What Really Works: The Insider’s Guide to Complementary Health

The reason so many of us suffer from the winter blues or even a condition called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) – which now affects 20% of the adult population – is that the body makes less serotonin in winter. Popular prescription antidepressants such as Prozac work to increase serotonin levels in the brain – and so does sunlight, which is why SAD sufferers eventually resort to an artificial indoor light-box treatment. What they should be doing, of course, is finding a way to spend a little time out in natural sunlight every day.

One intriguing new and as yet untested suggestion is that, during the summer, the body builds a kind of ‘sunlight memory bank’ to help those of us living further from the equator through the darker winter months. The theory is that the amount of serotonin your body produces in winter will be directly related to the amount of exposure to sunlight you enjoyed the previous summer.

Could it really be true that the amount of safe sunbathing you have done in the summer will determine whether you can keep the winter blues at bay once the days grow short and cold?

If you cannot wait for the science to tell you this is so, try a late sunshine break for yourself and see the difference it makes. One year, for example, I went to Antigua at the end of October. It was the first year I had been in a sunny climate so late on in the year and it was the first year I made it through a long UK winter and reached the end of February without thinking I couldn’t bear another cold, grey and miserable day.

I know this is only anecdotal, but it was a promising enough result for me to pick up the phone to the travel agent when spring finally arrived to book a similar late autumn sunshine break for the following year. I felt, in some odd way, as if I had been more paced and even-tempered in my mood through the winter months instead of reaching March feeling depressed.

The Sunshine Vitamin that Is Really a Hormone

The pro-safe sunshine lobby – and it should be apparent by now that I count myself among them – have a powerful ally in the shape of a vitamin that is not a vitamin at all but a hormone: Vitamin D.

Sunlight triggers the body to make it’s own vitamin D, which is crucial not only for strong bones and healthy teeth but for keeping the immune system working.

Studies have shown, for example, that exposing the body to sunlight or even ultraviolet light from an artificial source increases the number of white blood cells, or lymphocytes. These are the body’s primary defence against the onslaught of an infection, and are an important part of your immune response to the organisms that cause illness. Vitamin D also plays a role in increasing the amount of oxygen your blood can transport around the body – which, in turn, will boost your energy levels, sharpen your mental faculties and give you an improved feeling of well-being.

Few people realise the body also needs ultraviolet light to break down cholesterol, which may otherwise, at high levels, damage the lining of the arteries causing serious cardiovascular disease. Both cholesterol (which is needed to make the sex hormones) and vitamin D are derived from the same substance in the body: a chemical called squalene which is found in the skin. There is a new theory that in the presence of sunlight, squalene is converted to vitamin D, but without sunlight, it is converted instead to cholesterol.

Another reason sunlight is important to health is that you will only get a quarter of the vitamin D you need from the typical Western diet. The rest must come from exposure to the sun. You do not have to burn or tan to get the vitamin D you need. Just 20 minutes of safe sun exposure a day will do it. Of course, in some climates, there are times when this is impossible.

In the UK, for example, you cannot make vitamin D from sunlight between the months of October and March because the UVB radiation with the right wavelength that is needed to achieve this is only present at ground level from April to September. This means you are dependent on the vitamin D store you have built up the previous summer. This takes us back to the idea of building a sunshine bank and, if you live in colder climates, may prove your perfect excuse yet for a long holiday in the sun.

Without vitamin D the body cannot absorb calcium or use it for bone-building. Also, as you get older, your body finds it harder to absorb the vitamin D you do manage to get in your diet. While the recommended minimum dose under the age of 50 is 400 international units (iu) a day, over the age of 50 this rises to 600.

Lots of people think they can compensate for these problems by taking calcium supplements to keep bones strong or drinking a glass of milk each day. But you will waste your money on calcium pills if you don’t get your 20 minutes in the sun or, if you cannot do this, take a vitamin D supplement to make sure the body can absorb it. Also, the amount of vitamin D in a glass of milk varies too widely to be sure of meeting, let alone exceeding, the recommended daily allowance (RDA).

Too much vitamin D can be toxic and predispose you towards kidney stones. If you know this is a risk, watch your intake of both vitamin D and calcium. Some prescription drugs, particularly anticonvulsant medicines, can deplete levels of vitamin D, so check with your doctor that you are not becoming deficient. Vitamin D is not toxic until you hit doses of around 2,400 iu per day – nobody needs or should be taking more than 1,000 iu a day.

