Wonderfully Made

Sun Exposure

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: George Guthrie, Tim Arnott

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Series Code: WM

Program Code: WM000334


00:01 The following program presents principles designed
00:03 to promote good health and is not intended to
00:05 take the place of personalized professional
00:07 care. The opinions and ideas expressed are those of
00:10 the speaker. Viewers are encouraged to
00:13 draw their own conclusions about
00:14 the information presented.
00:36 Welcome to "Wonderfully Made." My name is
00:39 Dr. George Guthrie, Medical director of The
00:41 Lifestyle Center of America. Have you ever been
00:44 told by your doctor that you should avoid sun
00:48 exposure. You know too much sun can actually
00:52 cause, cause sunburn which is uncomfortable but
00:55 often lead to skin cancer as well, on the other
01:00 hand you need some sun exposure to be healthy
01:05 we're here to talk about it today on Wonderfully Made
01:08 joining me is Dr. Tim Arnott. Hi George,
01:12 good to be here, yeah good to be here Tim.
01:15 Well, so there is this is argument too much sun,
01:19 too little sun, I am sure everybody's heard
01:23 how important it is to stay out of the sun,
01:25 but what benefits might the sun have to us.
01:30 Well, George it's very interesting that sunlight
01:35 actually can help you lower your risk of a number
01:38 of disease, in fact are you aware that sun exposure
01:42 could actually lower your risk of developing high
01:44 blood pressure and that can help you lower
01:47 your risk of coronary artery disease and perhaps
01:50 even lower your risk of stroke. Now, when it comes
01:52 to your bones you could actually lower your risk
01:55 of osteoporosis and an adult form of rickets,
02:01 something similar to rickets that's called
02:03 Osteomalacia and did you also know that you could
02:07 perhaps lower your risk, your child's risk of
02:11 type-1 diabetes by helping them to get adequate
02:15 sun exposure. Oh! These are some rather
02:19 amazing claims you're making here doc,
02:21 it seems to me folks should understand what the
02:24 active element is that we are talking about here,
02:27 Vitamin D. Absolutely Vitamin D is the,
02:32 the important element you may not, well you may
02:35 have thought that when you eat that bean and
02:38 that whole grain. That the calcium and the
02:41 magnesium and the phosphorous in those foods,
02:45 just automatically goes into your blood stream
02:48 after the digestive process, but the reality is that
02:52 the creator has designed us so that in order to
02:55 get the maximum amount of calcium, magnesium
02:59 and phosphorous from the food in the intestine
03:02 into the blood stream you need the help of an
03:06 important vitamin that vitamin is vitamin D.
03:09 Now, George tell us how is it that Vitamin D,
03:12 is actually made. Well, it's actually misnamed it's
03:16 not really a vitamin overall it's a hormone.
03:20 We didn't understand that as we discovered it
03:23 we came it through this disease process we know
03:26 as rickets and nobody knows, knew what cause
03:30 the disease process as they began to experiment
03:34 and try to find out, one doctor discovered they
03:37 can take kids with rickets and put them in front of
03:39 an arc and that would take care of their rickets
03:43 and then. You're talking about an arc lamp,
03:45 yes, is that correct, an arc lamp a strong electrical
03:48 arc and then they discovered that we could
03:52 actually put them, the kids on the roof of the
03:56 hospital and their rickets would go away I mean
03:58 that's that was kind of interesting, from that
04:01 came the discovery of this substance actually
04:06 which we call a vitamin but which is actually a
04:08 hormone. In fact what happens is this, cholesterol in
04:12 our bodies in the skin it goes through a little
04:15 preparation process and then sunlight comes and
04:19 hits that cholesterol in the skin and in hitting it
04:24 breaks one of its rings and turns it into what we
04:27 understand to be Vitamin D, its actually a Previtamin
04:31 D first which can be stored in the skin and then
04:34 released into the blood stream as our body needs it
04:37 to manage calcium, magnesium and some other
04:40 things, absolutely and so vitamin D is so very
04:44 important and the other thing to keep in mind
04:47 as if your kidney disease, if you have diabetes
04:50 and your kidneys have been injured perhaps you
04:52 had long-standing high blood pressure and your
04:55 kidneys have been injured from that,
04:57 you may not be turning vitamin D, Previtamin D
05:01 into the active form of vitamin D and so it's even
05:05 more important for those individuals to make sure
05:08 that they have all of the vitamin D that they
05:10 need, and the other thing that's important is if
05:12 you have extra dark skin and extra protection
05:16 in the skin from the sun those individuals especially
05:20 need to listen to this program because not
05:24 uncommonly George those individuals who have
05:26 darker skin pigment are especially at risk
05:30 of having low vitamin D levels and they could
05:35 have higher blood pressure, actually higher risk
05:36 of cancer, higher risk of osteoporosis and higher
05:40 risk of these autoimmune diseases a type
05:43 1 diabetes, Lupus and even Rheumatoid arthritis.
