The Sunlight Solution: Why More Sun Exposure and Vitamin D are Essential to Your Health - Softcover

Carlson, Laurie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1591027012 ISBN 13: 9781591027010

Verlag: G38-Prometheus, 2009

Inhaltsangabe

Sunlight is a vital component of good health. Like plants that thrive in the sun, we humans too depend on sunlight, in our case for the production of Vitamin D. In the past few decades, however, cultural trends have steered us away from sun exposure. From fear of the potential dangers of UV radiation and the heavy promotion of sunscreen products to artificial work and recreational environments centered on virtual reality, we are all spending much more time indoors and away from the sun. What are the health consequences?

In this informative overview of an often-neglected topic, historian Laurie Winn Carlson examines the historical and cultural factors that have created our indoor lifestyles and the medical evidence that suggests we need to get out in the sun.

She begins by tracing the behavior patterns that have caused a shift indoors. She notes that it was common decades ago for children to spend hours playing outside. Now the lure of video games and heavy sunscreen use have changed all that. Adults, also, live and work in the perpetual twilight of electric lighting. Though we feel comfortable, there is evidence that our bodies have not really adjusted to a lifestyle that is less than a century old.

Carlson explains the growing body of research that challenges government and health industry warnings against the dangers of sunlight. For example, the production of Vitamin D from sun exposure is crucial to maintaining the body’s calcium levels, an important factor for healthy bones, especially as we age. There is also evidence of the sun’s beneficial effects on psychological disorders such as seasonal depression or difficulty sleeping.

She concludes by arguing for a balanced approach to sun exposure. Although the risk of skin cancers should not be ignored, total avoidance of the sun can be just as risky to our health.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Laurie Winn Carlson (Dallas, OR) is an adjunct assistant professor of history at Western Oregon University and the author of twenty books including William J. Spillman and the Birth of Agricultural Economics and A Fever in Salem: A New Interpretation of the New England Witch Trials.

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the SUNLIGHT SOLUTION

WHY MORE SUN EXPOSURE AND VITAMIN D ARE ESSENTIAL TO YOUR HEALTHBy laurie winn carlson

Prometheus Books

Copyright © 2009 Laurie Winn Carlson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-59102-701-0

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS................................................................9INTRODUCTION: The Sunshine Solution............................................11CHAPTER 1. Sun Culture Begins..................................................19CHAPTER 2. A History of Sunlight as Therapy....................................27CHAPTER 3. Dogs in the Dark and the Discovery of Vitamin D.....................43CHAPTER 4. Sunlight as Nutrient................................................65CHAPTER 5. A Pandora's Box of Ailments.........................................101CHAPTER 6. Canaries in the Coal Mine...........................................131CHAPTER 7. Circadian Rhythms...................................................151CHAPTER 8. Solar Dimming and Health............................................173EPILOGUE.......................................................................183GLOSSARY.......................................................................185ENDNOTES.......................................................................191BIBLIOGRAPHY...................................................................217INDEX..........................................................................241

Chapter One

SUN CULTURE BEGINS

Early human societies recognized the sun's power and importance and developed rituals and myths to connect them to what was clearly the dominant life giver on earth. No single force affected life as much as the daily rising and setting of the sun, a relationship that shaped how early people lived and thought. Joy and reverence for sunrise-as well as fear of darkness-evolved into rites led by priests and priestesses who could speak with the sun god or a pantheon of sun-related deities, ensuring continued sunlight.

The realization that without sunlight life on earth would disappear was recognized long before the scientific understanding of photosynthesis. While sunlight's biological actions weren't understood, its significance to life and health was central to early civilizations that believed the sun was either the source of life or the first entity created by a higher being. Life revolved around the sun, so the fear that something might suddenly stop its daily appearance became a powerful motivating force in life and culture. Origin myths often explain the world as steeped in darkness then suddenly lit by the appearance of the sun. In many legends, the end of the world would follow the disappearance of the sun, something to be prevented at all costs.

