How Influential Are The Words I Have Just Chosen?

CHOOSE YOUR WORDS CAREFULLY!

If you think about it, it is human nature to be influenced by language and expression; far more than we consciously realise, especially when words appear to have a melodramatic or scandalous story or headline attached. This is even more so if the words are written down. For example, which article are you much more likely to be drawn towards if you saw these in a newspaper: male 63 accused of touching young girl as she falls off her bike – or – male 63 commended for saving young girl as she falls off her bike. The first one suggests there is much more likelihood to be drama or a sensationalised story involved. And so it has been with the sensationalising of sunbeds and their uses. Newspapers, magazines and TV programmes would be too dull an boring if the real facts were dished out; but if you can throw in words such as addiction, the audience is likely to be more riveted and will buy in or tune in. However use the correct term when talking bout UV light – attraction – it won't sell!

You see that is what humans really do have – an attraction to sunlight – why? Because that is what nature intended us to do! We don’t have an addiction to the sun as those who have purported this to be the case have known for many years. So who are the so called experts who have continuously tried to scaremonger the public with their comments, tactics and false advertising? They are the dermatologists and cosmetic companies who make huge dollars out of selling chemical sunscreen. Yes, those applications used on the skin, often on a daily or even more frequent basis which are full of poisons! So wouldn’t these people have far more credibility if they had chosen their words more carefully, educated people on how to look after their skin and be smart in how they get their exposure to UVB? Yes of course it would, but how would they make excessive profits if they chose their words carefully!

The level of vitamin D deficiency is becoming pandemic across most nations – and once again some, but not all dermatologists have chosen to brush this aside and avoid giving the general public the real message. That truthful message is, how to take small, doses of UVB in non-burning moderation on a regular basis to ensure that their levels of vitamin D can be increased to a normal level. You see, the skilled, qualified sunbed operators who are well trained and use only professional sunbeds have been choosing their words carefully and teaching moderation and sunburn prevention for a very long time! At megaSun we take great care and pride in our work and our educational message – ‘small doses of UVB regularly in moderation and always avoid burning’ - and all without misconstruing words!

If Vitamin D Is So Important - What Do I need To Know And DO

If vitamin D is so important am I likely to be deficient?
The answer quite simply is yes. Vitamin D deficiency is a growing epidemic across the world and is contributing to many chronic debilitating diseases and conditions. The reasons behind this are many and continuing to increase at a rapid rate.
So called experts have mislead the public for a long time - telling us to avoid the sun at all costs and if we do go out, apply as much sunscreen as possible and keep reapplying it. This has had disastrous consequences for more people than we care to think about in numbers!
The other main reason is that people spend far more time indoors than they have ever done before.

So how do you know if you are deficient?
Simple ask your GP for a blood test called at 25(OH)D - it is the most efficient test and cheap to perform. The worry aspect is that many doctors are of the ‘old school’ thinking anywhere around 15-18ng/ml is sufficient - it quite simply is no where near what you need to function well and help to prevent diseases such as breast, ovarian and prostate cancers - not to mention a whole host of other diseases and disorders! This level is SERIOUSLY deficient! The real experts believe that even 60ng/ml is on the low side and are even recommending that some people should be in the region of 100+ depending on their circumstances, skintype, ethnic background and genetic history of diseases.

Who is likely to be in the vitamin D deficient sector of the world?
If you fall into any, some or all of the following categories - get checked out ASAP then, make sure you have regular UVB exposure in moderated, non-burning amounts. Your trained megaSun team can take you through a recognised consultation process to ensure that you do not get over exposed to the UV light and get the correct amount of UVB exposure suitable for your needs!
* At least 60 percent of patients with type 2 diabetes have vitamin D deficiency.
* Studies show very low levels of vitamin D among children, the elderly, and women.
* People who always wear sunblock, and/or who limit their outdoor activities and avoid sunshine are almost always deficient.
* Dark-skinned people make significantly less vitamin D than other skintype groups.
* Vitamin D deficiency is at epidemic proportions in adults of all ages who have increased skin pigmentation, such as those whose ancestors are from Africa, the Middle East, Asia or India
*Increasing amounts of babies are born Vitamin D deficient and continue to be so with mother applying endless amounts of chemical sunscreen to their delicate skins
This list is not by any means exhaustive and is only a few examples of who is most likley to be seriously lacking in vitamin D


