Why can humans produce Vitamin B from sunlight but not from artificial light sources?
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We require ultraviolet radiation within the “B” range of wavelengths. Artificial lights aim to have little UV to avoid damage to materials such as cracked plastics and faded print, or damage to delicate tissue like the eyes. Simple light sources that rely on heating, just can’t achieve a high enough temperature without being destroyed to emit UV. The intensity of artificial lights is also much lower than that of the sun. Brighter lights cost more money to run, and we don’t need them for most tasks.
It is Vitamin D.
The kind of light that makes the vitamin B is ultraviolet (UV) light. It’s the same general kind that gives you sunburns.
Artificial lights tend to be in the business of converting as much of the energy they consume into as much light a human can actually see as possible. We can’t see UV light, so artificial lights designed for visible lighting don’t make very much of it.
We can make specialized lamps that are optimized for UV light. You’ll typically find them used in tanning beds. Though I wouldn’t recommend using tanning beds to get your Vitamin B.
Vitamin D, right?
It’s ultraviolet light, the kind we can’t see but gives us sunburns with too much exposure, that our bodies need to make Vitamin D. Normal lights don’t produce much ultraviolet because they’re designed not to.
We get vitamin B complex from food, except for vitamin B12 which can be made from our gut bacteria, but it’s not sufficient for all our needs. So, essentially, vitamin B comes from food
I assume you have mixed up vitamin B with vitamin D. Vitamin D, or sunshine vitamin, is the one that we get from the sun, but it’s a bit more complicated than that:
Your skin has a special type of cholesterol, called 7-dehydrocholesterol. The UV rays from the sun, hit your skin and change that cholesterol by breaking a bond in it. By doing that, you have made cholecalciferol in your skin, which is like an early version of vitamin D. That compound then goes to your liver and turns into calcidiol, which is almost like vitamin D. That compound then goes to your kidneys which make calcitriol which is the active form of vitamin D.
The first step, the one with the UV light is the answer to your question. Artificial light doesn’t produce UV light so it can’t change 7-dehydrocholesterol into cholecalciferol. Therefore, you can’t get active vitamin D from artificial light. Keep in mind, that tanning until you get a light tan fills your liver with vitamin D precursors that can last you for 3 months, so you don’t really need to tan until you get sunburned. Just go out every one in a while and you’ll be okay.
If you have further questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.
It all depends upon the light source. Artificial light is generally low in the UVB part of ghe spectrum.
It’s this wavelength of light that causes the human body to produce vitamin D.
If you have an Artificial light source with the correct wavelength output it will cause vitamin D to be produced.
There’s some evidence that Artificial UVB light therapy can help people with vitamin D definancy- people who have Cystic fibrosis for example who cant absorb Vitamin D from their diet.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2846322/
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