"Dr. Holick sums up the importance of vitamin D to human well being in this single sentence from early in the book:
The sun is as vital to your health and well-being as food, shelter, water and oxygen.
Which seems reasonable since every morsel of energy we consume originates with the sun. No sun, no plants. No plants, no animals. No plants and animals, no us. As Sir Karl Popper noted, we eat the sun. We evolved in the sunlight, so it makes sense that the sun offers other benefits as well food.
Dr. Holick begins his book with a fascinating comparison of a ten-year-old girl growing up somewhere along the equator to a ten-year-old girl growing up in the United States or Europe. The former will probably never learn how to use a computer, never go to a mall, never learn to drive a car and will probably end up spending most of her life outside tilling the soil as did her parents and grandparents. She will probably experience periods in her life of poverty and poor nutrition. By contrast, her US or European counterpart will always have plenty to eat, will learn to shop, order pizza, operate a computer, Game Boy, Wii, and God only knows what other kinds of electronics. She will have her doting parents slather sunscreen on her to protect her skin from birth until she’s old enough to do it herself. She will come of age in a different world, filled with the latest in medical technology.
And she will pay for it with her health.
Her equatorial counterpart will be only half as likely to get cancer in her lifetime. She will have an 80 percent reduction in risk of developing type I diabetes before the age of 30. And she will live longer. If she can avoid trauma or an untreated severe medical condition, the girl growing up in the more primitive but sunny circumstances will have an overall 7 percent greater longevity than her US/European counterpart. She will have stronger bones, lower blood pressure, fewer cavities in her teeth, a greatly reduced risk for heart disease, type II diabetes, obesity, arthritis and most of the other diseases that will plague her more Westernized sisters.
Why the difference?"
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/supplements/sunshine-superman/#more-4165
Another fantastic post from Dr. Eades, go read it.
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