This is so interesting! Last summer I was paranoid about my baby getting sunburned because I kept reading about “invisible skin damage” from sun exposure in babies. At the same time, I found it curious that vitamin D is the only vitamin missing from breastmilk - wouldn’t that mean babies need a little sun?
We love to overcorrect from one problem to the next!
Babies definitely have super delicate skin so you do have to be careful, but again, where do you think the babies spent most of their time for 95% of evolutionary history? Outside! But vitamin D is not actually missing from breast milk. It’s just low in lost western mothers’ breastmilk. And you can raise the level in your milk if you have plenty of it in your own body - so by getting more sun yourself, eating liver and high vitamin D foods, or taking a supplement!
Would it be safe to assume that one way to get sun exposure without burning is to continue to be outside during the fall, winter, and spring? I would think this would maintain a "base" in your skin that would be less likely to burn when you are outside in the summer or on a tropical vacation? I think i read somewhere that this difference between rarely getting sun and then frying yourself was what was linked with skin cancer, not overall sun exposure. But I can't remember where I read this or whether it was a credible source. I would be interested if you came across this in your research?
It’s also important across the day. Getting outside while the sun is still low in the morning can give up to SPF 15 later in the day, and then spending time in the evening stimulates collagen production so your skin repairs faster. Only when the sun is overhead (shadows shorter than the objects that cast them) can you actually synthesize Vitamin D from the sun. https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1011134415300713
That means getting out in the midday sun without anything that blocks UV - no sunscreen, sunglasses, glasses, or windows.
The easiest way to do this without burning is to prime your cells first by getting out (with as much skin exposed as possible - tank top and short shorts or nothing if you can!) first thing in the morning to watch the sunrise. The infrared light pretty much is “natural sunscreen” and primes your body to deal better with UV for the rest of the day without getting burnt.
And yes, do maximise sun exposure throughout the seasons including the cooler months! And definitely avoid sitting in a dark office all day with windows which block UV and create a blue light toxic environment alongside screens and then suddenly taking a trip to Hawaii to sunbathe - that is a perfect recipe for sunburn.
Your circadian biology - which is tied to every other system in the body - needs the brightest bright and darkest dark to know what time of day it is. Ideally at night you avoid lights / use red light bulbs or candles only and/or cover up as much skin as you can + wear blue blocking glasses.
If you are in a “UV winter” like I am right now (75 days of the year the sun gets so low that it has no UV!), you will use up the store if Vit D you’ve accumulated throughout spring, summer, autumn etc (as it’s fat soluble). But if you are cheeky like me and want to try a hunter gatherer hack - you can create ultra weak UV internally by cold exposure, which is easy to do in winter! I take cold showers and do cold plunges year-round and this is probably the only option our hunter gatherer ancestors had for bathing anyway. So we are indeed beings of light…
You can learn more from Dr Alexis Cowan - has done great articles, podcasts and Instagram on this breaking down complex scientific papers into easy to understand material for people.
Really interesting! I am sure you're familiar with Jen Hahn-Holbrook & Martie Haselton's paper on evolutionary mismatch with postpartum depression. I remembered that they talked about Vitamin D in the paper but when I looked back at it, I was wrong - they only mentioned omega 3 fatty acids. Vit D treatments for PPD would be a really interesting research area.
Yes I am! I love her work and I am very familiar with that paper. For regulatory reasons I am not allowed to talk about PPD in a sponsored post but I can write a separate piece on it at some point.
Love this piece! I'm trying to spend a lot more time outside with my son now, partly because of this. I do wonder how the evolutionary piece comes into place for those like me who are primarily Scotch-Irish (or some other variety of extremely pale). It seems like people with reddish hair like me are usually Vitamin D deficient since the sun tends to burn us.
Yeah the skin color thing is another major factor that felt a bit delicate to get into here, but in general people who are very fair need less sun exposure - that is, after all, why some people evolved to be more fair skinned. But even then the pale folk would have spent most of their day outside, so even in northern latitudes they would have gotten more sun than most of do these days. You want to keep yourself from burning for sure, but you don’t want to avoid sun altogether. And then of course you can compensate with diet! The reason the Inuit maintained a darker skin tone is because their diets were so rich in Vitamin D.
Plus lighter skinned people from northern latitudes lived in colder environments. Cold stimulates internal production of ultra weak UV…which could be a hack for generating vitamin D internally when the sun is too low in the sky in those latitudes.
