Dr. Michael F. Holick, a professor of medicine, dermatology, physiology and biophysics at the Boston University School of Medicine, who discovered the active form of vitamin D, has pulled together an impressive body of evidence in support of his advice that no one should be, as he puts it, a “sunphobe” or, for that matter, a sun worshipper.
He has concluded that relatively brief but unfettered exposure to sunshine or its equivalent several times a week can help to ward off a host of debilitating and sometimes deadly diseases, including osteoporosis, hypertension, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, depression, and cancers of the colon, prostate and breast.
In other words, Holick says, sunshine is good medicine.