A recent study is saying that 340,000 deaths in the United States and 480,000 deaths in Europe in the last year were preventable. The researchers have concluded that these people died of a lack of sun exposure!
The headline, Insufficient Sun Exposure Has Become a Real Health Problem, appeared in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. The study lists 4 reasons why people are not getting enough sun, and the number one reason is that they’re scared of the sun!
Join Dr. Martin as he unpacks this fascinating study and shares the 4 reasons why people aren’t getting enough sun.
TRANSCRIPT OF TODAY'S EPISODE
Announcer: You're listening to The Doctor Is In Podcast, brought to you by MartinClinic.com. During the episode, the doctors share a lot of information. As awesome as the info may be, it is not intended to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent any disease. It's strictly for informational purposes.
Dr. Martin: Well, good afternoon everyone. Hope you're having a great day thus far. We're looking forward to our little chat here today and got a couple of interesting studies I want to talk about. Let me read you a headline that you might find very fascinating. This came out of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. You know what it said? Here's the headline, insufficient sun exposure has become a real health problem. Now, I've been telling you that for years, but isn't it interesting In the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, they're saying, and listen to this statistic. Last year in the United States alone, the authors of this study attribute 340,000 deaths that could have been prevented, people who died from a lack of sun exposure.
Now again, they brought out the statistics. Here's another one. It was 340,000 people in the U S A alone in one year, and in Europe last year, 480, almost 500,000 deaths are attributed in Europe alone from a lack of exposure of vitamin D, sun. Sun, steak, and steel. The sun, and they got four reasons for it. Okay? Four reasons why this has happened. Okay? Number one, the fear of the sun, and I'm just quoting their studies. Here's what they said. Skin cancer campaigns have made people scared of the sun, okay? According to the article, it's reason number one that people don't get enough sun and it's deadly. It's deadly when you don't get enough sun. Number two, indoor activities in the last 20, 30 years. People spend a lot of times indoor. Do I like the gym? Of course, but there's no sunshine in the gym unless your gym is outside and they're saying indoor activities, and they went on to say digital attractions. Those are all those games. Television people spend the vast majority of their time indoors, unlike it was a hundred years ago, according to the study. And then fourthly, they put air conditioning because people will stay indoors because it's more comfortable.
So especially in those southern climates. Florida can be awful hot, Georgia, all the southern United States can be very hot and people don't go outside. They stay in air conditioning to their demise. Now, let me again keep quoting the article. Here are the reasons people die and they say it's from a lack of vitamin D. Okay, a lack of sun. Now, here's what they say. Cancer, especially breast and colon cancer. Breast, ladies can happen to men, but it's very rare. Somebody took me to task the other day because I said breast cancer, and then I said, ladies, I'm sorry. Okay, I'm making a general statement. I know there's exceptions to the rule, okay? Breast cancer, colon cancer is what the article mentions. In 1974, when I graduated, one out of 20 Canadian women, one out 20 American women would get breast cancers, it's one out of seven today. Not getting better, it's getting worse. One of the big factors is a lack of sun.
Now, you and I know this as far as the immune system is concerned, every cell in your body has a receptor, an antenna for vitamin D, every cell in your body for vitamin D, especially your T-cells, your navy seals of your immune system. So again, I'm only quoting the article, breast and colon cancer at the top, people dying and they're saying, needlessly. What does the sun have to do with cancer? See folks, people have been duped, okay? People have been duped, and they said it in the article. Skin cancer campaigns have kept people out of the sun, and it's been very effective. If you're Johnson and Johnson or any other sunscreen company, they scare the living lights out of you. They've been effective at, they've been very good, give them credit, scared skinny of the sun. And they don't realize that in 10, 15, 20 minutes, you get 10,000 IUs of vitamin D. You know, what did I say through the pandemic? What did I say? Constantly, consistently. What did I say? Give everyone vitamin D. What did I say at the start of the pandemic? Put everybody outside.
Guys, I'm a historian in the health field. I love looking at history, health history, and if you want to know what stopped the Spanish flu was the sun. When it got sunny out and medicine got smart, even in the winter, they would bring patients and get 'em exposure to the sun. What happened to them? What happened? Why are we so silly here in all the advancements that we have in technology and science, here we are in 2023 and we're crazy. We're crazy scared of the sun still. Most people that live in Florida are low in vitamin D. I talked to a physician the other day. I ordered some blood work. Okay? Not a bad idea, right? To get some blood work done. Every once in a while, I wanted to check all my levels and was talking to the physician and he said, man, your vitamin D is fantastic. And he was a real integrative medical doctor. And he said, man, I'll tell you, 95% of the patients I see have very, very low vitamin D. They're in Florida.
