Can People Prevent Multiple Sclerosis with Sunlight
We’ve spent the last few decades preaching about how important it is to stay out of the sun. We’ve understood just how real a risk skin cancer can be and are doing almost everything we can think of to prevent it from happening. We choose the highest SPF sunscreens we can find and then slather on layers and layers of it. We put on large floppy hats. Even throughout the hottest conditions of the year we make ourselves wear long sleeves and pants. We try to stick to the low light areas—some individuals have even taken to carrying parasols around with them to keep the sun from ever making contact with their skin. Now we are starting to appreciate that sunlight can in fact help us. Can you really be helped by the sun?
A new study has been completed and it demonstrates that people who allow some time in direct sunlight aren’t as likely to get MS as the people who do everything they can to keep out of the sun. At the onset, the study was a lot more about Vitamin D and it’s influences on Multiple Sclerosis. Eventually it became apparent, however, that it was the Vitamin D our bodies generate as a response to exposure to the sun’s rays that seems to be at the root of the issue.
We’ve known for a very long time that the sun’s rays and Vitamin D can impede the way the immune system plays a part in MS. This particular study, though, is focused on how sunlight affects the people who are starting to experience the very earliest of MS symptoms. The target of the study is to see how sunlight and Vitamin D might have an affect on the symptoms doctors call “precursor” to actual symptoms of the disease.
Unfortunately there are not a large amount of ways of really quantify the hypothesis of the study. The study would like to demonstrate whether or not exposure to the sun’s rays can actually prevent MS. Sadly, analysts have realized that the only way to prove this definitively is to monitor a person for his entire life. This is just about the only method to really evaluate the levels of Vitamin D that are already present in a person’s blood before the precursors to MS start to become apparent. The way it is these days, individuals who get regular exposure to the sun appear to experience fewer symptoms of MS than those who live in colder or darker climates–which isn’t new news. Should you experience pain due to sunburn, visit the website on What is the best homeopathic sunburn treatment for children for fast remedies.
The fact that the chance of getting skin cancer goes up proportionally to the amount of time you spend in direct sunlight (without protection) is also a problem. So, if you try and avoid one disease, you may be helping to induce the other one. Of course, when it gets found early on, skin cancer is very treatable and can even be cured. That isn’t true for MS.
So should you improve your direct exposure to the sunlight so that you don’t get MS? Talk to the medical doctor to figure out if this is a good plan. Your doctor can examine your current health status, your history and even your genetics to determine if you are even at risk for the disease in the first place. This can help your physician determine what the best thing for you to do is.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 28th, 2011 at 1:35 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.