Study: sunlight may lower blood pressure

There seems to be another reason to make sure you get off the treadmill and actually outside from a run during the winter.

The farther from the equator you look the more cases of hypertension and cardiovascular disease you will find. Those rates also spike during winter months, leading a group of researchers to think it may be a result of exposure to sunlight.

It turns out they were on to something. They have found that sunlight may lower blood pressure.

In the new study, published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, 24 volunteers were put through two tests. First, they were exposed to a false UVA environment for 30 minutes as a control. The fake UVA environment exposed their skin to the same light and heat as the upcoming UVA test without the rays. They were then exposed to a real UVA environment — the equivalent of southern Europe on a sunny day around noon — for 30 minutes. The UVA rays in the second test caused their blood pressure to drop compared to the control, suggesting it was the radiation causing the drop in blood pressure.

Lower blood pressure reduces your risk of hypertension and heart disease, so getting outside (in addition to getting fit and generally healthy) will help reduce your risk of the diseases in a way that running on a treadmill won’t.

The researchers also noted that the effect could not be the result of vitamin D, as it takes the body longer to produce vitamin D than how long it took the effects of the UVA exposure to manifest during the study.

Still, this isn’t an excuse to forget that dangers of overexposure to sunlight, mainly a higher risk of skin cancer. So get outside and soak up some sun.