D are needed over the year, but sun does something special that just straight oral vitamin D doesn't, i don't think the research biochemistry is fully worked out at all

there are other complexities in sunlight skin exposure

the uvb/uva ratio is also important in my experience

the higher the ratio in terms of sunlight, the better

also there is a complex inducted immune response, oxidative stress and bilirubin processing paradigm that varies with violet, blue, turquoise, uva, uvb, red, infrared ratios and absolute values

the overall utility of sunlight on skin strongly favours high sun altitudes, maybe 71 to 76° as optimal ?

it's very handy to know how to remove suspect moles yourself, my web page on what i have done

in my opinion the compendium and BCD help me to considerably reduce the skin cancer risk !

sun exposure reduces folate levels study

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GENERAL DISCUSSION

did you know that the sun can knock bits off viruses or whatever in the top 2mm of of the body surface and these become antigens for the immune system to act on?

part of the reason we do better in summer is this action by the sun on the skin

is more uv in sunlight the reason there is less chickenpox in more tropical latitidues? article

its not just the uvb rays in the sunlight that makes vitamin d, but the violet, blue, green going through to red that penetrates up to say 2mm that also has a very beneficial immune system effect as well as relieving the liver by conjugating bilirubin

unfortunately this isn't the case for herpes and shingles which are activated by sunlight, possibly because violet - blue light creates ROS that also act as growth factor signals, as well as the uva/uvb causing immune supression/modulation in the skin

iodine tincture dabbed on an area of outbreak once every four or five days can help prevent shingles outbreaks from that area and is also an assist in shortening an outbreak.

large area's of topical iodine may be too much iodine absorbed for some.

however the most effective thing is to identify the dermatome the shingles is in and scratch some zinc cream in on the spinal veterbrae where the dermatome and shingles spring from!

i don't bother with the iodine anymore

a possible mechanism for the innoculative effect of the sun on the skin is skin resident dentritic cells, killer and memory t-cells

any fragments knocked off pathogens in the skin capillaries or resident in skin cells by the suns rays can be immediately incorporated into the bodies immune response with very intense identification study

the uva and blue/vivolet light will break up a few viruses or whatever so the immune system can recognise them

the real problem with viruses and pathogens is not that the immune system can't kill them, but that they disguise themselves and they can't be recognized

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vitamin d is made in the skin by uv-b on the border of uv-c (wavelengths 290-305 nm with a peak of 297nm) striking 7-dehydrocholesterol in the skin and converting to pre vitamin d, tachysterol and lumisterol.

possibly down to 280 nm is still effective

the 7-dehydrocholesterol which resides in the plasma membrane of epidermal and dermal cells has the highest concentrations in the lower two layers of the epidermis

whether there is some benefit in not washing before or after sunbathing or sunlamping so the oils in the skin are absorbed, i don't know, or if washing beforehand by removing skin oils would make the photoconversion of 7-dehydrocholesterol into pre-vitamin d more efficient.

subaceous glands and keratin also contain 7-dehydrocholesterol so there may be an advantage to not washing immediately after sun/uvb exposure, especially given the skin being made more permeable by the uvb exposure, but it's hard to say.

update: i think at this point that the oils and fat on the skin shield the internal cell membranes (where the vitamin d is formed) from uvb and any vitamin d formed in the oils ON the skin is not absorbed

it's better to avoid showering to soon afterwards because you are thermally stressing skin that has already been damaged from irridation

pre vitamin d, tachysterol and lumisterol are formed in ratio depending on the exact mix of wavelengths and relative strengths in the incident radiation

the pre vitamin d is isomerised to vitamin d by body heat in the hours after exposure peaking at say 14? hours after exposure

this depletes the ratio of pre vitamin d and when the skin is exposed again the ratio is re-established.

the optimium wavelengths for vitamin d are also on the upper edge of the erythema index, however the degree of burning feeling on the skin does not indicate of the strength of the 290-305nm wavelength.

the 290-305nm could be cut off and you just get burning without vitamin d being made.

the strength of the incoming 290-305nm sun rays are reduced by stratospheric ozone, 275-300 dobson seems to work well with sun elevation above say 68° for good skin D. 250-275 dobson with a solar elevation of 65° with clear air is also ok

300-325 dobson is getting a bit high but for latitudes higher than 40° (eg columbus ohio and north) its the lowest you can get generally in summer.

unfortunately the stratospheric ozone levels modulate the wrong way for optimal sun-skin exposure, peaking in late spring and lowest in late autumn/early winter.

when the ozone hole breaks up mid november to early december there are some low ozone days with good uvb in the new zealand south island and tasmania

world daily ozone map

very high cloud (mares tails, cirrus, cirro-stratus) are ice crystals (hence the halos) which is very reflective of uvb, so amplifies or acts like a magnifying lens.

alto-cumulus and altostratus, provided they are not directly covering the sun can be significantly additive as well !

lower cloud positioned below the sun can also provide reflection of uvb provided the cloud is not blocking the sun

good cloud reflection or magnification/lensing can amplify uvb by up to 20% and extend the useful sunbathing time around solar noon considerably.

uva and uvb are attentuated and i presume amplified by cloud in a constant ratio, which is not true for increasing and decreasing lengths of the ozone column

that is, for a given reading with a lower sun altitude but higher cloud reflection, the uva/uvb ratio will be higher compared to the same reading in a clear sky at a higher sun altitude

the ratio of uva to uvb from clear to overcast skies doesn't change study

so for a lower sun angle the amount of uva compared to uvb will be higher and i think this is one of the limitations of how low the sun can go for sunbathing

but for differing obscuration of the sun by cloud, the ratio of uva to uvb stays the same if the sun height is the same

the solartech solarmeter 6.4 is essential in determining uvb levels since peak uvb can be up to 35 minutes later than solar noon in my experience and theres no way to tell except by using the meter

for a given sun angle and ozone level this meter will also indicate the amount of uva, since the uva/uvb ratio is constant

this is a meter that measures the strength of the vitamin D rays in the sun, a reading of 70 iu/min and up usually indicates high enough to get useful rays but imo 90 rocks and below 63 is not much good

estimating how many iu you get with a sunbathing session !

