Doctors: Our Responsibility to Promote Sensible Sun Exposure

Two primary care practitioners encourage family doctors to combat vitamin D deficiency in their patients by recommending “sensible sunlight exposure” and vitamin D supplementation in a new study published in the Journal of Optometry. The report cites the scientific evidence showing vitamin D’s health benefits relating to cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, bone health, multiple sclerosis, obstetrics, infectious diseases and eye health.

“The recommendations to completely avoid the sunlight and zealously and immediately apply UVB sunscreen appear particularly misplaced in an age of 24/7 urban indoor work, darkening US racial patterns, poly pharmacy, and low D3 intake afforded by the current 2010 RDA,” Drs. Stuart P. Richer and Joseph J. Pizzimenti wrote.

“As primary care practitioners, each of us comes in contact with thousands of patients per year. The authors believe it is our responsibility to promote ‘sensible sunlight’ exposure, eye and skin protection along with vitamin D3 supplementation. It now remains the responsibility of practitioners, particularly those that practice in northern latitudes, to alert patients to the possibility of vitamin D deficiency. Vitamin D deficiency is easy to screen for and even easier to treat with ‘sensible sunlight recommendation’” and vitamin D3 supplementation to achieve 25(OH)D vitamin D level of 50 ng/ml (125 nmol/L).”

Click here to download the study.

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