Chapter 10 Chapter 8 Enjoy the sunshine, don't wait for the night to fall

Is there any similarity between a Muslim woman who is completely hidden in a black robe and headscarf and a business manager in a suit and leather shoes?One thing: they are rarely exposed to the sun directly!The lives of businessmen are basically spent in restaurants, meeting rooms, taxis, airports and restaurants.Even if they do exercise once in a while, it's in an air-conditioned fitness center.So what?Exposing yourself to too much sun is not healthy!Someone might say so. There is another new fashion trend from the United States to Europe, which is equally fanatical and lacks rational judgment. That is, out of fear of skin cancer, people dare not go out and be exposed to the sun.To which I cry out: Mr. President, please put Paracelsus on the list of required reading for the American people!This sixteenth-century medical scientist and philosopher discovered the chemical principles in life activities.

Without sunlight, people will get sick.Our bones provide the best testimony of this.During the industrialization period in the first half of the nineteenth century, the smoke from factory chimneys made many Britons suffer from rickets.British winters have short days and very little sunshine.It is no accident that the British have light skin and are sensitive to the sun, but have an important compensating effect.Likewise, there are the lighter-skinned Scandinavians, whom we call the sunshine of the north, which is a contradiction in terms, because summers there are rainy rather than sunny. Without sunlight, there is no vitamin D, and without vitamin D, there is no healthy bones!Vitamin D is converted from the famous cholesterol in the skin, provided the skin is exposed to direct sunlight.

If there is no sunlight, vitamin D can only be obtained from food.It's not as simple as it sounds.The only food sources that are really rich in this vitamin are certain fatty fish.Open your mouth, pinch your nose, and swallow obediently!Did you swallow cod liver oil to prevent rickets when you were a child?The taste was really hard to swallow, but it worked.Other sources of vitamin D are basically animal foods, such as milk, eggs, cheese and the like.And any of us who are educated, health-conscious Americans or Europeans know that these things are best avoided.Because some people warn that these things can cause myocardial infarction.In a later chapter, we will mention another source of vitamin D that contains less fat, which has not attracted people's attention so far.

Because of this law of nature, black and darker-skinned immigrants had a hard time living in the sunless North.Their skin is already good at blocking sunlight, and the cloudy climate and strict dress code add another protection.Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis living in the UK are particularly deficient in vitamin D. Closer to home now, a few years ago, it was discovered that the beta cells in the pancreas need vitamin D to produce insulin.The richer the vitamin D, the stronger the secretion of insulin.Conversely, if vitamin D is insufficient, the secretion of insulin will be exhausted.Therefore, it is meaningful to study the relationship between vitamin D supply and the frequency of sugar metabolism disorders.This study, which has been undertaken in recent years, has yielded remarkable results.Professor Boucher of the Royal College of Medicine in London proposed the Boucher hypothesis: insufficient supply of vitamin D is one of the important factors causing unknown syndromes.

Many facts have proved this assumption to varying degrees.Vitamin D deficiency is very common among the elderly who rarely come out of the house.The higher rates of diabetes among people of color in Europe and North America are also noteworthy.Bangladeshis living in London have four to five times the incidence of diabetes than Caucasians.Among them is the hypochondriac type that occurs in adults, and the incidence of typical skeletal deformations caused by vitamin D deficiency is also very high.Muslim women wrap themselves up all year round and are always vitamin D deficient.Vitamin D levels in Muslim men are still normal, at least in summer.These South Asian immigrants living in the UK have the highest incidence of myocardial infarction in the world, even though many of them are vegetarians.

We have a growing body of other evidence as well.The better the supply of vitamin D, the stronger the sensitivity of cells to insulin, which has nothing to do with age, degree of fat accumulation and overweight.Conversely, the worse the supply of vitamin D, the stronger the insulin resistance.The better the supply of vitamin D, the lower the blood pressure and blood fat.In contrast, an analysis of research shows that the Nordic people who receive the least sunlight in the world have the highest average cholesterol levels.It is not such a puzzling paradox that residents of southern France and other Mediterranean regions have the lowest incidence of myocardial infarction in Western countries despite eating a lot of meat, eggs and cheese.

There are many other interesting cases related to this, I do not want to list them all here, but limit myself to those cases where the conclusions have been made.Although the vitamin D hypothesis is quite attractive, its research is still in its infancy.Before we gain more understanding, we should at least think about whether such a life is healthy: during the day, staying in the office all day, after work at night, taking the elevator to the underground parking lot, driving a closed car with a sunshade Board the air-conditioned car back to the apartment or the underground parking lot of the fitness center, and then, on the block at night, or jog for three hours on the running machine.We all know exercise is good for our health, but maybe we shouldn't wait until the sun goes down.