05:47 In the recent enhanced data there is, that's the
05:52 national collection of data that occurs on a
05:55 regular basis in this country when they looked at
05:57 vitamin D, they were estimates of 40 to 60
06:00 percent of African Americans actually deficient
06:04 in vitamin D, and once I say that we really
06:07 should point out that if you're going to measure
06:09 this in your blood to see if you have adequate
06:12 amounts that one should be measured is called
06:16 25-hydroxy-vitamin D, chances are your
06:21 doctor hasn't thought of it, it would be good
06:24 for you to write it down. So, we will mention it
06:27 again towards the end of the program but just
06:29 to let you know 25- hydroxy-vitamin D is the
06:33 important one. It's actually made from the
06:37 vitamin D that comes from the skin it goes to the
06:40 liver its turned into the 25-hydroxy and then as
06:44 you pointed out to Tim, the kidney changes it to its
06:47 most active form, the 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin
06:51 D folks don't need to remember that.
06:53 Now, George what they do need to remember
06:56 and what Dr. Michael Holick at Boston University
06:59 an expert in Vitamin D physiology recommends is
07:02 that we have our Vitamin D level checked every
07:06 year just like you might check a cholesterol level
07:09 and as George mentioned earlier that's the
07:11 25-hydroxy-form of vitamin D. So, really all
07:16 you need to remember the number 25 and Vitamin D
07:20 and your doctor should be able to take it from
07:22 there once a year. Now, just a word on where we
07:26 might want that vitamin D level to be when it is
07:29 checked because frankly George the last time I
07:33 had it checked on one of my patients I saw that
07:36 if they were seven with their level they would be
07:39 in the normal range, is that really true?
07:42 Well, the normal range is generally defined in a
07:44 population, they will measure a population,
07:48 measure two standard deviations in either way and
07:51 then say that's a normal from the bottom end to
07:54 the top end but we know for vitamin D,
07:58 that in order to get optimal positive benefits
08:02 from the vitamin D it really should be greater than
08:05 30 to turn down or turn off the parathyroid hormone
08:10 and Pros probably closer to 40 in order to give
08:13 optimal protection against cancer maybe we should
08:16 talk a little bit about that, yes actually very
08:20 interesting studies coming out showing that
08:23 vitamin D has an affect on the cells of your body,
08:28 it actually slows down the rate of cell division and
08:33 vitamin D actually encourages the cells of your body
08:36 to go to full maturation, in other words to become
08:40 a completely fully matured cell and of course
08:43 cancer is, is a cell that is dividing too rapidly cell
08:48 division out of control and it leads to cells that are
08:52 not fully mature. So, vitamin D is a powerful tool
08:56 to help lower the risk of cancer now what cancers
08:59 are we actually talking about. Well, I think of
09:02 Dr. Garland study that look at several thousand
09:05 people got their vitamin D levels and then watch
09:09 them over several years time to see who would
09:13 actually that colon cancer or cancers they found
09:18 an 80 percent reduction in colon cancer in those
09:22 that started with a highes levels of vitamin D,
09:26 that's significant, 80 percent lower risk of the
09:30 number one cancer of men and women who are not
09:34 smoking. Now, that's something that you can walk
09:37 outside for and frankly you don't have to walk
09:41 outside for very long in order to get all of the
09:44 vitamin D that you need. What is the
09:47 recommendation for skin exposure in order to get
09:51 at least a minimum amount of vitamin D.