don't leave the meter in the sun as if it gets hot the readings start to go high

best stored in a dry warm(?) spot in the house

you just angle the front of the meter towards the sun to get the highest reading and hold the button down

in tasmania and the very north of the south island in new zealand at aprox 41° south it's only really around solar noon that you get a decent strength of the vitamin d band and given the high ozone levels there is a useful window of about five weeks before the summer solstice and seven weeks after

anyway by the first week in feb (if warm enough) is about it in the north of tasmania for any sort of ‘ right sun ’ !

males should bear in mind that the thin skin of the gential area needs protection, especially if you are circumcised.

similarly the stomach skin is thinner and more vulnerable than the thicker skin of the upper back.

a solar elevation of about 67° and stratospheric ozone of 250-275 dobson is really the minimium for good skin vitamin D sun.

cold and wind is another factor curtailing useful exposure with declining solar elevation.

dobson levels above 300 push the useful elevation needed up to over 70°.

74° and above is the really good stuff, at that height it may even get enough into the skin blood to kill a few viruses and provide an 'innoculation' or some dead viruses and/or their protiens in the blood so the immune system can see them as some viruses seem to have good stealth, especially with biofilm

i feel the higher angles are better but for instance the hawaiian midsummer sun at its maximum height (84°!) might be a bit much for white skins, however i haven't had much experience with these very high sun angles, maybe short intense tropical sun level exposure is beneficial, maybe not, one has to experiment !

you are looking for gains in mood and health (eg. less inflammation and better joints, better mental flexibility, reduced non- skin cancer risk etc.) and balancing that against increased skin cancer risk

longer lower sun altitude exposures say down to 57° are also useful for innoculation and there is some innoculative utility going right down to 40°, but no lower !

when you get the right sun you feel better almost immediately.

it will also reduce bilirubin levels, relieving the liver of metabolic load, however longer lower sun alittude exposures may be better for bilirubin conjugation

part of that feeling better is the photoconjugation of bilirubin enabling ready excretion without it having to be conjugated in the liver first (see section below )

you do need some saturated fat in your diet. bone marrow fat and diary fats are best to make the cholesterol (7-dehydrocholesterol which is in fact a precursor to cholesterol and resides in the plasma membane of dermal and epidermal cells) that gets converted to vitamin d.

too high an polyunsaturated oil intake and not enough saturated fats may show as very short times before becoming pink in the sun.

sunlight shrinks subcutaneous fat cells ! low vitamin A also contributes to short times before going pink, as the storage form of vitamin A, (retinyl esters) in the skin protects (by absorbing uvb).

this also destroys the retinyl esters i think and retinyl aceate supplementation after intense uvb/sun exposure may be a good idea

it's a good indicator of general nutrition and health how long it takes to go slighly pink. some very slight pinks will dissappear within several hours, i sometimes stay out long enough that happens but really i think its better not to go pink at all.

high levels of skin vitamin d seems to reset immune system and other genes and their expression. it does this by the high constant release of various pathways from the vitamin d hormone.

uvc and uvb cleave/damage dna (uvc can form dna dimers as well i think) while uva photo-oxidises dna within the melanocytes !

interestingly uvb and uva have independent pathways for causing melanoma, the uva pathway involving melanin !

adequate immune function and good levels of the immune enhancing supplements vitamin a, d, b's especially b12, and the thyroid minerals (including iodine selenium and zinc) will have a huge bearing on reducing melanoma potential.

sunlight and supplemental vit D protect against breast cancer study

“ On the other hand, no associations were observed for dietary and supplemental intakes of vitamin D alone ”

“ the risk of breast cancer for women residing in regions with the highest average daily UV exposure (living below a latitude of 46° N) combined with high dietary vitamin D intakes was 32 percent lower, while the risk for high UV exposure and high supplemental intakes was reduced by 45 percent ”

this is what this page has been saying for years, there is some extra factor in high intensity sun on the skin that oral vitamin D doesn't reach !

the widespread use of fluoridated toothpaste and water with the fluoride depressing enzyme function and displacing iodine is a signficant factor in rising melanoma rates imo.

without adequate 290-305nm the longer wavelength uvb and uva sunlight tends to oxidise and destroy vitamin d.

the basic theory is that with shortish exposures of high levels of 290-305nm sun considerably less exposure is required to make pre vitamin d and hence the total uv burden is reduced making for less carcinogenic potential while getting the cell differentiating pluses of skin vitamin d.
the nature of sunlight is for integrated doses, that is, high intensity for a short time is similar to lower intensity for a longer time.

i feel it is better to remain covered up when not getting this high 290-305 nm exposure.
at very high elevations of the sun (80?° or greater) with low ozone and very clear skies exposure may be as short as 30 seconds. it may be that there is some optimal window between about 74 and 80° of solar elevation for sun exposure depending on atmospheric clarity, stratospheric ozone levels, and racial type.

