Don't fight the light

I thought this post would be about erosion, but if you read my first post I'm back on light Particularly its power and why we avoid it. I now live in Wyoming where because of the elevation we need extra light. Normally 20 minutes/day is enough to stimulate the production of Vitamin D which helps the absorption of calcium.

According to the Merck Manual,

"Calcium is one of the body's electrolytes, which are minerals that carry an electric charge when dissolved in body fluids such as blood, but most of the body's calcium is uncharged.

About 99% of the body’s calcium is stored in the bones, but cells (particularly muscle cells) and blood also contain calcium. Calcium is essential for the following:

• Formation of bone and teeth

• Muscle contraction

• Normal functioning of many enzymes

• Blood clotting

• Normal heart rhythm

The body precisely controls the amount of calcium in cells and blood.  If people do not consume enough calcium, too much calcium is mobilized from the bones, weakening them. Osteoporosis, which is a decrease in bone density that can result in bone fractures, can result. To maintain a normal level of calcium in the blood without weakening the bones, adults need to consume at least 1,000 to 1,300 milligrams of calcium a day. Vitamin D is also needed to help absorb calcium. Adults should consume 600 units of vitamin D a day. 

 According to Scientific American, "There is a a revolution in how we think about light as a treatment for a huge class of diseases. Autoimmune diseases such as MS and type 1 diabetes occur when our natural defenses—our immune systems—viciously turn against our own bodies and organs. These illnesses are estimated to affect more than 350 million people worldwide. Treatments have been elusive.

For more than a century scientists have noticed that many diseases, especially autoimmune and cardiovascular conditions, follow a latitude gradient. Once other confounding factors such as diet, exercise and socioeconomics are accounted for, rates of these diseases rise with latitude. All kinds of causes have been suggested—climate, diet, cosmic rays, something in the water—but nothing fit.

In 1940 a physician at the Medical College of Virginia named Frank Apperly showed that American states and Canadian provinces receiving more solar radiation had higher rates of skin cancer mortality but lower rates of cancer mortality overall. Skin cancer was known to be caused by sunlight, but Apperly suggested that something about the sun was also conferring protection against internal cancers. He didn’t know what, but in 1980 Johns Hopkins University epidemiologists Frank and Cedric Garland, two brothers who were analyzing maps of cancer incidence produced as part of the government-led “war on cancer,” noticed a strong north-south gradient for colon cancer rates and suggested in a hugely influential paper in the International Journal of Epidemiology that vitamin D was responsible.

Until then, vitamin D had been known mostly as the micronutrient that prevented rickets. It is produced in the skin with the aid of sunlight, and it helps to deliver calcium to bones, making them resistant to fractures. The Garlands suggested that it might do a lot more than that, and indeed, everywhere scientists looked they discovered an inverse correlation between vitamin D levels and the risk of dozens of diseases, including breast cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attack, stroke, dementia, depression, and several autoimmune disorders."

 

So why don't we get enough sun?

1. It's too bright it blinds us, perhaps we are meant to take those steps in faith

2. It's too hot it burns us, as someone who turns lovely shades of red I relate to this one, but I also think of the refiner's fire where heat is used to remove the dross from the metal.

Someone recently described processing as carrying a backpack across a valley so that God could remove objects from it. He can only remove the objects we remove from the bottom of the backpack. I don't know about you but when I carried a backpack the bottom was always filled with miscellaneous stuff that I forgot was even there and never saw the light of day.

Light boosts our immune systems it helps us fight off the dark. Can we say spiritual warfare. So pull out your backpack Unpack your secrets and let the Lord of lights create new life in you (Oh yeah did I not mention photosynthesis?) Forgive the pun but it is intentional, Whom the Sun sets free is free indeed.