09:53 Well, you know there is a little science behind
09:55 deciding this and my understanding is as it is
09:58 done with healthy medical students what ever
10:00 that means they put them on the, out in the sun to
10:05 turn them just pink not to burn but just pink all
10:08 over and if they turn just pink they make some where
10:11 between 10 to 20,000 international units just
10:16 with that slight reddening of the skin,
10:18 doing calculations from that down to the
10:22 recommended daily intake of either four hundred
10:25 international units a day for younger adults and
10:28 for those who are over 7600 international units
10:32 we find that about seven minutes a day well
10:37 technically three days a week but better seven
10:40 minutes a day with just the head neck and the
10:43 wrist and hands exposed will actually make
10:46 adequate amount of vitamin D for people.
10:49 Alright and so you wanna spend a few minutes I
10:53 believe Dr. Michael Holick recommends little bit
10:56 more probably 15 minutes but it depends frankly
11:00 on where you live if you live in Miami, seven
11:02 minutes probably is perfect in fact it may be a
11:05 little too much depending on what kind of skin
11:08 that you have, so anyway from seven to fifteen
11:12 minutes three days a week on your face, hands and
11:15 arms, not much exposure and you will get to the
11:18 vitamin D that you need but just remember that
11:21 if you live in north of Oklahoma city,
11:23 Oklahoma during the winter your probably won't
11:26 make any vitamin D and so that's why its
11:30 important that you store up a little extra during
11:33 the summer months to compensate for what
11:36 you won't be making during the winter months
11:39 and what is our recommendation on taking a
11:41 supplement or we recommending the 200 the
11:44 400 and the 600. Well, how we get vitamin D
11:49 orally is really another interesting topic,
11:54 in order to take care of rickets in this country
11:57 the Federal Government decided to put vitamin D
12:02 with in milk a lot of us think of milk as a source of
12:07 vitamin D but the truth is its not observed that
12:11 well and some studies that actually looked at milk
12:14 off the shelf found that the vitamin D they said
12:17 was in their wasn't in there to begin with.
12:19 Now, I am sure industry has done some things to
12:21 correct that since that became known.
12:24 But vitamin D, taken orally is not all that well
12:28 observed and so it would make sense for those
12:32 people who are at risk for example those people
12:35 who are living in the north in the winter time,
12:38 those people who are unable to get out in the
12:40 sun at all to take a supplement, supplement.
12:44 And while the international unit recommendation
12:47 is about 400 to 600 if you are gonna take it
12:50 orally probably need a thousand international
12:54 units to maintain a level and we know that it's
12:57 safe to take up to 2,000 international units a day
13:00 of the vitamin D, with out any toxicity or problems.
13:04 So, certainly if you are not spending much time
13:07 outside may be you have a night job and you
13:10 sleep during the day, or may be you are African
13:13 American and have a extra protection in your
13:16 skin against the sun and certainly those
13:20 individuals who are at higher risk and we're gonna
13:23 talk about that in a few minutes. Those who are
13:25 at higher risk of vitamin D deficiency, these
13:28 individuals would probably want to take a thousand
13:31 international units of vitamin D, and as George
13:35 mentioned the American institute of medicine says
13:37 that is a safe level once you at one year of age
13:42 all the way through adulthood and you can take
13:44 up to 2,000 international units a day.