another thing to consider for ms, ibs and colitis is that these illnesses are strongly correlated with more polar northern and southern latitudes and there may be considerable benefit in the ideas discussed above. as far as i can see this sort of sunlight modulates the immune system making for less inflamation or auto immune action. childhood exposure to this 290-305nm band may be very significant for reducing susceptiblity to ms, auto immune diseases and diabetes. ms and diabetes are immunologically almost the same and both the pancreas and myelin sheathing on the nerves appear primary targets of immune upset. the hep b vaccine looks downright dangerous in this context.

one thing to watch when sunbathing is that the spot should be warm/windless and you shouldn't have any viruses or flu's, as with vit d (skin or oral) you get a temporary supression of the immune system and actually one of the problems with too much vit d is immune system supression, but too little vit d and all the bodies hormones and steriods drop too low.

theres a definite window of too much and too little vitamin d and this applies whether skin or oral.

you can get quite large amounts of vitamin d through dairy fats in summer months, though don't use homogenised milk or homogensied creams as homogenising seems to entrap caesien and other milk peptides on the surface of the smaller reformed fat gloubules and faciliate the passing of these highly negatively bioactive peptides undigested across the gut wall and into the blood where they distort the immune function and have opiod and other effects (including migraine).

large amounts of vitamin d reduce the killer t cells count, vitamin d improves the ability of the immune system to differentiate between harmful (viruses, invading pathogens, cancerous cells) and good in the body but to much reduces the killer t cell counts in an absolute sense as well.

one of the tragedies today is mothers not having adequate vitamin d in pregnancy leaving their babies with auto-immunity issues in their early life from over active immune systems from lack of damping by adequate vitamin d and then getting the hep b vaccine which excites the over-reactive immune system to destroy the pancreas islets, hence the out of control increase in diabetes and brain blood sugar issues (adhd)

good michael holick video, the original skin vitamin d guru, titled “the vitamin D deficiency pandemic and its health consequences”

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for all of human evolution, viruses were not anything like as prevelant as now and immune suppression with skin vitamin d (and other mechanisms like rna damage) in summer was never an issue, but with the start of the viral holocast about 1990 with the disastrously cruel and ignorant hyper vaccination of newborns and children too young to be vaccinated with vaccines designed for adults (in the usa and increasingly in other countries like the uk), generations of children and young adults are coming through with damaged immune systems that mean viruses can foster and mutate creating what i call viral shedders

this, coupled with high asian travel mobility has created a permanent reservoir of mutating viruses in the general population and children, so the viral impress is chronic and year around.............

this means that too much vitamin d is now an issue and we are caught in a trap of needing the highish vitamin d for hormone and steriod and types of immune function in the body, but also needing a high absolute t cell count for viral resistance.

some sunscreens appear to form carcinogenic compounds in sunlight and condition the skin predisposing to skin cancer.

unless there is an issue with scattered horizontal light like from water or snow when something on the nose and lips may be needed its far better to screen by adequate clothing (long sleeved shirts!) and hats imo.

the skin is very absorbative of chemicals put on it and sunscreen is a lot of chemicals so there are going to be all sorts of metabolic processing issues with them not to mention subtle interactions which cannot but help expose the person to a more serious risk of maligant skin cancer (superfical and the total number of skin cancers however may be considerably reduced).

rashes from sun screens are an extreme of a failure of metabolic processing.

titanium and zinc oxide, a small portion of which are nanoparticles, are used in sunscreens and god knows what is used in cosmetics as they don't list ingredients, but there could be nanoparticles !

zinc oxide generates free radicals when exposed to uva increasing the skin cancer risk !

i have tried zinc oxide on my nose occasionally as a sunscreen, but never liked it and this may be the reason why !

metal based nanoparticles seem to migrate anywhere in the body, including the brain and liver !

4-methyl-benzylidene camphor (4-MBC), a uv blocker used in sunscreens, is a goitrogen article

benzophenone 2 (BP2) another sunscreen chemical but also used in fragrances inhibits thryoid hormone biosynthesis study

benzophrene is also linked to endometriosis

an email (18 june 04) titled 'skin vitamin d'

I want to thank you for all that useful information on your web site. We are fortunate to get some very good sun here and my daughter has gone from pasty to quite pink and healthy looking, lost some of the dark circles and she is is a much better mood. (CL)

my reply:

its quite important to track the solar elevation and stratospheric ozone as per the skin vitamin d page links (near the top of this page) so that you get the best benefit and also can extend the season as long as possible and also know when to cut off getting the sun because below a solar elevation of about 68°, skin sun goes the other way, more oxidation than benefit.

from an enzymesandautism (21 june 04) titled 'Vit. D - andrew'

this is what latitude and longitude is

you don't have to understand it much, just use the links on this web page to get the time of solar noon in a nearby city and the alitude which is how high the sun is at solar noon. and keep an eye on the stratospheric ozone, too high and it cuts off the vitamin d making sun too much.

you cannot overdose on skin vitamin d , the body has mechanisms to regulate it. oral vitamin d you can overdose on though i find at 120 lbs that 1000iu a day seems ok (i use the 'now' brand 1000 iu). i don't get much of the right sun here in tasmania australia though.

but skin vitamin d is better.

you need to know how to do this via the web links cause it changes as summer goes on

from an ezymesandautism post (21 june 04) re: a query about the sun stats on 21st june 04 near orlando florida

sounds a bit cloudy today and the humidity is something else :o)

solar noon or when the sun is highest is 1.27pm edt (from wunderground.com orlando florida)

solar altitude is very high at 84.9°, cause its the longest day this will gradually drop.

at 1.27pm the sun is 84.9° in the sky.

this may be a bit intense i can't really say, might be quite ok. you just have to experiment yourself with short exposures to get a feel for it. with really right sun you feel better during the exposure and for quite a while afterwards.

