How sunshine cuts blood pressure - and makes you thinner! New research reveals benefits that AREN'T linked to vitamin D
Even taking skin-cancer risk into account, scientists say the sun is healthy
Research indicates it protects us against a wide range of lethal conditions
Specifically, sun exposure prompts our bodies to produce nitric oxide that helps defend our cardiovascular system
By John Naish for the Daily Mail
Published: 18:40 EST, 2 May 2016 | Updated: 02:24 EST, 3 May 2016
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... z47iJ6iu2t
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Emerging research indicates that sunlight may protect us against a wide range of lethal or disabling conditions, such as obesity, heart attacks, strokes, asthma, and multiple sclerosis. Sunshine has also been shown to boost our libidos and general mood.
This is not simply about vitamin D — which our skin manufactures from sunlight. The vitamin helps us build healthy bones and teeth and may protect against bowel cancer. But new research indicates that solar rays benefit our bodies in multiple other ways.
Scientists now believe, for example, that exposure to sun prompts our bodies to produce nitric oxide, a chemical that helps protect our cardiovascular system — and the feelgood brain-chemical serotonin.
e adds that there is a reduction in cardiovascular disease and deaths from all causes with increased sun exposure. Two years ago, Dr Weller’s team established that exposure to sunlight may lower people’s blood pressure and thus cut their risk of heart attack and stroke. This benefit has nothing to do with vitamin D.
MAY STOP YOU GETTING FAT
Scientists are discovering sunlight may even help us keep slim and healthy, according to studies by the Universities of Southampton and Edinburgh that kept mice on high-fat diets while they were exposed to the spectrum of ultraviolet light found in sunshine.
The results show that ultraviolet radiation may suppress the development of obesity and the symptoms of type 2 diabetes. These benefits were again independent of the effects of vitamin D, the researchers report in the journal Diabetes in 2014. Instead they believe the effects are again as a result of the sun boosting production of nitric oxide. The suggestion is that without enough nitric oxide in the bloodstream, insulin may not work properly, allowing diabetes to set in.
Sunlight also lifts men’s libidos, according to an Austrian study of 2,299 men published in 2010.
Hormone experts at the University of Gratz discovered that the men’s levels of the male sex hormone testosterone peak in the month of August, and fall in the winter, hitting their lowest levels in March.
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