They haven't got the memo on the importance of vitamin D. And here is the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, and they put out a peer reviewed article and tell us that people are dying needlessly because they're not getting sun exposure. I'm quoting the study. Man, that frustrates me. I realize my job is not even close to being finished. John the Baptist in the wilderness crying out for heaven sakes, would you please stop being scared of the sun? And I realize if you live in, somebody was telling me last night or whatever on our webinar, they were making a point. Hey, man, I haven't seen the sun in three months. Okay, I get it. Well, then you got to take vitamin D. Okay? You got to take a supplement of vitamin D. If they had only done that and now it's conclusive, guys, conclusive, had they just given vitamin D to those poor seniors that were stuck in their homes for a couple of years in the home and in homes and not seen family and whatever? Had they just given us vitamin D, vitamin D for the immune system?
So they said it in the article that one of the biggest killers is cancer. That could be very much helped with exposure to the sun, breast cancer, colon cancer. Colon cancer? Why would the sun help colon cancer? It's amazing that your vitamin D, vitderma on your skin. It don't stay on your skin, man. Vitamin D, vitderma the sun on your skin. It goes to the deepest recesses of your body and helps every cell in your body. The article mentions two specific cancers. Let me go on to tell you what they say, "because of the elevation of nitric oxide," here's what the study said. "People have needless hypertension, high blood pressure because they have low levels of nitric oxide because they don't get in the sun." High blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, of course.
Now you know what nitric oxide is. We talk about it. Nitric oxide relaxes your blood vessels. Where is nitric oxide made? In the Teflon layer of your blood vessels. You've got a little thin layer of Teflon light, okay? Call your endothelial cells and they put out nitric oxide. The guy that discovered nitric oxide won a Nobel Prize in 1980. I believe. I didn't even learn this when I was in school, didn't know nitric oxide existed. I knew that nitroglycerin worked for angina. I'd studied that in school, but I never studied nitric oxide. Well, the sun on your skin elevates your nitric oxide, and that can lower your blood pressure and lower cardiovascular risk because if your nitric oxide is high, you are going to have much less trouble with the dilation of your blood vessels. MS. That's welll establishable.
For the last at least 40 years I would say, we all knew the importance in this autoimmune disease, MS. We all knew that vitamin D was a huge factor because when they looked at MS 40, 50 years ago, they found it much more prevalent in the northern hemisphere. But you know what? That's not true anymore. It used to be true, but because, again, let me quote the study. Skin cancer campaigns. Now, like I said, Florida, Arizona, New Mexico, all these places, people stay out of the sun to their detriment. So Alzheimer's is next. MS, autoimmune, Alzheimer's, be honest. Is there anything scarier than Alzheimer's? Really? Is there anything scary? Who wants to lose their memory? Well, according to this study, if you don't get enough sun. You don't get enough sun exposure, you don't get enough Vitamin D. You are much more susceptible to Alzheimer's. And then they put autism. I didn't put it there. They did. Autism.
Now, we should do maybe another podcast on there, some interesting studies that are coming out on autism. I've always said autism is autoimmune. It's autoimmune. But they're saying the researchers are saying autism has a major effect, I guess with mommy. Mommy not getting enough vitamin D, maybe not getting enough vitamin D in the placenta. Man, oh man, oh man, the more they study vitamin D, the more they realize what a vitamin it is. The sun, my friend, the sun. And then they said, asthma, sometimes asthma can kill you. And they put type one diabetes and they put myopia. Those are the lists that they put down. I didn't make this list up, guys. I'm quoting you. This study just came out 340,000 deaths last year in the USA alone and 480,000 deaths in Europe, and they attributed to a lot of sun.
Now my friend, let me just say this. You don't burn in the sun. I never like burning in the sun. I don't recommend burning in the sun, but I say it maybe too often, but I'll say it again, it needs to be repeated. When you look at melanoma, and I wrote this in a book years ago, I bet you 15 years ago, maybe more, when I wrote a book at that time, I said this. For every person that dies of melanoma, that's skin cancer, the bad one. 250 people die from a lack of vitamin D. Guys. I said that 15, 20 years ago, and here we are today, study that looked at all these studies are saying it's a major concern. Insufficient sun exposure has become a real health problem. Okay, you know what tomorrow is? Question and answer Friday. Get your questions in, it's not too late. I might try and answer some of the questions that we didn't get to answer last night on our webinar. Thank you for joining us last night. Those of you who could. And we'll have a tape of that. It was very interesting. Okay, guys, we love you. We'll talk to you soon.
Announcer: You've reached the end of another Doctor Is In Podcast, with your hosts, Doctor Martin Junior and Senior. Be sure to catch our next episode and thanks for listening!