New Secret Weapon to Combat Psoriasis

Optimize Your Vitamin D Levels If You Have Psoriasis

Typically, the best treatment for psoriasis is exposure to sunlight to optimize your vitamin D levels. You don’t need to visit a dermatologist; you can do it yourself.
Speaking out in a professional capacity against this idea can cost you. In 2004, Dr. Michael Holick published the book, The UV Advantage, in which he encouraged readers to get some sensible sun exposure.
At the time, he was a professor of dermatology because of the work he’d been doing with active vitamin D for the treatment of psoriasis. In fact, he’d received the American Skin Association’s Psoriasis Research Achievement Award—a rather prestigious award.
“As a result, I was in the department of dermatology, continuing to do psoriasis research. But once I began recommending sensible sun exposure for vitamin D, which is counter to what the American Academy of Dermatology’s message was, I was asked to step down as professor of dermatology back in 2004…
The American Academy of Dermatology still recommends: you should never be exposed to one direct ray of sunlight for your entire life.”
This is highly counterintuitive, given the research showing how beneficial vitamin D is for psoriasis. Sunlight exposure works, in part, because UV rays in sunlight and certain types of artificial light kill off the activated T cells in your skin.
This slows down cell turnover and reduces the scaling and inflammation of your skin.
Proper sunlight exposure will help you get your vitamin D levels into the therapeutic range, which has additional health benefits as well. It’s probably no coincidence that people with psoriasis, who are often vitamin D deficient, have an increased risk of chronic diseases like heart disease and metabolic syndrome – which are also associated with low vitamin D.