Should I just buy tablets or should I have sunlight(UVB) exposure to get the best levels?
Without shadow of a doubt, all of the well known experts - including Profs Sam Shuster, Brian Diffy and Oliver Gillie as well as Frank and Cedric Garland, Michael Holick and many other leading lights on vitamin D, agree that moderate, daily exposure in a non-burning fashion, to UVB - whether by sunshine or on a quality sunbed, is the way nature intended us to produce vitamin D i.e. NATURALLY! Supplements may not always be absorbed in amount that are suitable and not every supplement is guaranteed to deliver what you think it will and some are not vitamin D3 at all (which is what our bodies need. You should NEVER try to guess your own dose of vitamin D as a supplement as it can be toxic if you take too much! Another good reason to have your dose by controlled exposure. There is really only one best way to get your vitamin D and that is the way mother nature created us to get it through exposure to Ultraviolet light!

Just some of the chronic diseases that are caused by, and/or exacerbated by lack of vitamin D3
Cancers Hypertension Heart disease Autism Obesity Rheumatoid arthritis
Diabetes 1 and 2 Multiple Sclerosis Crohn’s disease Cold & Flu Tuberculosis Septicemia Signs of aging Dementia Inflammatory Bowel Disease Eczema & Psoriasis Insomnia Hearing loss Muscle pain Cavities Periodontal disease
Osteoporosis Macular degeneration Reduced C-section risk Pre eclampsia Seizures Infertility Asthma Cystic fibrosis Migraines Depression Alzheimer’s disease Schizophrenia Fibromyalgia Parkinson's

So if vitamin D is so important what is the history behind it?

As this is a long and intricate subject, I will split the blog into two parts, trying to include enough information to make the reading interesting, but leaving out most of the highly technical information. In part two, I will also include more of the questions vs answers debate in vitamin D.

In a nutshell, Vitamin D is actually a “pre-steroid hormone” not a vitamin. It was discovered around the same time as other “vital Amines and was allocated the letter D – and so it came to be known by this accepted title. Unfortunately, this historical accident left everyone believing it was nothing more than a fat soluble vitamin.

The first scientific description of a vitamin D-deficiency, namely rickets, was provided in the 17th century by both Dr. Daniel Whistler (1645) and Professor Francis Glisson (1650). The major breakthrough in understanding the causative factors of rickets was the development in the period 1910 - 1930 of nutrition as an experimental science and the appreciation of the existence of vitamins. It was not until the 1930’s that vitamin D2 and vitamin D3 structures were chemically characterised. The elusive antirachitic (anti-rickets) component of cod liver oil was shown to be identical to the newly characterised vitamin D3. These results clearly established that the antirachitic substance vitamin D was chemically a steroid, or more specifically, a secosteroid. (A `secosteroid` is a molecule similar to a steroid but with a `broken` ring. Secosteroids are very similar in structure to steroids except that two of the B-ring carbon atoms (C9 and 10) of the typical four steroid rings are not joined, whereas in steroids they are. In humans, the most important secosteroid is Vitamin D).

Vitamin D is a fascinating molecule with a fascinating story. Historically, “vitamins” were defined as chemicals that humans required from their environment that were “vital” to human health. These chemicals were needed only in very small amounts to prevent disease; an absence of a particular vitamin in the diet led to a specific deficiency disease: vitamin C, scurvy; thiamine, beri beri. Other vitamin deficiencies were found to be a bit more complicated: vitamin B12 deficiency was found to cause a type of anemia, dementia, and spinal cord problems. Of course more modern research proves conclusively that vitamin D3 is also plays a major role in these diseases as well. Because vitamins are required in such small amounts, and are often present in small amounts in foods, their discovery was an opportunity to prevent and cure several diseases.

Heart disease is one of our three biggest killers (along with cancer and stroke). One of the better prospective studies done on vitamin D and heart disease followed subjects over time, measuring vitamin D levels and following them to see who developed a first incidence of heart attack. They found that those with low vitamin D levels who also had high blood pressure (a well-recognized risk factor for heart disease) were more likely to develop a first heart attack than hypertensive patients with higher vitamin D levels.

