Not just mentally but also physically. I just moved to Florida for my first full-time clinical and I’ve been soaking up every bit of this sunshine state since I got here. Hence the reason for this post ?
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Vitamin D is a nutrient that is essential for human health. The main source for most people is Mr. Sun himself.
There are a plethora of good benefits associated with Vitamin D, but did you know it can also improve insulin secretion and sensitivity? Me either until I did some digging around in some research articles ?
I searched through multiple journal articles, but one pretty much summed up most of what I found. According to a journal titled, Vitamin D and Diabetes, “both animal and human studies support the notion that adequate vitamin D supplementation may decrease the incidence of type 1 and possibly also of type 2 diabetes mellitus and may improve the metabolic control in the diabetes state. However, the exact mechanisms are not clear and need further investigation.” Now I’m not saying that a deficiency in Vitamin D caused your diabetes, but it is something to be aware of. Here’s why.
Vitamin D improves insulin action by stimulating insulin receptors, enhances insulin responsiveness for glucose transport, and has an indirect effect on insulin action via a calcium effect on insulin secretion, which is all needed for optimized glucose metabolism.
Also it’s important to know we are at risk for Vitamin D deficiency. The metabolism of Vitamin D requires conversion in the liver and kidney (and a whole bunch of other enzyme processes) before biological actions can occur. Thus, diabetics with liver or kidney problems due to complications with diabetes are at high risk for deficiency.
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To sum up everything: sun is good for your Vitamin D production but BE CAREFUL. You want adequate sun exposure, but don’t want to burn because that’s a whole different story. It’s recommended that 5-30 minutes of sun exposure at least 2x/week will help boost your body’s natural production?
Just out of curiosity… do you live in an area where there isn’t much sun?
Do you notice a high number of diabetics living in your area?