How is the sun a good source of vitamin d if all you are receiving is photons?
In: Biology
How is the sun a source of melanin, or of glucose for plants?
The answer is it’s not providing the body with those things, but exposure to sunlight stimulates the body to produce those things.
Sunlight triggers a chemical reaction in your skin.
UVB rays + cholesterol = D3
D3 moves through the body and your liver converts it to vitamin D.
Others have answered the main question, so to answer the obvious follow-up question: no, normal indoor artificial lights do not emit the right frequencies to generate vitamin D. Of course, it’s totally possible for us to make lights that emit those frequencies, and they do sell specialized vitamin D lamps for those with a deficiency.
But the vast majority of us just need indoor lights to see by, and get enough vitamin D as long as we go outside once in a while, so there’s no need to spend a bunch of money to make all our indoor lights like that.
The sun sends little pieces of energy at us all the time. That’s what light is. These little pieces of energy are very helpful at turning useless things into good things. Plants are experts at using this to create food, but that’s just one example. One of the things that the sun’s energy changes pretty quickly is stored in our body, and this energy hits it and the energy turns it into something else, in this case, a vitamin that we need.
Latest Answers