The rhythms of our bodies are linked to the rhythms of our cosmos. The sun provides us with an essential vitamin, what about the earth and the moon?
Vitamin G (Earth)
The surface of the earth is full of free electrons, in an unlimited and continual supply, as they are replenished by the sun. These free electrons are medicine for human beings (and all animals and plants). Research finds that coming into contact with the earth and these free electrons reduces inflammation, pain, and stress, and improves blood flow and sleep.
Grounding (sitting, laying, walking barefoot for 20-30 minutes/day on the earth) is what we could name as vitamin G, (as Vitamin E is already taken in our medical vocabulary). A 2017 review on electric nutrition from biological grounding (earthing) concluded that it was an accessible clinical tool for degenerative and inflammatory-related diseases. These diseases include Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Alzheimer’s disease, Diabetes, Cancer, Arthritis, Crohn’s disease, and Coronary artery disease.
We are as much electrical beings, as we are biochemical beings, who function by electrical signaling. Electrons take center stage in these signaling processes, which is why replenishing electrons in outer orbitals by grounding may work. Our next frontier in medicine may be understanding health and disease on electrical and electromagnetic levels.
Electrical fields or electrical currents automatically create magnetic fields and visa versa, which is why we refer to them as ‘electromagnetic’. There is an electromagnetic field around your heart and your brain, which is what an EKG or EEG reads. When you ground, you in essence, balance or harmonize your electromagnetic field with the earth’s electromagnetic field.
Vitamin D (Sun)
Sunlight provides a well known essential chemical transformation in our bodies; that of Vitamin D synthesis. Sunlight entering our bare skin creates Vitamin D. The part of sunlight responsible for this synthesis is the UVB wavelength, and the form of Vitamin D made is cholecalciferol (Vitamin D3). After it is made in the skin, Vitamin D3 is transported to the liver, where it is metabolized into its storage form, calcidiol [25(OH)D ]. This stored Vitamin D in the liver is increasingly becoming recognized as very important to have.
Vitamin D functions to (1) maintain blood calcium levels, (2) make proteins essential to fighting cancer, and (3) prevent depression. Sunlight has been found to reduce colon cancer, breast cancer, and prostate cancer risks. Vitamin D has also been found to reduce the risk of multiple sclerosis (MS), and vitamin D supplementation in clinical trials for MS has been shown to prevent exacerbations of the disease.
Glass (windows) blocks virtually all UVB preventing vitamin D synthesis but not visible light allowing for bilirubin isomerization. This is why sunlight is typically useful to newborn babies, whose livers are not immediately efficient in working on their own, indicated by jaundice, and due to high levels of bilirubin which have accumulated in the blood.
Our bodies naturally optimize health needs with feedback loops which maintain proper levels, and studies find that no matter how long we stay in the sun, we maintain about 20,000 units of Vitamin D during exposure.
How much vitamin D do we need? Opinions vary, however, we know that breastfeeding women need blood levels of 40-50 ng/ml vitamin D in order for baby to receive adequate vitamin D in breast milk. And vitamin D deficiency in newborns has been associated with increased risk for respiratory syncitial virus (RSV) lower respiratory tract infections in the first year of life. Low vitamin D levels have also been correlated with increased upper respiratory tract infections in adults.
Vitamin D has been called the sunshine vitamin since we make it from the sun. When UVB light strikes our skin, our skin synthesizes vitamin D. Season, time of day, cloud cover, skin melanin content, and sunscreen are all factors that effect vitamin D synthesis. If you live at the equator year round, you generally generate adequate vitamin D. However if you live in Northern latitudes in the winter time, you do not generate adequate vitamin D and so it is a good idea to supplement, especially if you have or are at risk for MS, cancer, liver disease, colds/flu or depression. Trials have utilized doses of 1000-10,000 IU/day.
A general recommendation of supplementation with 1000 IU/day of vitamin D in the wintertime is a standard minimum. In the summertime, get at least 20-30 minutes/day of sunshine exposure on your arms and legs to make adequate vitamin D (this is 20,000 IU/day). Sunshine cannot be patented by drug companies-some of the best things in life are free.
Vitamin M (Moon)
I propose that moonlight may provide an essential vitamin, which we could name, vitamin M. I think it is probable that we will discover a Vitamin M, with skin synthesis in response to moonlight. My hypothesis would be that Vitamin M is beneficial to our bones, specifically bone marrow, which house our stem cells.
Do we have any evidence for a Vitamin M? Well, there is no doubt that we are effected by the moon. Statistically we find both higher birth rates and higher murder rates on the full moons. Women experience the pull of the moon on their fertility cycling, and the moonlight can be of benefit to women seeking to stabilize or regularize their cycling. Just as sunlight turns on serotonin in the morning and darkness turns on melatonin at night, so too does moonlight influence estrogen.
What else? Traditional herbalists and shamans gathered certain herbal medicine in the light of the full moon, causing us to wonder if the moon issues an environmental cue on plants as well as people. Ancient yogis collected soma by moonlight on certain mountains. May moonlight enhance perception, fertility, and mood, through estrogen and other yet to be evidenced hormones and information substances?