if its tad intense you just move a bit away from solar noon to get the sun at a lower angle

a pecanbread (27 june 04) post titled 're: sunblock recommendations?'

the issue with any chemical on the skin is that it is absorbed from 20% to 100% and the issues range from promoting more invasive cancers to fouling the liver processing.

public health advice on sun exposure reflects the substanial grants that sunscreen companies make to university dermatology departments rather than anything that reduces cancer or is at all healthy for you and actually promotes immune reactivity and coliltis in a major way

its not black and white, like blocks on the nose and lips are only a small surface area, yet a cover a large percentage of the bodies most susceptible areas

an email (17th july 04)

I was just reading the information you have about vitamin D on your website. I think it's great! I just read something recently that might be important to add if you want to check it out for yourself later. I read in an recent Consumer (health) Reports the benefits of sunlight and vitamin D, however, windows blocks uv-b rays! So, if people are sitting in their sunny windows or driving around in their car thinking they're getting their vitamin D for the day, they are not! M. in Oregon

my reply:

"1:12 pm--- 001--- measurement taken on dash of my car through the untinted windshield. Myth: "you can get a tan through your car's windows." Truth: windshields of cars pass vitually zero UVB.... Side windows, if untinted, reportedly can pass up to about 25% of the UVB, but I personally have never measured even an untinted side window that passed more than 3%."

from oregonphotos.com

i would say that house glass was equivalent to side windows.

yeah i think on balance skin exposure to sunlight through glass is better avoided because of its high preponderance of oxidising uva and attentuation of uvb.

uva and uvb through car windows

a yahoo 'who knows' post (7th august 04) titled 'solar dimming'

this is why my skin vitamin d page is important

the climate is changing and less sun is getting through to the earths surface

basically man made aerosols and cloud vapour forming on them are increasing the reflection of sunlight from the earths surface so if the days seemed sunnier 30 years ago they really were.

article

about 16% since 1950 to now by my calculation and likely much higher for the easily attenuated vitamin d rays, could be as high as 30%. this is earth shattering actually.

it seems to be happening in a very obvious way in tasmania, much more cloud and dampness and evenness of temperature over the year with less of very cold dry winters and hot clear summers

it could also be that at last we are re-entering what may eventually turn into the ice age that is the earths main state, i think it only spends about 10% of its time out of it. global warming though appears to be real so who knows how it will turn out but less sun appears to be part of it. antarctic ice cores indicate that there is another ten thousand years before the ice age starts again.

an who knows post (10th august 04)

Do your vitamin A levels "drop" if you get a large amount of skin vitamin D? That is, when we were visiting family in upstate NY, E. spent a lot of time in the sun, all at once. About four or five hours. The next day, and for several days, he was very intense, poor eye contact, and quick to lose his temper. I just wondered if perhaps he could have used more vitamin A supplementation to go along with the D? M.

my reply:

have u read my page? you need to understand sun angles

if you do you will see it talks about the wrong sun as well as the right sun (the wrong sun is too low in the sky or there is too much moisture or the air is too unclear)

the wrong sun will just oxidise vitamin a and d without giving any decent vitamin d or billirubin processing

upstate new york may only have the right sun for a the week of the year (at solar noon) just past the summer solstice

you can give vitamin a but in reality there will be thyroid mineralisation issues and a lack of bioavialable copper

four or five hours there's just no way he was getting the right sun there, just huge oxidative stress

i wish people would take the view that if things are right then they are right doing them and not expecting a bad result to lead to better

it is staggeringly difficult to get the right sun these days

a who knows thread (5th september 04) titled 'vitamin d advice'

M. writes:

I found this and never heard this advice about waiting an hour before showering after you've had your vit d sun exposure:

"It takes about 24 hours for UV-B-stimulated vitamin D to show up as maximum levels of vitamin D in the blood. Cholesterol-containing body oils are critical to this absorption process.(10) Because the body needs 30-60 minutes to absorb these vitamin-D-containing oils, it is best to delay showering or bathing for one hour after exposure. The skin oils in which vitamin D is produced can also be removed by chlorine in swimming pools." from

E's reply:

Hi M. , I've never heard of that either, Nor the use of cholesterol containing oils either to help aid absorbtion, I have always showered straight away afterwards out of concern about possible mercury contained in sweat staying on the skin and being re absorbed, Can't offer anything useful Re opinion just found it interesting to read what you've posted here...........

my reply:

i think the 290-305 nm uvb striking the skin will convert both the surface oils/cholesterol and the membrane cholesterol within the skin

so given that you are likely to be sunbathing in hot dry weather then perhaps a shower could be left a while or if you do shower then just enough to wash the sweat off and don't use soap.

in summer i have just washed under the outside hose after sunbathing which is cold and non chlorinated (bore water) which would just take the sweat and not the oils i think.

however my practical experience with uvb lamping and i think the same would apply to sunbathing, is that maximal vitamin d is achieved with the skin washed and very oily parts scrubbed clean/mildly exfoliated first

this would indicate that the vast majority of vitamin D is formed by cell membranes within the skin and the cleaner the skin, the more uvb penetrates and more vitamin D and previtamin D is made

an entry from my sunbathing log 1st jan 2010:

peak uvb meter reading of 106 @ 1.42pm, cloudless sky, reading down to 94 by 2pm, very dry air, 268 dobson, a mildly exfoliating scrub in shower beforehand, spent the next morning in bed, so knocked up by this strong sun and massive vitamin D; 30 minutes sunbathing?

a who_knows thread titled "Skin D cutoff time?" (august 2006)

[J. quoting from andrews writings]

"a solar elevation of about 69° and stratospheric ozone of 250-275 dobson is really the minimium for useful sun. cold and wind is another factor curtailing useful exposure with declining solar elevation. dobson levels above 300 push the useful elevation needed up to over seventy°."

