eileen

This is a long article, the last paragraph is one of the best.
I'll at least post the first and last.

Healthier and happier in the sun

Justin Thomas and Fatme Al Anouti

• Last Updated: March 04. 2009 9:30AM UAE / March 4. 2009 5:30AM GMT

The sun has been worshipped as a deity; viewed as a symbol of ultimate power and the source of all health; inspired elaborate religions and dangerous cults. Synonymous with goodness and happy endings, it permeates our languages with platitudes and metaphors connoting health, wealth, wisdom and happiness. Whether we are comparing our true love to a summer’s day, riding off into the sunset, or just have a “sunny disposition”, the super star at the centre of our solar system is perennially typecast as a smiling symbol of well-being. This gaseous gargantuan fireball is essential for life on earth as we know it, and increasingly we are coming to appreciate some of the more subtle ways in which it contributes to our health and happiness.

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Paradoxically, despite the year-round sunshine we experience here in the UAE, we too may be experiencing the consequences of vitamin D deficiency. Our modern lifestyles, disproportionate skin cancer anxiety, a scarcity of vitamin D-fortified foodstuffs, the widespread belief that fair skin is prettier than tanned skin, and numerous other socio-cultural factors may all be contributing to unhealthily low levels of the sunshine vitamin. We presently have a nationwide study under way to look at these issues in greater detail. The findings, we hope, will help us better target public health initiatives aimed at preventing this insidious health problem.

Dr Justin Thomas is a psychologist in the Department of Natural Science & Public Health at Zayed University
Dr Fatme Al Anouti is a biochemist in the Department of Natural Science & Public Health at Zayed University

SOURCE LINK & CREDITS: http://www.thenational.ae/article/20...3467545/-1/ART

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"under exposure to UV rays is as dangerous as overexposure....this is D life" eileen

Shawnalyn

Good to see you back Eileen!