13:47 Now, as we've mentioned earlier George there is
13:50 actually some evidence of that vitamin D could
13:55 actually help lowering your risk of autoimmune
13:58 diseases, tell us a little bit about this. I don't
14:01 think we understand for assure the mechanism it
14:05 probably at least in my mind has something to do
14:08 with that anticancer effect where it helps to the
14:11 cells to differentiate and do what they are suppose
14:14 to, one of the isomers of the vitamin D actually
14:17 goes into the nucleus and helps to balance
14:20 things out. Autoimmune disease is a whole host of
14:26 diseases which the immune system gets confused
14:29 and starts to fight ourselves for example people
14:34 with rheumatoid arthritis have the immune system
14:36 turning and actually fighting the joints.
14:40 Sometimes it attacks the skin sometimes a variety
14:43 of different areas and it seems that adding vitamin
14:47 D, may actually help to control that reaction
14:51 especially if it's caught early in the disease.
14:55 And so we see that Vitamin D will actually help your
14:58 immune system your white blood cells if you will
15:02 to better determine whether what they are
15:05 dealing inside you is self or non-self, friend or
15:10 enemy and you certainly don't want your immune
15:12 system fighting yourself because this can be
15:15 devastating and that's what happens in type 1
15:18 diabetes. Now, Dr. Koponen at the Institute for
15:22 Child Health in London conducted some very
15:25 interesting studies on Finnish children. You may not
15:28 know that Finland in this country where they have
15:31 very little sunlight during the winter months.
15:35 In fact, they don't have any during parts of that
15:37 time at season, and they're not getting as much of
15:41 the direct rays of the sun being that far north.
15:45 So, these individuals have a significant increase
15:48 risk of vitamin D deficiency and they have the
15:50 number 1, their children that is have the number 1
15:53 risk of type 1 diabetes in the world and what
15:57 they did was to put this children half of them on
16:01 vitamin D and another group was just put on a
16:05 placebo and what they were able to show is that
16:08 individuals, children in Finland who took vitamin D
16:12 were at 88 percent lower risk of type-1 Diabetes
16:17 during the course of that study, then what they
16:20 did was to take individuals children in Finland and
16:24 put them on the recommended daily allowance
16:27 so for vitamin D, by the Finnish Government,
16:30 2,000 international units a day which we mentioned
16:33 earlier as the upper limit of safe intake in this
16:38 country by our government and what they
16:40 showed with these children taking 2,000
16:43 international units of Vitamin D a day were at
16:46 78 percent lower risk of type 1 diabetes
16:50 compared to children who were taking less than
16:53 2,000 international units of vitamin D. And so for
16:58 those individuals whose children are not
17:01 getting the sun exposure that you might want
17:05 them to get for some one reason or another you
17:08 would probably want to make sure that they are
17:10 getting at least a thousand international units a
17:13 day and if they're severally limited in sun exposure
17:17 you may want to boost that even as much as 2,000
17:20 international units a day and so remember
17:24 vitamin D, sunlight actually helps your body to
17:29 not the so interesting in harming you, your own
17:33 tissue but you know this is kind of interesting Tim,
17:35 I understand how the folks in Finland, the kids in
17:38 Finland don't get enough sunlight especially in the
17:41 winter is my understanding that there is an
17:43 increase in vitamin D deficiency related diseases
17:47 in this country as well. Do, you think that might
17:51 have something to do how much time kids spend
17:54 in front of a TV or a video monitor, absolutely,
17:58 that's what I was alluding to, children are
18:01 spending more and more time in side now,
18:04 recently we've been hearing about this as a epidemic
18:08 of childhood obesity and type two diabetes in
18:12 children largely related to their non use of the
18:17 large muscle groups because they are spending
18:19 more indoors in front of the scene and not realizing
18:24 they are not only gaining weight and developing
18:27 insulin resistance and diabetes but they are being
18:31 deprived of an important if you will vitamin D
18:35 which is so important for strong bones for a
18:39 healthy immune system that knows the difference
18:41 between and non self and so many other
18:44 benefits of keeping blood pressure low.