See, this is where having a dog comes in - whether one likes it or not, 2-3x walks a day, in any weather, are a must! I think my vit D levels are also lower than that of a Hadza mom, but also, I just survived a dark Finnish winter... But thanks to my dog, I get up to an hour outside daily, and thanks to my kids and their playground obsession, another 6467 hours on the playground. I'd just like to implore the Finnish weather gods to give us more WARMTH at last 🤌🏻🥴🥹
Hi Elena! Long time reader, first time commenter! I'm from Canada and just wanted to point out to you that Inuit is a plural word already so no need for the s. Inuk is the singular word if you are needing to use in the future! :) Great article as always!
I find that chicken liver pate is the easiest and tastiest way to consume liver. I make my own as my husband is cow dairy intolerant and finding a liver pate made with goats butter is…impossible lol. I also make lamb liver pate sometimes. Or I blitz beef liver into a purée and stir it into bolognese or lasagne. MUCH more palatable than eating liver straight. Also I can get my kids to eat the liver hidden in bolognese, as long as it’s not too much liver.
When the sun's out (not very often, as I'm in England) I always try to take the kids out for a while without suncream, so they can get some vitamin D. I always feel like people think I'm being negligent for doing so, so thank you for validating my approach 😅
Thank you so much for this post. I live in Denmark where the sun barely makes an appearance during fall and wintertime, and after a pregnancy with hyperemesis and a lot of breastfeeding for almost a year, I found myself with achy joints and bone pain. I discovered that I had vitamine d deficiency and started supplementing and also spending a lot more time outside now that the sun is back. And I also give my daughter d vitamine. If you want to share more about starting to eat meat again, I would love to hear it. I have considered it but after 10+ years as a vegan (now vegetarian), it’s not easy 🫣
I feel you Justine, I was brought up vegetarian and went vegan for a decade after that. I was living in the Amazon jungle with access to the most amazing vegan superfoods on the planet when I got a skin disease and a host of other health problems. I went on a huge learning journey, first reading RawFoodSOS blog by Denise Minger who was also a vegan and raw vegan and then reading the truly beautiful and heart-warming Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith, which really shifted it for me as she cares SO deeply about the earth, animals, ecosystems, all environmental and moral issues….
This is so interesting! Last summer I was paranoid about my baby getting sunburned because I kept reading about “invisible skin damage” from sun exposure in babies. At the same time, I found it curious that vitamin D is the only vitamin missing from breastmilk - wouldn’t that mean babies need a little sun?
We love to overcorrect from one problem to the next!
Babies definitely have super delicate skin so you do have to be careful, but again, where do you think the babies spent most of their time for 95% of evolutionary history? Outside! But vitamin D is not actually missing from breast milk. It’s just low in lost western mothers’ breastmilk. And you can raise the level in your milk if you have plenty of it in your own body - so by getting more sun yourself, eating liver and high vitamin D foods, or taking a supplement!
Would it be safe to assume that one way to get sun exposure without burning is to continue to be outside during the fall, winter, and spring? I would think this would maintain a "base" in your skin that would be less likely to burn when you are outside in the summer or on a tropical vacation? I think i read somewhere that this difference between rarely getting sun and then frying yourself was what was linked with skin cancer, not overall sun exposure. But I can't remember where I read this or whether it was a credible source. I would be interested if you came across this in your research?
It’s also important across the day. Getting outside while the sun is still low in the morning can give up to SPF 15 later in the day, and then spending time in the evening stimulates collagen production so your skin repairs faster. Only when the sun is overhead (shadows shorter than the objects that cast them) can you actually synthesize Vitamin D from the sun. https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1011134415300713
So interesting! Thanks for sharing!
I didn't know that about the differences between sun impact at different times of day but that certainly makes sense to me!
Hi Kerianne, biologist here.
To synthesise Vit D, you need UV light.
That means getting out in the midday sun without anything that blocks UV - no sunscreen, sunglasses, glasses, or windows.
The easiest way to do this without burning is to prime your cells first by getting out (with as much skin exposed as possible - tank top and short shorts or nothing if you can!) first thing in the morning to watch the sunrise. The infrared light pretty much is “natural sunscreen” and primes your body to deal better with UV for the rest of the day without getting burnt.
And yes, do maximise sun exposure throughout the seasons including the cooler months! And definitely avoid sitting in a dark office all day with windows which block UV and create a blue light toxic environment alongside screens and then suddenly taking a trip to Hawaii to sunbathe - that is a perfect recipe for sunburn.
Your circadian biology - which is tied to every other system in the body - needs the brightest bright and darkest dark to know what time of day it is. Ideally at night you avoid lights / use red light bulbs or candles only and/or cover up as much skin as you can + wear blue blocking glasses.