Clearly, the sun could grant life with its warmth or take it away by disappearing, yet it remained a steady and cyclical power, a condition people attributed to their own efforts through prayer, dance, or even the extreme of human sacrifice. Cultures revered the sun in some way, but how they expressed this and the imagined sun god's character (whether compassionate and just, or cruel and punitive) varied greatly. Interpretations as well as people's behavior regarding the sun were defined by culture as well as by latitude and environment. Because those most dependent upon sunlight, such as agricultural societies and those in the far north, regarded the sun as extremely powerful in daily life, they often resorted to extremes in behavior to please or appease the sun. People living in cloudless areas with plentiful sunshine who relied on the sea rather than on agriculture for survival could regard the sun with less worry and more joy.

It was natural to link the powerful yet mysterious force of sunlight to the otherworld. How else were they to explain such a phenomenon that seemed alive and omniscient, with strength and cunning unfathomable to the people who depended upon it? As if by magic, it appeared on one side of the world and disappeared over the edge of the opposite side, leaving only darkness in its wake. The need for sunlight to illuminate life was essential because the darkness of night was overwhelming. Today, we rarely think of it unless we're stranded on a remote road without a flashlight, but without electricity at night we're as frightened and helpless as those long ago who heralded the sunrise because it wiped away the darkness.

Day and night were the most important rhythms in daily life, followed by the seasonal changes brought about by the sun's changing position in the sky. The sun's activity followed patterns but was never static and not to be taken for granted. The most important people in sun-worshiping civilizations were those who monitored the sun's activity-the astrologers and calendar keepers-because appeasing the sun required prayer, sacrifice, and ceremonies by everyone in the society. People felt compelled to interfere when the sun seemed to disappear or hide away, such as the elongated nights of winter. Desperately dependent on sunlight, they developed ceremonies to entice the sun to come out of hiding. A Japanese myth in which the sun hides in a cave and humans have to figure out how to lure it out is similar to other symbolic explanations for the sun's cyclical disappearance and reappearance. Trees decorated with shiny objects, prayers, dancing, and lighted fires were used to tempt the sun's curiosity so it would peek out again. Gaining favor with the sun ensured fertility, health, food, and happiness. On the other hand, the sun was an unforgiving god, one that shouldn't be taken for granted. Drought punished everyone and was seen as the sun god's displeasure with the people. Appeasing the sun became a valuable tool in social control and group stability, and individuals needed to behave by common norms for the good of the community. After all, the omniscient sun was overhead, watching everyone.

The seasonal variation in length of day and position of the sun had a profound effect on plants, animals, and humans. Lying low in the sky all winter, then moving directly overhead in summer, the sun's warmth and light changed considerably in higher latitudes. Agriculture relied on a complex understanding of the sun and seasons, requiring the development of calendars, solar festivals, and elaborate efforts to keep track of the sun. This being no simple matter, sites like England's Stonehenge were constructed as huge solar-measuring devices. People paid a great deal of attention to the sun's strength and position in the sky, giving it a variety of names depending upon the time of day or season. The spring sun was most appreciated because it launched the year into growth and vigor once more after a winter sun of reduced strength and presence.

THE SUN IN MYTHOLOGY AND WORLD RELIGIONS

Various interpretations of the sun's actions tried to explain its relationship to the natural world. The "solar myth" that was common in many cultures explained the sun rising up in the morning as a symbolic birth and dropping over the horizon at night as a death, often blamed on being swallowed by a monster. The daily battle between darkness and light was central to humanity's existence, therefore playing a prominent role in religion and cultural mythology. The seasonal sun was also given its place in myths of many cultures, which often described the sun as a baby born daily or seasonally; or a sun child that grew to take on monsters of the night. The sun could be a brilliant or a gloomy god, a friend or an enemy.

While the sun played a prominent...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: G38-Prometheus
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2009
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1591027012
• ISBN 13: 9781591027010
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 247
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV, GPSR Europäische Union; info@simonandschuster.nl; ; Herculesplein 96; Utrecht; 3584 AA; Niederlande