18:47 So, its so important to step out just for
18:50 seven minutes three times a week we would
18:54 recommend that you would spend probably seven
18:57 to fifteen minutes most days of the week because
19:01 vitamin D is so important but of course we want
19:03 to emphasize you don't wanna burn your skin in
19:06 fact you don't even wanna turn your skin pink and
19:10 Dr. Michael Holick would actually tell you that your
19:12 only need to spend one forth of the time outside
19:16 that it would take to burn the skin to get all
19:19 vitamin D you need. So, if you burn the skin in
19:22 fifteen minutes then four minutes is all that you
19:25 need to spend out there to get all the vitamin D
19:28 that you need. Tim, we've mentioned of type 1
19:32 diabetes probably not been caused by vitamin D
19:37 deficiency but vitamin D deficiency allowing it to
19:40 come because immune system is not that balance.
19:43 There are also some connections with that type
19:46 two diabetes and apparently in some resistance and
19:49 what not. Tell us about that oh this is exciting
19:52 in fact you know if you have some free time rather
19:56 than spending it in front of screen you may want
19:58 to spend some time reading about your own body's
20:02 physiology you know we're told that our children
20:04 should understand how their body works and
20:08 I was fascinated to read that the body actually
20:13 needs calcium in order to release the little
20:18 packets of insulin from the beta cell of the islets of
20:22 the pancreas. So, that you can put that insulin
20:25 out into the blood stream so it can go out and help
20:27 your blood sugar and the fats in the blood should be
20:30 taken up and so in order to release insulin from
20:34 the pancreas you need a good calcium level and
20:37 of course you won't have a good calcium level
20:40 unless you step outside and get some sun or and,
20:44 and or take a supplement and frankly we're
20:48 recommending both at least that I usually
20:50 recommend to my patients spend your seven
20:52 to fifteen minutes daily out in the sunlight and
20:56 take at least a thousand international units of
20:58 vitamin D don't take anymore than 2,000 international
21:02 units and remember you've got vitamin D in some of
21:05 the foods that you are taking in perhaps and also in
21:08 that multivitamin so take that in the consideration when
21:12 you're calculating of the 2,000 total for today.
21:16 Its also true that not only as that beta cell function
21:21 improve but also insulin sensitivity, there is some
21:23 recent study pointing to that is improving how diabetes
21:28 actually need less insulin to get the same response.
21:31 In fact, there is good news for both type 1,
21:33 and type 2 diabetes in the vitamin D realm.
21:37 Now, Dr. Chapuy and his colleagues at Lyon,
21:42 France reported to the New England Journal of
21:44 medicine a very interesting benefit of vitamin D
21:47 and calcium for women who are at high risk of a
21:51 hip fracture. These women were actually average age
21:54 78 to 90 now they were healthy but you know
21:59 when you get that to that age your bones are
22:02 typically have lost a fair amount of calcium and
22:05 you're at higher risk of a fracture and so what
22:08 they did was they took half of these individuals these
22:11 women and they put them on a double placebo the
22:14 other half of the women were actually put on
22:17 1200 mg of elemental calcium and 800 international
22:23 units of vitamin D and then they followed these women
22:27 and found that those who are taking the calcium
22:31 and the vitamin D were actually at 43 percent
22:36 lower risk of a hip fracture 18 months later and the
22:41 bone mineral density that means the calcium part
22:45 of the bone actually increased by 3 percent in
22:49 those women on the two supplements versus a
22:52 five percent decrease in bone mineral density in
22:56 those who are in the double placebo after 18 months.
