Sooryayog and Vitamin D deficiency epidemic in India.

Sunny Sandhu An estimated 1 billion people worldwide, across all ethnicities and age groups, have a vitamin D deficiency(1-4).Most humans depend on sun exposure to satisfy their requirements for vitamin D, dietary resources are low in vitamin D . Humans are spending more time indoors away from Sun under artificial light which lead to Vitamin D deficiency . Vitamin D deficiency causes rickets among children and osteoporosis and osteomalacia in adults. Vitamin D deficiency has been associated with increased risks of deadly cancers, cardiovascular disease, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and type 1 diabetes mellitus.Although chronic excessive exposure to sunlight increases the risk of nonmelanoma skin cancer, the avoidance of all direct sun exposure increases the risk of vitamin D deficiency, which can have serious consequences.(5). Dark skinned people like Asians and Africans have high melanin which protects from harmful effects of Ultraviolet Radiation (6)and thus prevalence of skin cancer is very low in India(7) . Sooryayog is a combination of Sun Trataka/Sun gazing (8) for ten minutes after sunrise(9), followed by meditation for 20 minutes. In this process practitioners expose atleast 20 percent of their skin to direct Sunlight , thus they sunbath for total of 30 minutes while doing Sooryayog . Sun trataka and meditation helps improve the eyesight, concentration , alertness , lowers stress and corrects the biological clock . Sooryayog is hypothesised to provide enough Vitamin D for our needs free of cost. Consumption of oral Vitamid D has risk of toxicity (10) . Excessive exposure to sunlight will not result in vitamin D intoxication because both previtamin D(3) and vitamin D(3) are photolyzed to several noncalcemic photoproducts(11) . This is the advantage of Sooryayog as a public health tool to combat Vitamin D deficiency in India and tropical countries . References : 1.Holick MF. Vitamin D deficiency. N Engl J Med. 2007;357:266281. 2.Gordon CM, DePeter KC, Feldman HA, et al. Prevalence of vitamin D deficiency among healthy adolescents.Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2004;158:531537. 3.Lips P, Hosking D, Lippuner K, et al. The prevalence of vitamin D inadequacy amongst women with osteoporosis: an international epidemiological investigation. J Intern Med. 2006;260:245254. 4. Ganapati Mudur , Indian endocrinologist warm of Vitamin D deficiency .BMJ.2003 January 4;326(7379):12 5. Michael F Holick , Sunlight and Vitamin D for bone health and prevention of autoimmune diseases , cancers and cardiovascular diseases .AM J Clin Nutr.2004 Dec;80(6 Suppl):1678S-88S

6. Jonathan L.Rees , the genetics of Sun senstivity in Humans.Am J Hum Genet.2004 November,75(5):739-751 7. Panda S. Nonmelanoma skin cancer in India: Current scenario. Indian J Dermatol [serial online] 2010 [cited 2012 Jan 16];55:373-8 8. Gore,M.M, Bhogal , R.S, Oak , J.P &T.K, experiments on claims of Surya trataka and Heart stoppage .Yoga Mimansa, Vol. XXXIII, No. 4: 61-74, Jan., 1999 9. Vojnikovic B , Nijric S . Solar Spectral Lines (Solar Halo )- healing or harmful for the retina ? . Coll Antropol.2010 Apr;34 Suppl 2:127-9 10. Vieth R. Vitamin D toxicity , policy and science . J Bone Miner Res.2007 Dec;22 Suppl 2:V64-8 11. Holick MF, Chen TC, Lu Z , Sauter E . Vitamin D and skin physiology : a D-lightful Story J Bone Miner Res.2007 Dec;22 Supple 2:V28-33. Author: Resident Doctor , Researcher and teacher with Sooryayog foundation since 2007 .He did his MBBS from AIIMS New delhi , worked as a junior resident in Dermatology and Nephrology in AIIMS in 2006. docsunsand@gmail.com