If you are in a “UV winter” like I am right now (75 days of the year the sun gets so low that it has no UV!), you will use up the store if Vit D you’ve accumulated throughout spring, summer, autumn etc (as it’s fat soluble). But if you are cheeky like me and want to try a hunter gatherer hack - you can create ultra weak UV internally by cold exposure, which is easy to do in winter! I take cold showers and do cold plunges year-round and this is probably the only option our hunter gatherer ancestors had for bathing anyway. So we are indeed beings of light…
You can learn more from Dr Alexis Cowan - has done great articles, podcasts and Instagram on this breaking down complex scientific papers into easy to understand material for people.
Really interesting! I am sure you're familiar with Jen Hahn-Holbrook & Martie Haselton's paper on evolutionary mismatch with postpartum depression. I remembered that they talked about Vitamin D in the paper but when I looked back at it, I was wrong - they only mentioned omega 3 fatty acids. Vit D treatments for PPD would be a really interesting research area.
Yes I am! I love her work and I am very familiar with that paper. For regulatory reasons I am not allowed to talk about PPD in a sponsored post but I can write a separate piece on it at some point.
Love this piece! I'm trying to spend a lot more time outside with my son now, partly because of this. I do wonder how the evolutionary piece comes into place for those like me who are primarily Scotch-Irish (or some other variety of extremely pale). It seems like people with reddish hair like me are usually Vitamin D deficient since the sun tends to burn us.
Yeah the skin color thing is another major factor that felt a bit delicate to get into here, but in general people who are very fair need less sun exposure - that is, after all, why some people evolved to be more fair skinned. But even then the pale folk would have spent most of their day outside, so even in northern latitudes they would have gotten more sun than most of do these days. You want to keep yourself from burning for sure, but you don’t want to avoid sun altogether. And then of course you can compensate with diet! The reason the Inuit maintained a darker skin tone is because their diets were so rich in Vitamin D.
Plus lighter skinned people from northern latitudes lived in colder environments. Cold stimulates internal production of ultra weak UV…which could be a hack for generating vitamin D internally when the sun is too low in the sky in those latitudes.
See, this is where having a dog comes in - whether one likes it or not, 2-3x walks a day, in any weather, are a must! I think my vit D levels are also lower than that of a Hadza mom, but also, I just survived a dark Finnish winter... But thanks to my dog, I get up to an hour outside daily, and thanks to my kids and their playground obsession, another 6467 hours on the playground. I'd just like to implore the Finnish weather gods to give us more WARMTH at last 🤌🏻🥴🥹
Hi Elena! Long time reader, first time commenter! I'm from Canada and just wanted to point out to you that Inuit is a plural word already so no need for the s. Inuk is the singular word if you are needing to use in the future! :) Great article as always!
Oh thanks Katherine! I appreciate it!
I find that chicken liver pate is the easiest and tastiest way to consume liver. I make my own as my husband is cow dairy intolerant and finding a liver pate made with goats butter is…impossible lol. I also make lamb liver pate sometimes. Or I blitz beef liver into a purée and stir it into bolognese or lasagne. MUCH more palatable than eating liver straight. Also I can get my kids to eat the liver hidden in bolognese, as long as it’s not too much liver.
When the sun's out (not very often, as I'm in England) I always try to take the kids out for a while without suncream, so they can get some vitamin D. I always feel like people think I'm being negligent for doing so, so thank you for validating my approach 😅
Thank you so much for this post. I live in Denmark where the sun barely makes an appearance during fall and wintertime, and after a pregnancy with hyperemesis and a lot of breastfeeding for almost a year, I found myself with achy joints and bone pain. I discovered that I had vitamine d deficiency and started supplementing and also spending a lot more time outside now that the sun is back. And I also give my daughter d vitamine. If you want to share more about starting to eat meat again, I would love to hear it. I have considered it but after 10+ years as a vegan (now vegetarian), it’s not easy 🫣
I feel you Justine, I was brought up vegetarian and went vegan for a decade after that. I was living in the Amazon jungle with access to the most amazing vegan superfoods on the planet when I got a skin disease and a host of other health problems. I went on a huge learning journey, first reading RawFoodSOS blog by Denise Minger who was also a vegan and raw vegan and then reading the truly beautiful and heart-warming Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith, which really shifted it for me as she cares SO deeply about the earth, animals, ecosystems, all environmental and moral issues….
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/nutritional-cures-for-damaged-teeth/#axzz6zm0LaRdq
I wonder how much time is sufficient based on skin type?
Dminder app can help you estimate this. I set it back one skin type when tracking for a baby