23:00 And so just paying attention to some simply things
23:04 like calcium and vitamin D can prevent to
23:07 something very potentially serious as a hip
23:09 fracture because after a hip fracture what often
23:14 happens is an elderly individual may be put to
23:17 surgery to do a pinning of that hip they may
23:20 develop an ammonia after the surgery and that
23:24 can often times be life threatening or it may
23:28 lead to the rest of life spent in a long term care
23:32 facility and so. Keeping the bones strong very,
23:36 very important benefit of vitamin D. There are
23:41 couple other groups of people that are at risk
23:45 for having low vitamin D levels, one of those are
23:49 new born infants you know those that are breast
23:53 feed do not get any vitamin D in the breast milk,
23:58 remember the cow's milk doesn't have it in it,
24:00 it really had to be added and of course is added
24:03 to formulas. There are some doctors who are
24:06 recommending that when babies come home from
24:07 the hospital they actually get a vitamin D shot or
24:11 some way to get the vitamin D in until they
24:14 finally old enough and their parents are, are able
24:18 to get them out in the sun so they can get a
24:19 little bit of vitamin D. At the other extreme of life
24:23 is this the elderly group people who are older
24:28 have a decrease in the body's ability to make the
24:30 previtamin D and so are often deficient in it
24:34 and these need to be, both these groups need
24:37 to be watched very carefully. There's another
24:40 group of individuals who would benefit from
24:42 vitamin D there was an article published in the
24:47 annals in New York state the medical society there,
24:51 they've published a case report of five individuals
24:54 who had severe weakness, these individuals
24:57 were either wheelchair bond or they were not
25:00 able to get off of a bed they were basically not
25:03 ambulatory and they found these individuals
25:06 were severally vitamin D deficient and all that
25:10 they did was to give them a loading dose of vitamin
25:13 D, 50,000 international units once a week for
25:16 six weeks and all five of these chronically ill
25:21 patients who are unable to walk were, were able to
25:24 get up and be ambulatory just after replacing
25:29 the vitamin D, because the muscles actually need
25:32 a good calcium level in order to have strength
25:35 and so if your vitamin D is rock bottom because
25:38 you're not getting out in the sunlight your
25:40 calcium and the tissue will be low. The muscles
25:43 will not have the strength that they need,
25:45 and so if you've been facing some fatigue or some
25:48 weakness of the muscles vitamin D maybe part
25:52 of the solution for you. At lifestyle center of
25:56 America where we both work, for the last almost
26:01 two years we have been measuring vitamin D
26:03 levels on people who come for help.
26:06 Now these, this group of people often has a group
26:10 of illness as we focus on lifestyle diseases diabetes,
26:14 heart disease, hypertension, obesity.
26:19 We have found depending on how we measure it,
26:22 upto about sixty percent of this people have
26:26 less than optimal levels of vitamin D, that's a
26:29 significant number of people, getting that monitored
26:33 and fixed is an important part of their treatment.
26:36 Now Vitamin D is a fascinating sort of a subject
26:43 if you would, it's neat how the creator has put
26:47 together, something as bad if we can put it that
26:51 way as cholesterol when hit by the sun and
26:57 we might for spiritual lesson spell that SON
27:01 become something that is very beneficial and
27:04 protective, it brings life to us protection against
27:09 death and cancer and as well energy and good
27:14 physiologic function isn't that amazing.
27:18 Tim, in our last little bit let's review what the
27:21 levels should be if people have chance to
27:24 write that 25-hydroxy- vitamin D level down
27:28 again. Yes, so the vitamin D level that you
27:32 would like to have is about at least 30, 30 to 60
27:37 and frankly 40 to 60 would probably be even
27:40 better and that's again the number
27:41 25-hydroxy-vitamin D and just a final word those
27:47 with Fibromyalgia may also find significant
27:50 benefit from getting their vitamin D level up
27:54 because muscles that don't have
27:57 enough calcium can tightened and actually be
28:00 very, very constricting and painful. So, we would
28:03 recommend that you get all of the benefits of
28:07 sunlight that the creator has chosen and find
28:10 out once again how you are wonderfully made.


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Revised 2014-12-17