The sun can get bad press. We know that getting too much unprotected exposure to the sun is bad for our skin and can increase the risk of cancer, but sunlight is also actually very important for our general health. In fact some new research has come to light that suggests that sunlight may actually reduce our chances of developing rheumatoid arthritis.
If you have rheumatoid arthritis, your immune system, which normally fights infection, mistakenly attacks the lining of your joints believing them to be foreign bodies that need to be eliminated. This makes your joints swollen, which can cause discomfort and pain.
Past studies have revealed that people living in parts of the world where there is not very much ultraviolet light from the sun have a higher risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis than people who live in sunny regions. It’s possible that this is due to levels of vitamin D in the body, which is produced by exposure to sunlight.
In the new study, women were specifically analysed to look at how their exposure to the sun affected their likelihood of developing arthritis. The results showed that the more sunlight women were exposed to, the lower their risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis. Women who had the most exposure to sunlight had a 21 percent lower risk of getting rheumatoid arthritis than women who were exposed to the least sunlight.
Interestingly the results were more prominent in younger women than they were in older women. The authors suggested that sunlight exposure didn’t have the same effect on younger women because of a difference in attitudes and knowledge about what exposure to UV light can do to you. This may have meant that younger women were more likely to use sun cream or avoid long periods in the sun.
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