http://www.who.int/uv/faq/whatisuv/en/index3.html
"Altitude
With increasing altitude less atmosphere is available to absorb UV radiation. With every 1000 m in altitude, UV levels increase by approximately 10 per cent."
More UVB exposure on skin = more Vitamin D.
From:
Increase in solar UV radiation with altitude.
Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology B: Biology
Volume 39, Pages 130–134
It'd be really interesting to know if it's been verified in reality, rather than just theory, of whether people low in D can go up during winter to increase their levels naturally.
I would think this would be important to health challenged people in winter in CH.
(Stored and very slow to get rid of)
Do you periodically get your levels of A & D tested and then supplement based on that?
Since you are female, you might want to look at studies that show that long term use of cold liver oil increases osteoporsis and hip fractures.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11754708
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18033763
I just looking into the background behind cod liver vs fish oil.
Generally the body is complex chemistry that we don't really understand. So calcium / magnesium / A / D are all inter-related. If we take too much of one element for a long period over time, it can throw off other elements. This can be slow, subtle and invisible and not show up until a distant health problem down the road.
Generally, I am open to short term use of supplements for a specific therapeutic reason if important enough but wary of long term ongoing general use if basically healthy since we don't really know how all the in the interactions are behaving.
Hence my emphasis on getting it naturally from the sun, since that has been proven over millions of years and is in line with how our body is designed.
I am curious about how to maximize getting it naturally from the sun because I believe we've evolved to get it naturally. We use to work outdoors much more and so now we have less reserves in winter. My gut also suspects there is all kinds of other factors and chemistry we don't know about that our body gets from the sun rather than from a bottle of isolated chemicals man has created like D3. So I am curious about how to get the natural balance back in a practical way that fits with 21st century life (Aren't we all .... much easier said than done.).
I'm not a huge fan of making the sun an enemy .... within reason. I do think we need moderation and have to be careful in the sun, especially in places like Australia. However, the human animal has been living in the sun for millions of years without packets of sunblock or sunglasses. In fact, we're designed to.
Generally I am not a fan of supplementing if you don't absolutely need it for an important short-term therapeutic reason and I'm more a fan of figuring out how to do things to restore the right balance naturally. I think it is often arrogant to think we know enough to just add a specific chemical. There are so many co-factors we haven't discovered and a complex balance of chemicals, that just adding one element we've discovered can just throw everything off.
A lot of it is mental. It makes us intellectually feel like we're doing something good for our health if we pop a pill, rather than it actually being what is good for our health or doing the hard stuff good for our health.
In this thread, I'm asking about sun in CH and vitamin D for some specific health challenges.
It seems we're all reaching for this sweet spot where we avoid the health challenges of the past, avoid the health challenges specific to industrialized countries and work with what our evolution demands.
The good news specific to Vitamin D and sun is that we only need somewhere between 10-30 minutes a day, to get what we need for that particular day. In fact, the body will stop producing D after we have enough so that we don't have toxicity.
So my question is, since we're indoors more and live in a oft cloudy country (though not this summer), hence do not store as much during Summer, live above a certain latitude with no D during winter .... how can we best maximize our stores naturally while in CH?
.... of course, since CH is the most expensive place in the world and it is often almost cheaper to leave CH than vacation in CH, there is always the option of simply leaving and going south for winter, as well.
I don't face any "Huge challenge". In fact I find it childishly simple to eat fruit and vegetables everyday, have oily fish and eggs at least once a week and take some exercise.
What I can't understand is why people are feeling they need to make this so difficult and complicated?
There are many people with low D in CH that contributed to health problems, whether or not they realize this was a factor.
I'm not the only one with this challenge.
Perhaps it would have been clearer to write "Those with a life threatening illness or life long serious debilitation..."
That is clearly not the norm.
There's also a lot of evidence now that at least some of the long-term illnesses people face are due to bad lifestyle and bad nutrition anyway.
Normally when we buy a fish, the fish has been gutted and all the fiddly bits including the liver removed (presumably thrown away?).
Isn't this done because these are the bits that go bad first,so if they're are not removed while the fish is fresh, they can spoil the fish.
However, when it comes to small fish like sardines, we normally eat them whole. You might say the liver and guts are smaller so less poison there, but then you generally eat lots of sardines while you're at it, so don't the totals add up?
Sometimes when you buy fish fresh from the fisherman, you get a complete fish and have to gut them yourself. i alwas felt bits like the liver and heart actually looked sort of yummy, only never did try preparing them as you never know.
Can anybody who know more about nutrition fill me in on the details. Is it safe (even beneficial?) to eat the liver and heart of a freshly caught dorade for example?
Sounds like even if your body can make D in winter in CH mountains, there is a tradeoff to exposing yourself to more harmful stuff also. However, if it's just for 10-20 minutes a day, the trade-off seems manageable ... correct me if I'm wrong.
This makes me wonder if skin cancer is statistically more prevalent in CH among people who spend most of their time in the mountains. Probably statistics comparing skin cancer in CH compared to flatter neighboring countries would show this off.
The Swiss are so great at measuring things and creating instruments to measure things, I'm sure somewhere in the govt or universities know the answer.
It's my impression that in reality this isn't the case .... I personally haven't heard the Swiss talking lots and lots about skin cancer from mountain sun (compared to Australian's talking about sun concerns) .... however, I could be very wrong about this.
I suppose droves of people going "up the mountains in winter" (or even in Summer) or the entire population having the ability to "pop up for the day" whenever they choose is a historically new phenomena in CH, so perhaps even the Swiss don't have centuries of experience (and statistics) of lots and lots of people spending time outdoors in the mountains, especially during winter. Most traditions revolve around coming down from the mountains for winter.
It's my understanding that most Swiss thought going up the mountains or sending lots of anything other than cows up the mountains either Summer or Winter was crazy until the victorians got excited and showed them they could make lots of money from it.
I don't know of any statistics of cancer incidence, but this would be difficult to separate out on the basis of causality anyway as there are other things in the mountains that are contributory to cancer, for example granite, but also things that have the opposite efect, for exmaple less pollution and more wholesome food.
It is more difficult to sepaarte out these days with people having been moving around and inter marrying for several generations, but period reports from travellers say that in old times mountain people were more swarthy than their flatland cousins. 19th Century ethnologists even spoke of there existing an Alpine subrace of people who were darker and shorter but more muscular. So evolution has tended to favour darker skin among those exposed to high doses of UV.
This is why I like some of the things said by Weston A. Price. He says we don't know enough to think we can intellectually theorize about what individual elements to add and should instead study indigenous populations who lived healthy over centuries.
Read the abstract here
Here we've cut down from year around supplements to Dec.-March. We also spend quite a bit of time outside (skiing and hiking), and the Troll and I don't go crazy on sunscreen. Trollefar is Scandinavian and gets sunburns from the thought of going outside, he has to stick to fatty fish.
Incidently, I know Of several foreign ladies here who have been diagnosed with vitamin D deficiency after spending a winter in CH, none of them is active in winter sports.
It is probable that heading into the mountains for winter sunshine is likely to lead to more exercise. This would also be a health benefit, probably more than any effects from increased Vitamin D