J. writes:

The dobson levels for most of USA is 300-325. Today the solar elevation/altitude for where I live in southeast USA is 69.4 degrees. We went out today and the sun still felt really good, but when I read the above paragraph from the site it seems we've reached the cutoff point.
Is there any way to push it a bit till we get down to say 68° or would this be harmful considering the ozone levels? It's a bit depressing- I really look forward to solar noon each day and don't want it to end.

my reply:

there are a lot of depends, how warm the air is is important cause if its cold then you get viral from the immune supression

also the highest vit d sun comes not from a clear sky but with very high cloud acting like a lens

you might get away with down to 65°

but once the sun height starts to drop it drops like a rock ;o) i would be very interested to know how long you are able to keep going

J's reply:

Drop like a rock is right! Elevation is down to 69.1 today - seems to drop by .3 or .4 a day since it's peak.
It's a bit cooler today- mid 80's - temps will stay like this at least another few weeks.
I will keep pushing it then and see how it goes.
After midday sun, I feel great and uplifted. I've actually browned this summer- usually I bounce the sun off my skin and stay pale.
I guess the sign the sun is too low is a loss of that elated, energetic feeling?
Plus I should be able to judge by how hot the sun feels on the skin as I try to make note of it as we sunbathe.
My son must like the feeling too - he will run up to me several times a day and ask if it is good sun time yet. The other day I told him good sun was almost gone for the year and he almost cried and wanted to know how we would keep getting healthy without it!
I think allergic response in him and my daughter has greatly decreased. He was stung twice by bees and within hours the stings cleared almost away whereas my hubby's sting around the same time stayed swollen for two days.
My daughter has always gotten very ill when I try to feed her eggs, but this summer has worked up to 1/4 of an egg in her morning pancakes (she is GF, lots of SCD foods, but eats rice & potato, but no sugar) with no sign of stomach pain.
I hope these benefits last when the skin D is gone and we are on the supp.

eileens reply:

Thought I'd thro my 5 pence in since when its the right sun here I go out into it in my birthday suit... ;o) I've tried being greedy and squeezing a bit more from the sun when it wasn't "right" (feel a bit tearful like your son when its going going gone Lol) The thing I noticed afterwards was in addition to the loss of that enervated lift there was a distinct and unpleasant lull in feeling good. yeah doesn't seem to take long to drop once it's past peak unfortunately, It also loses its bite on your skin, feels luke warm.

My daughter A. used to have a nasty reaction to jackjumper bites but after being on the compendium supplements this seems to have gone, The last time she got bitten she was quite astonished to find hardly any swelling at all when previously she'd swell up like a football. I used to get smarting/streaming eyes in spring and autumn when the Wattle trees flowered but now don't, Amber used to have mild asthma at that time but no longer gets that either.

Great to hear your family are seeing some benefits

J writes:

I think as far as getting that fantastic feeling I've become addicted to- the good sun has gone for us (in Virginia USA). Today's solar elevation was 67.9° and surprisingly when I checked the ozone map - the dobson was 275-300 for the first time since I've been keeping tabs. Has been running 300-325 all summer.

Anyway, I've been keeping track of angles, temps and feelings and a few days ago when solar elevation was 69.1, dobson 300-325, was the last really really good sun with any "snap".

Rather depressing...

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THE PHOTOCONJUGATION OF BILIRUBIN

jaundice in everybody except newborn to several weeks old babies is most likely genetic, possibly a skewed gene expression of the liver enzymes responsible for breaking down bilirubin, or perhaps an overload of red blood cells from myeloproliferation

what works best is whole body sunbathing , the amount of time varies but at a solar altitude of about 53° probably an hour is needed

however i feel that the sun really has to be 69° or above for optimium effect

as the solar altitude rises so the times have to be shorter, but possibly above 72° the times may be too short to give enough exposure to the blood pumped through the skin capillaries

the sun just works way best, its black and white, lamps don't come within a cooee for photodegrading jaundice

solar altitude is the angle of the sun above the horizon

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“Light energy is absorbed by bilirubin as it circulates in skin capillaries, resulting in conversion of insoluble bilirubin to photoisomers (referred also as photobilirubin and lumirubin) which are water-soluble and readily excreted.” crigler-najjar syndrome article

recent research favours turquoise lamps over blue

a study with a graph showing the turquoise and blue tube wavelengths

this bilirubin photodegrading/conjugating sun peaks about 490nm and corresponds to blue/green light, a spectrum covered by the bright white light in sunlight

it does seem to help with bilirubin processing and may well faciliate the dumping of heavy metals and toxins into bile (in combination with skin vitamin d)

also, i think the full spectrum sun can actually kill a few viruses in the blood in the skin and create a natural vaccine

the uvb only penetrates the tiniest distance into the skin depending on pigment and the horny layer covering, 30 microns at the most for volar forearm skin !

the yield of photodegradation per incident photon is about a factor 1520 larger at 420 nm than at 632nm (see study below)

The penetration depth into rat skin is 0.3 mm (300 microns) at 420 nm and 2 mm at 632nm (red/orange) study

however the longer wavelengths like red can penetrate very deeply, say 10mm though not in intensities that are significant from a photodegradation point of view, but may be significant from a signalling point of view turning on metabolic pathways

ideally you want to be hot in intense sun for this; hot, so you are continually pumping lots of blood throught the skin to be exposed to the blue/green rays in the sun; or at least doing physical work in the sun, so the circulation is reasonably rapid

a suitable sun altitude for this extends down to 48°, unlike the sun for uvb which seems to drop out below 69°

however i really prefer 72° and above, the right sun

my homebuilt uvb lamp has always been an important part of the compendium but thinking about bilirubin processing, i can see some decent 440nm sun is also important since longish exposures to vigorously circulating blood work better for the bilirubin photodegrading

full body exposure of intense sun is very oxidising and quite a stress on the body, so there are limitations to how much you can and should get of this sort of exposure.

there may be thyroid promotion from bilirubin conjugation by the sun since bilirubin interferes with the thyroid

even just sitting in the sun with the veins on back of the hands and top of the feet exposed is quite useful and wind tolerant when sun is short and its cool or cold

maybe why some people prefer to go barefoot?