The Skin Cancer Story and How to Protect Yourself

Here’s a strange irony: Those countries which have taken the threat of skin cancer seriously and which have encouraged the population to use strong sun-protection creams over the last 20 years are reporting increased rates of malignant melanoma. These include the US, Canada, Australia and the Scandinavian countries. This rise is particularly marked in Queensland, Australia, where sunscreens were first introduced and heavily promoted by health groups.

There can only be one explanation – namely, that the prolonged exposure to sunlight that sunscreens allow, by protecting the skin from burning for longer, must in some way be triggering a greater cancer risk.

There are, of course, two types of burning rays, UVA and UVB. Both cause burning and tanning, but UVB was always thought to be the more damaging of the two, since it causes more rapid burning of the skin. In fact, until recently when it was discovered that UVA actually penetrates much deeper, health experts thought UVA was harmless.

What they now know is that not only does the UVA wavelength penetrate far more deeply, causing damage to the collagen that gives skin it’s elasticity, it is also more closely associated with malignant melanoma and premature ageing than UVB.

Scientists are now concerned that sunbathers may have been using high-protection creams which only blocked the UVB rays, and that this might explain why skin cancer rates have risen worldwide.

The simplest way to protect yourself from the sun’s more damaging rays and to use sunlight to boost health is to learn how to sunbathe safely, how to build up your exposure slowly and when to stay in the shade and wear a hat when sunlight is at it’s most intense and likely to burn you.

Osteoporosis – The Silent Epidemic

If you need calcium for strong bones and you need vitamin D to make sure the calcium you eat can do it’s job effectively then you don’t have to make a huge intellectual leap to realise how important sunlight must be in keeping your very bones healthy and strong.

Vitamin D also maintains the balance between phosphorous and calcium and protects against bone loss by lowering excessive levels of parathyroid hormone, one of the chemical messengers which controls the breakdown of bone. Too little vitamin D and, as an adult, you are at risk of a condition called osteomalacia where calcium leaches from the bone matrix, leaving it soft. This can, if left unchecked, lead to osteoporosis – or brittle bone disease – which now affects one in every three women and one in 12 men.

Women naturally start to lose bone density after the age of 30. With men, this is usually delayed to the mid-50s. The menopause can accelerate this problem in women because levels of oestrogen, the female hormone which helps bones to absorb calcium, begin to decline. There may be no symptoms until a bone has fractured, and by the time you are at serious risk of osteoporosis, you may have already lost a third of your starting bone mass.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is predicting that the number of hip fractures, for example, could increase six-fold to over six million by the middle of this century. This is why osteoporosis is being described as an epidemic, yet one solution could be as simple and as free as safe sunbathing, because in studies of elderly populations who have suffered a broken hip, up to 40% have been shown to be lacking in vitamin D. There are also more hip fractures in winter, when bone density is at it’s lowest.

Other Ways Sunlight Can Protect You

In laboratory tests, vitamin D has been shown to slow down the growth rate of cancer cells. Does this mean that far from being the frightening cancer-trigger we all fear, sunlight could actually protect us from some of the cancers that are now responsible for more deaths in the West, after heart disease, than any other condition?

With a recent prediction by Macmillan nurses that cancer will affect up to one in two adults in the next generation, we need to find out why it is that death rates from many internal cancers increase the further you are from the equator. Why do malignant melanomas develop most often on body parts that are not usually exposed to sunlight – such as the back of the legs and the torso – and why are these rates higher in less sunny parts of Europe than in those closer to the equator?

In other words, why should living in warmer climes offer you greater protection from cancer – a disease that brings more fear than any other?

While epidemiological studies have shown, again and again, that this really is the case, nobody can explain why. The theory currently most favoured is that it would make good sense to investigate the link between sunlight and the stimulation of the body’s own natural defence, the immune system.

How to Sunbathe Safely

So, how can you benefit from this wonderful and free health tonic? You know sunlight can heal and you know it can harm you. To enjoy the first and avoid the second, the single most important thing is to avoid burning at all costs.

