It is true that our body needs a certain amount of vitamin D daily and the best way to get it is through natural sun exposure. It only takes 15 min of sun exposure to receive the daily requirement of vitamin D. It also only takes 15 min of sun exposure to start the breakdown and potentially damage your skin cells. This can lead to certain skin conditions like brown spots, redness, wrinkles and sagging of the skin or even worse, skin cancer. So if you are going outside for just a normal amount of time like a car ride or a walk around the block remember to wear at least a 15 SPF sunblock. Your cells can still absorb vitamin D but diffuses the harmful rays that cause sun damage. Long term sun exposure requires at least an SPF of +30 or more to effectively diffuse the harmful rays and also needs to be re-applied at least every 2-3 hours for most skin types. Lighter skin types need to limit their sun exposure time throughout the day regardless how much sunblock they use. What if there is no sun due to a cloudy day or snowy day? Doesn’t matter with regards to sun damage, UV rays can penetrate through cloudy days as they are invisible rays. Though, you get less vitamin D absorption because these are the visible rays that has the higher amounts of vitamin D that do not penetrate through cloudy days. This is where we get a lot of seasonal depression if we have prolonged days without sun. So enjoy the sun, just be safe.

C Weimer