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bilirubin absorption wavelengths

405nm and 470nm kills antibiotic resistant staph study

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optimal exposure for bilirubin is different from vitamin d

i do think the ‘ right sun ’ strongly benefits both and that's my preference

but bilirubin needs quite long exposures and perhaps there is even a limitation on how intense/high the sun can be because of oxidation and burning meaning a longer less intense exposure may be better than a shorter more intense exposure in terms of reducing bilirubin

how white the whites of the eyes are, may be a good indicator for the need to assist bilirubin conjugation with sunlight exposure, the whites should be quite white and any yellowish tinge is bilirubin, i think in more severe cases the sight can actually be tinged yellow

whereas for maximal vitamin d conversion you are trying to cover as much of the body as possible since you are irridating cholesterol in the skin membranes and some cholersterol conformations are much more easily converted than others

but for bilirubin conjugation you are trying to get into the blood with the deeper penetration of the green/blue/turquoise wavelengths in white light

this is actually a pumping system so part exposure of the body for a long period is adequate, obviously the more skin exposed the more the blood gets exposed, but the top of the feet with their veins for example may give proportionately quite good value and the arms and legs are easy to expose

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“Babies are not actually born yellow; it develops when they are first born. Every minute we make lots of red blood cells to replace those that have worn out. When old red blood cells are broken down, a yellow-coloured waste product, called bilirubin, is produced. Bilirubin is insoluble in water until it is metabolised by enzymes in the liver which add sugars to the molecule to help it dissolve meaning that it can be excreted in bile, and in urine.

However, a developing baby doesn't need this biochemical pathway for metabolising bilirubin until it is born, because the mother removes the bilirubin via the placenta. But when some babies are first born and can no longer rely on their mother to help remove bilirubin for them, particularly if they are premature or have liver problems, there can be a delay in switching on this metabolic pathway and a backlog of bilirubin builds up around the body, making the child yellow. Because , until it is metabolised, bilirubin is insoluble in water but dissolves very well in fats, it accumulates in the skin, where we store most of our body fats, explaining why the babies appear yellow.

If it is allowed to continue for a long time, jaundice can cause permanent damage to the brain, but if the baby is put under a blue light, a photochemical reaction occurs, breaking up the bilirubin and making it water soluble. This allows the baby to excrete the excess bilirubin in its urine and bile. The process was discovered accidentally by Judith Ward who used to take babies into sunlight because she thought it was good for them. Having returned them to the hospital, she found that a previously-jaundiced baby had normally-coloured skin on sun-exposed areas, but yellow skin where the nappy had been. As a result the method was quickly adopted for the treatment of neonatal jaundice.”

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BLUE AND RED LIGHT USEFUL FOR ACNE AND SKIN INFECTIONS

i am thinking that the red light in sunlight is very important, the improvement in acne in this study is noteable

quite interesting how anything that conflicts with medical political correctness never makes the media, bunch of toads, they don't even get paid to censor, do it naturally out of malign stupidity

i had bad acne as a teenager and what really worked was our summer sailing holidays with jumping in the salt water every morning first thing and letting it dry off so my skin was always salty, no doubt the sun was also significant, both for skin vitamin D and the direct immune stimulation of the rays on the skin

red light promotes collagen and the effect of sunlight on the skin with the compendium and the BCD is just amazing, a beautiful fullness for women

strong/intense sunlight on the sole of the foot is , i think, very effective with it's infrared and red in addition to vitamin D for plantar fasciitis

interestingly bunions are a form of osteoarthritis and the mid foot develops similar problems to the knee and hip which makes sense given how much cartilage wear the feet must be susceptible to !

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“Phototherapy with blue (415 nm) and red (660 nm) light in the treatment of acne vulgaris (Hammersmith Hospital, London)

In this study we have evaluated the use of blue light (peak at 415 nm) and a mixed blue and red light (peaks at 415 and 660 nm) in the treatment of acne vulgaris. One hundred and seven patients with mild to moderate acne vulgaris were randomized into four treatment groups: blue light, mixed blue and red light, cool white light and 5% benzoyl peroxide cream. Subjects in the phototherapy groups used portable light sources and irradiation was carried out daily for 15 min.

Comparative assessment between the three light sources was made in an observer-blinded fashion, but this could not be achieved for the use of benzoyl peroxide. Assessments were performed every 4 weeks. After 12 weeks of active treatment a mean improvement of 76% in inflammatory lesions was achieved by the combined blue and red light phototherapy; this was significantly superior to that achieved by blue light (at weeks 4 and 8 but not week 12), benzoyl peroxide (at weeks 8 and 12) or white light (at each assessment).

The final mean improvement in comedones by using blue and red light was 58%, again better than that achieved by the other active treatments used, although the differences did not reach significant levels. We have found that phototherapy with mixed blue and red light, probably by combining antibacterial and anti-inflammatory action, is an effective means of treating acne vulgaris of mild to moderate severity, with no significant short-term adverse effects.”