Frequent, short exposure to sunlight is both safer and more beneficial than any prolonged exposure where, without creams, you will surely burn and where, even with them, you may be doing more internal damage than you think.

Early morning sunshine has been identified as the most beneficial, so get outdoors after breakfast. The full spectrum of sunlight is now recognised as being important to good health, so do not smother yourself in sunblocks and screens that filter out some of the allegedly more harmful rays. Instead, build your exposure up slowly and, if you are worried about burning, start with short exposures of just your feet and work your way up the body.

The recommended air temperature, when you sunbathe for health, should be below 18 degrees C (64 degrees F). Wear a hat so that the sensitive skin on your face, head and neck is safe, and avoid baking. You are not a cake!

The most important thing – and I will say it again – is to avoid trying to squeeze your sunbathing into the two short weeks of an annual holiday. Instead, plan ahead and pace yourself over the year, trying to spend a little time out of doors each and every day.

Remember, 20 minutes of safe sunbathing is enough to get all the health benefits we are now rediscovering.

Shape Shifting (Exercise) (#ulink_f08437af-279c-5ca6-8f53-57afac085fa8)

When to Exercise

Researchers have now discovered there is a right and a wrong time to exercise. If, for example, you like to keep in shape by working out at the gym, then the best time to pump iron is between 5 and 7p.m. This is when your body temperature is highest, making the muscles and other body tissues more responsive and more flexible. It also fits with the notion of the internal bodyclock, or circadian rhythm. The bodyclock works closely with the brain cells and the hormone melatonin, which tells the body when it is time to wake or sleep. Exercise at any time of the day is better than no activity at all, but if you get to know your own bodyclock, you can maximise the benefits of the workouts you are planning.

First thing in the morning, for example, you will have more energy but your joints and muscles will be more stiff. Muscle temperature is low and exercise carries more risks. So, if you plan to exercise in the morning, make sure you warm up first and keep your routine light. Adrenaline levels surge around midday, which is a great time to work out if you can squeeze it into your schedule. This is the perfect time to do a high-energy workout and sweat off those fat-loving toxins. Avoid an intense workout very late at night, since this works against the natural bodyclock and can cause insomnia.

The goal of most exercisers – male and female – is a flat stomach. You may not want or even like a six-pack torso, but nobody likes a tubby tummy. Ask anyone who practises yoga or Pilates (pronounced pee-lah-tees) what they like best about these types of exercise and they will show you their flat stomach. They are proof that you do not have to crunch, grind or contort your body into painful positions but that you can build incredible abdominal strength by working with your muscles.

The reason Pilates works to flatten your stomach is that it exercises all the abdominal muscles at the deepest level. It also works on the corset-like transversus abdominis muscle to improve your posture, which then enhances your overall body shape. You could, for example, do abdominal crunches until you are blue in the face, but if your posture is rubbish, your stomach will still hang out.

I have no scales in my house because I think how you look depends mostly on how you feel about your current body shape. If you know you have been overindulging and feel heavy, then you do not need the needle on the scales to tell you it is time to take yourself in hand and burn off some of that excess fat.

Counting the calories is still one way to lose weight, but it carries with it lots of guilt (especially if you eat more than your allocation for that day or sneak in a chocolate treat) and anyway it is not as healthy as changing to a more wholesome eating plan. It may be depressing but it is true that most people who lose weight by restricting their calorie intake put their lost weight – and more – back on. Those who stay trim by eating a healthier diet and adopting a modest exercise programme fare better at keeping the weight off in the long term.

Any exercise is better than none, but there is no need to punish yourself. Moderate exercise for say, 20 minutes, three times a week, will soon get you into a shape you – and your clothes – can feel happy with. Remember, the rest days in between are just as important as all those sessions in the gym, because it is when you rest that the muscles react to the stress of an exercise session and grow stronger to give you more shape and tone.

Walking

If the only time you ever stretch is to reach for the remote control from the other side of the couch, and if your idea of strenuous exercise is having to carry your own grocery shopping, then walking is where you need to start getting back into shape. It may seem uneventful but it can provide enormous health benefits, from strengthening the heart and lungs to building strong bones, hips and knees. It is easy and low-impact, which makes it safe – and it’s free. If you walk with a friend, it will be sociable too.