This lamp better for you than sun

Study probes link between vitamin D levels, disease -By JOHN McPHEE Health Reporter May 6 – 2010 http://thechronicleherald.ca/Metro/1180844.html

The basement of Dalplex in Halifax may seem like an odd place to catch a few rays.
But the artificial light being used in a study here on the effects of vitamin D is even better than sunshine, according to the Dalhousie University professor conducting the research.
This radiation, called ultraviolet B, is generated by what looks like a large fluorescent-light fixture stood on its end. The device, called a narrow-band phototherapy lamp, contains eight light tubes, each about 1.8-metres long. Standing in front of such a lamp every day in your underwear, for about 50 seconds front and back, will boost your body’s production of vitamin D.
Unlike sunshine, which also has the potentially unhealthy UVA wavelength, brief doses of the narrow UVB band won’t burn your skin or increase your risk of skin cancer.
But UVB does boost vitamin D production in the body, which according to recent research is all good. Lack of this vitamin has been linked to a slew of conditions from psoriasis to multiple sclerosis, said Jo Welch, a nutrition professor and researcher at Dalhousie.
"We know that it affects a lot of diseases," Welch said in an interview Tuesday. "We’re only now trying to investigate how it affects diseases and what we can do about it."
Nova Scotia is an appropriate place to study the effect of low vitamin D levels, she said. Our gloomy weather — relatively low numbers of sunny days, fog and cloud — means our bodies don’t generate the same amount of this crucial compound as many other regions.
"Diseases of the nervous system (such as MS) seem to be highly correlative to higher latitudes where vitamin D deficiency is prominent," Welch said. "We have it, Norway has a bushel of it. You don’t ever see it in Colombia."
Besides geography, other factors play into vitamin D production — even how much clothing you wear.
In a previous study, one of Welch’s graduate students compared non-Muslim women with Muslim women who wore traditional clothing that covers much of the body. Extensive clothing blocks sunlight, so not surprisingly, the Muslim women were found to have lower vitamin D levels.
Welch’s study aims to find out whether people who are likely to get diabetes can benefit from UVB exposure. While only two participants have been found so far, she is hoping to find 20 people with "pre-diabetes" for the photo-therapy study. Ten participants will get phototherapy treatment three times a week for three months, and the other 10 won’t get the treatment.
The participants’ various vitamin D levels will be measured and correlated to those who develop diabetes and those who don’t.
Extensive research hasn’t been done on exactly what’s so special about vitamin D — Welch and other scientists blame the bureaucratic barriers thrown up by Health Canada to conducting such studies.
It’s possible that the compound turns on the genetic switch that boosts the production of healthy proteins — or it may turn off the switch that produces the unhealthy proteins that lead to disease.
"We know people with low vitamin D are apt to have this or that disease," Welch said. "But we haven’t done the experimental research of, if you give these people vitamin D, will it get rid of that disease?" - jmcphee at herald.ca
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Dr. Jo Welch BA, BSc Hons (Carleton), MSc (Alberta),PhD (Purdue), Assistant Professor, Kinesiology Phone: (902) 494-2475 Email: jo.welch at dal.ca