“ blue light can selectively eradicate Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections of the skin and soft tissues, while preserving the outermost layer of skin ” study

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blue light photo-destroys methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and other bacteria without the need for photosensitizers !

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TRANSCRANIAL RED AND NEAR INFRARED LIGHT THERAPY

this is just plain astounding !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

basically they are saying that red and near infrared light on the skull can heal the brain and may substantially reduce depression, social skill and sleep problems

i really recommend downloading the pdf

so there's real benefit in getting some hot sun on an exposed head (don't get sunstroke ! : o )

when i get intense sun on my head i am want to orient my waking hours ealier, there must be circadian clocks in the brain that directly response to sunlight on the head !

roll on crew cuts ! it think it must get in through the sutures in the skull and it's worth doing a google to find some pics of where the sutures are !

irridation of the emissary veins going through skull are another potential area of effect !

it's so typical of these studies, it has to be leds but in actual fact high solar noon sun (“the right sun”) delivers all this stuff in wallops !

maybe this is part of what makes the right sun? almost half the energy of sunlight is in the red, infra-red and near infra-red portion of the spectrum !

infra-red is what gives that sort of burning and hot feeling from the sun on a still day

drier days are likely to be better for near infrared transmission since water absorbs it in some NIR wavelengths !

“ in search of a non-invasive treatment for memory loss, gonzalez-lima and a team of researchers tested light-emitting diodes developed by nasa on rats. the results show that certain wavelengths of red to near-infrared light are absorbed by the mitochondria in the brain (mini power plants generating energy for the cells) and facilitate cell respiration and energy production ”

that infra red to near infra red will also be absorbed by mitchondria in the skin and surface tissue which would be a factor in the ‘ right sun ’

apparently the mitochondria get bent out of shape as we get older !

they lose the ablity to store and maintain levels of nutrients . sorta too much famine and feast so to speak and this is a principle agent of ageing and why chromium might be so important as an anti-aging nutrient as it can help even out this through better energy regulation and also why the compendium has an anti-aging effect with it's supply of essential nutrients

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SUNBATHING

eileen and myself have been getting reasonable results from clear autumn days with dry air and lower angled solar noon sun

61° - 62° solar noon is okish, not really happy with below 65° but sorta ok down to 51°, down to 46° in a pinch ? — air temperatures and wind chill are big factor in the tolerance of low sun

i don't think the sun is much good for vitamin D below 60°

there is likely a hormetic benefit to getting several minutes of full body exposure to the sun daily due to the induction of enhanced motility in T lympochytes and other effects !

the skin has reservoirs of nitric oxide that are released by UVA !

there is the possibility the generation of sulphated cholesterol and sulphated vitamin D (lol, 115 iu with 2 mins 45 seconds at 26 iu/min ?) as per stephanie seneff

basically what uvb does is upregulate T regs and downregulates fat deposition in the arteries !

that’s potent immunosuppression , anti-autoimmunity and cardiovascular health improvements, the main negatives are genetic damage to skin cells and an increased short term susceptibility to viruses !

stand alone vitamin D supplementation in fact increases cholesterol and worsens the lipid profile while significant sunlight on the skin improves it

negative factors you have to watch for when sunbathing are getting chilled, whether you have a virus and whether you are getting too knocked about it

75° rocks, i had this as a teenager over christmas with some very sunny summers, but post 40 to 50 years old i think repair becomes more of a problem and intense exposure is much more taxing on the body !

sun with any sort of utility at all is completely over by 36°, this low altitude sun appears to wipe out all the skin vitamin D from using my uvb lamp

at this angle i think bilirubin conjugation is minimal

i think since the vit d rays are no good with the lower angled sun that supplementation of oral vit d is necessary

this supplementation may even be of advantage with sun angles of 69°,70° but 72° and up easily makes enough vitamin D

i am favouring three days and not two from my using homemade uvb lamp to sunbathing

several successive days of sunbathing did leave me feeling a bit strung out because it is a major oxidative stress but the oral vit d seems to have helped and in fact sorta knocked me out so i slept 4 hours straight this evening

vitamin d is one of the better things to help with sleep i have found

i am fairly sure that this lower angle sun is able to provide an anti-viral innoculating effect as well as bilirubin conjugation

when it's too cold to have whole body exposure to the sun, i just sit with my face and the veins on back of the hands and top of the feet bare to the suns rays for ten or twenty minutes to the highest alititude sun i can get and this is helpful

maximal vitamin D is formed with the skin exfoliated before sunbathing by scrubbing with a nylon type exfoliating glove or scarf in a shower before bathing, especially the back, shoulders, arms, chest and stomach

the reason for this is, i assume, the removal of oils and dead skin cells which must form a significant barrier to uvb penetration to the living skin cell membranes

exposure of the “bags” under the eyes which is very thin skin with a lot of capillaries close to the surface is a good way to irridate the blood and potentially get some antigen creation benefit !

i do this by closing my eyes without scrunching up my face and not 100% directly looking at the sun but slightly down so that this skin gets good exposure to the sun's rays.

i cover my nose when i do this and maybe give the skin under the eyes several minutes - be careful the eyelids are sensitive and easily burnt !

actually i am not sure of the advisability of doing this due to penetration of infrared through the eyelid to the retina and optic nerve! will be working on this !

sun exposure reduces folate levels study

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an entry from my sunbathing log 1st jan 2010:

peak uvb meter reading of 106 @ 1.42pm, cloudless sky, reading down to 94 by 2pm, very dry air, 268 dobson, a mildly exfoliating scrub in shower before, spent the next morning in bed, so knocked up by this strong sun and massive vitamin D; 30 minutes sunbathing?