It is nearly impossible to ingest sufficient vitamin D in a typical diet, and it is nearly absent from breast milk. In areas where sunlight is scarce or where culture prevents sun exposure, rickets was more common. Rickets became rare in the U.S. once children’s parents began shoving them full of cod-liver oil, and once vitamin D was added to milk.

So make sure you get your dose of vitamin D - on your local, professional megaSun sunbed!!!

Professor states: why we can't give up our tan, and more importantly why we shouldn't try

For those of you who know us personally – or those who feel they are getting to know us from our blogs, Facebook or Twitter, you will no doubt by now, know how passionate we are about getting things right – and how long we have spent researching sunlight, vitamin D, Sunbeds and Tanning. We are well aware of the folk out there who like to jump on their bandwagon and have their say – even if it hasn’t a fragment of truth in it and they no nothing about the subject matter. On the other side of the coin, there are some very dedicated professionals out there who DO know what they are talking about and it’s about time we all listened to them very carefully if we want to stay healthy and prevent numerous diseases and disorders and of course keep the public cost of health to a minimum too.

One such person we need to take note of is the eminent Professor Emeritus Sam Shuster from Newcastle in England. We worked next door to Sam when he was at the RVI hospital and both of us have spent many an hour making special concoctions for Sam’s patients over the years we were there. He was instrumental in us taking an interest in all things related to vitamin D, disease prevention, tanning and all things related to UV exposure – and one of the reasons we take such painstaking care with what we do.

Sam has recently sent out a letter to newspapers in the UK as well as numerous other people and places, to explain why we must NOT give up tanning or controlled UV exposure on a good quality sunbeds. {we assume from what we know of Prof Shuster he would only approve of operators who know what they are doing, why and how!}

His excellent work is outlined on our website and the crux of the article is:
Skin cancer statistics are used to scare, not educate. Almost all of the 84,000 skin "cancers" that appear each year are in fact benign: they don't spread or kill; their cancerous name is a historical misnomer. Of course, sun exposure increases facial wrinkling, as does smoking, but the black ace in the fear game is melanoma, because the real thing is vicious.

The poor relationship of melanoma to cumulative UV dose had solarphobics running for cover in the idea the article quotes, that a one-off sunburn "could develop into a melanoma". But that doesn't happen: unlike the benign tumours that really are caused by UV, melanomas do not predominate in sun-exposed skin. There are commonsense reasons to avoid sunburn, and for use of sunscreens - but not, to prevent melanoma, for which they have been shown to be totally ineffective.

Self-image is measurably increased by a tan, and we will learn much from understanding the mechanism of this wellbeing. UV initiates the synthesis of vitamin D, essential for our bones, and sunscreen promotion has led to problems. It also has a profound effect on our immune function. Strangely, the bastard science of descriptive epidemiology that masterminded the melanoma myth now claims that UV lowers the incidence of many internal cancers and melanoma, thereby outweighing any harmful effects.

Plants and animals owe their existence to the sun, and it is hardly surprising that we've learned to adapt and use it. That's why we can't give up our tan, and more importantly why we shouldn't try.

My mum got cancer – so I opened a tanning studio

My mum got cancer – so I opened a tanning studio – yes you DID hear that correctly!

She had extremely low vitamin D as well as heart disease and diabetes. No one took any notice and suddenly, she developed ovarian cancer – she died a couple of weeks after being diagnosed. It was too late to help her. However, I have made it a personal crusade to let every woman I know understand just how important it is to have regular, controlled exposure to UV to prevent such atrocities. It is all very well the specialist being sad and saying ‘Oh if only we had known about Vitamin D preventing ovarian cancer, Marie could possibly have been saved’.

All the talk in the world won’t bring back my precious mum; but if everyone who reads this spreads the word to every woman they know, then maybe, just maybe we could see a massive reduction in some horrid horrid cancers that abound form the lack of this vital element in our bodies. Interestingly, my mother’s diabetes and heart disease could have been much better controlled too if she had only known that her rigid, daily regime of applying endless amounts of chemical sunscreen was actually killing her!!!

You owe it yourself and your loved ones to spread the word to all in sundry that we all need regular, non-burning exposure to UV light if we want to be fit and healthy.
I opened two upmarket tanning stuios to help combat the problems associated with sunbeds and operators who should not be in this industry. I guarantee that megaSun is truly different - and yes, we are all trained to deal with our clients sensitively, courteously and with passion!