the solartech solarmeter 6.4 is essential in determining uvb levels since peak uvb can be up to 35 minutes later than solar noon due to cirrus or very fine high haze lensing in my experience and theres no way to tell except by using the meter

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the skin has a layer of dead cells over it (the stratum corneum which is a good uvb absorber) and by and large is very impervious and not much crosses it effectively, witness the failure of a lot of transdermal medications and supplements

some things do cross but they have to be quite small and presumably with the right chemical affinities and folding ability

imo the highest levels of skin D are obtained with increased transmisson of uvb into the skin cell membranes by exfoliation/scrubbing of the skin first compared to retaining skin oils that may have been converted from 7-DHC to pre-D3 by UVB rays that may then be absorbed to some limited extent

of course you do need some cholesterol in the first place, the highest levels are in the in the stratum basale and stratum spinosum which are the bottom two layers of the epidermal strata of the skin, so a bit interior from the stratum corneum wikipedia

1000iu oral vitamin D used to slay me, i only took that for a bad acrimonial joint i have for which it worked wonders

now i have a supplement combo thats keeps my shoulder good so i don't need 1000iu, i sorta mix taking about 120iu a day with sunbathing (while its summer of course, with daily 120iu oral D the rest of the year)

i do think there are other factors in sunbathing that make oral vitamin D inferior

molecule shapes and folding are just as important as atoms and there will always be a lot more to it than will ever be known

vitamin D is a steriod, you can pick the effect when you take a lot or get it via sunbathing or a uvb lamp

there is strong short term immune supression, like about 21 hours later for sunbathing

problematic joints should be radically improved short and longer term

and as part of the immune suppression you will feel blowsy and sleepy, oral vitamin D also does this !

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resilience to burning is hugely dependent on your general health and burning easily even if you have a light skin colour is a good diagnostic for below par health and biofilm issues

interestingly stem cells in the skin modulate uv protection by turning on genes to guard the integrity of duplicating DNA depending on the time of day !

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SUN ON THE BALLS FOR TESTOSTERONE :o)

what i read about taking testosterone was no good as it seemed to inhibit natural testosterone production, perhaps somewhat permanently, so as direct sun on the balls significantly increases testosterone it seems the way to go :o)

medical testosterone therapy increases cardiovascular risk, but i think doing it naturally with the sun, because it will produce hormones in balance and other factors, improves cardiovascular health

“ Men taking testosterone therapy had a 29 percent greater risk of death, heart attack and stroke according to a study of a "real world" population of men ”

testosterone is a vasodialator

interestingly the spinal cord has non visual photoreceptors in which means the cells in it can respond to sunlight and i think that getting some strong sunlight on the lower back helps with lower back problems !

also the brain and testicles have these photoreceptors, and strong sun on the head improves mood (don't get sunstroke !) and in the case of the testicles it increases the testosterone levels which stops the formation of breasts and really improves cardiovascular function !

i have accidently put myself on testosterone therapy by eating a lot of fresh wallaby testicles cooked for about ten minutes at 85 celsius to bring the internal temperature up to about 72 celsius (to kill any toxoplasmosis), this can't be enough to denature the testosterone hormone

anyway the effect was to very noticably shrink my testicles and give me “ back pump ” pain, both symptoms of testosterone therapy !

“ back pump ” may be due the testosterone (and other steriods?) inducting erythrocytosis

red light on the testicles

“ the human gene OPN3 encodes opsin 3 (encephalopsin, panopsin). it is strongly expressed in brain and testis with features of a classical photoreceptive opsin. The human gene OPN5 encodes opsin 5, which is expressed in the eye, brain, testes, and spinal cord ”

a correspondent asks

sounds plausible, but if the photoreceptors are in the brain and spinal cord, how does light reach them?

my reply

i think there’s two avenues, some light does go through bone, not much, but possibly enough to be picked up by photoreceptors, the beauty of strong sunlight is it has very high energy levels and a broad spectrum of light including red and near-infrared, so who knows what goes through, but the photoreceptors will be tuned to that of course by evolution, possibly to produce growth factors over summer?

the other avenue is that the sutures in the skull and connective tissue in the spine act as a sort of light pipe, this is actually a fact because there is a transcranial red and near-infrared therapy for stroke, neurological/degenerative disease and traumatic brain injury that uses red/infrared leds strapped over the sutures on the skull that brings very significant improvement and is due to the red/infrared energising the mitochondria in the outer portions of the brain

unfortunately when the treatment is stopped the beneficial effect is lost !

i have wondered if men going bald or having crew cuts is chasing this effect?

that testosterone production in the testicles is responsive to sunlight seems to be known by the bodybuilding community, which is not the macho driven activity one might think, but low testosterone and growth hormone men who are partly feminized (hence the female emphasis on display!) looking for improvements in their hormones

“ low testosterone levels may herald the subsequent development of rheumatoid arthritis in men

testosterone may dampen down the immune system, so quelling inflammation ”

interestingly in this context, a drop in testosterone increases the susceptibility to parkinsons because levels of inducible nitric oxide synthase and nitric oxide in the brain go up !

low testosterone causes poor lipid and cholesterol profiles, higher systolic and diastolic blood pressure (hypertension), reduced insulin sensitivity and hyperglycemic control, in short, metabolic syndrome !

also the notorious spare tire and weight gain in older men is partly due to hypogonadalism and low testosterone !

i don't like testosterone treatment or supplementation because apparently the body responds (possibly permanently) by reducing the amount of testosterone it makes, so imo, exposing the testicles to sunlight is the best way to go ! :o)(

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