Where Sunlight Is A Luxury

Life beyond the equator.

Halfway through 2024, I moved from Sydney (33°S), Australia to Stockholm, Sweden (59°N). Up until then, I had lived in Australia my entire life and had not experienced temperatures below single digits, snow, or the stark polarity of short winter days and long summer days. Adapting to an entirely new environment presented a challenge that would test my understanding of nature and how to thrive in such a novel environment.

Sweden extends from 55° to 67° north of the equator. At the winter solstice, the sun only reaches about 10 degrees of elevation in the country’s capital.

For many years now, I have been of the staunch opinion that nature dictates the rules of the game. In order to live a vital life, we must pay attention intently to the world around us in order to understand how we can be in harmony with it. Unlike the vast majority of people in the health space today, it has been blindingly obvious to me that the antecedents of health are entirely dependent on the environment to which we are exposed; there cannot be a 'perfect diet' or a ‘perfect sleep routine' or ‘perfect sunlight exposure regime' by definition. For essentially all of human history, what we ate, the light we were exposed to, the magnetic field strength we lived in, the altitude (O2 pressure) were all dictated by our unique locales. Humans were essentially incapable of breaking these rules even if we wanted to. Artificial lighting, non-native EMF, imported foods and high rise buildings were simply not options for our ancestors. To add another dimension to this, populations evolved specific adaptations, whether they be genetic, mitochondrial, biochemical, morphological or cultural in order to better match their environment.¹ Large-scale migration patterns have left many of us in environments we might not be optimised for.

The environment dictates what can be considered ‘healthy' or ‘optimal'. Fitness is a function of environmental conditions and individual constitutions.

The Sami people native to the northern regions of Sweden. Note their lack of external pigmentation and facial characteristics similar to those of northern Asia. These peoples are traditionally herders of reindeer. Subsequently, they have fascinating circadian rhythms that are not in phase with day and night, but rather the movements of their reindeer. Little is known about how the circadian mechanisms of these traditional populations are regulated and how that impacts their health. They do, like other traditional peoples, have little-to-no prevalence of modern chronic disease.

Upon moving to Sweden, however, it became clear to me (even more than I was expecting) that the rules of the game were markedly different here compared to Sydney. The patterns and habits I had cultivated for so long no longer be apply here. Aside from some apples and berries, local fruit was remarkably scare, for example.² Vegetables I considered common back home like eggplant and tomato could not really be grown locally except for short periods in the midst of summer. Beef does not thrive in this climate, requiring them to be indoors during the frigid winter. Earthing during the winter turns out to be quite difficult, and ensuring I can compensate for lack of UV light exposure with seafood presents a few key issues.

Traditional Sami shoes. These are made from reindeer hide and are conductive, possibly allowing earthing even throughout winter. Rubber-soled shoes and artificial surfaces like asphalt do not allow this. It is possible that other mechanisms compensate for any lack of earthing that might occur during cooler periods where direct contact with the earth’s electric field is not easily permitted, although I could only speculate how this could be achieved.

Some in the health space insist on the importance of high-energy photons in life, for example; and rightly so. Ultraviolet light has provided energy necessary to the physicochemistry that likely played an unparalleled role in life's genesis on earth. Furthermore, countless studies have unequivocally found a significant inverse relationship between UV exposure (from sunlight or artificial sources) and mortality of cancers, cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality. There is a notable disparity between disease incidence and latitudes, providing even more evidence to support the relationship between UVB-containing3 sunlight and disease risk. Notions like these were all well and good while I was living at the 33rd south where UVB was present every single day of my entire life. But how does this make sense in a place where humans have thrived for thousands of years where fewer than 10 days a year provide a strong UV index? If humans have thrived beyond they equator for tens of thousands of years, how have they compensated for the lack of sunlight? In essence, what are the rules of the game where sunlight is a luxury?

Sperti Vitamin D lamp. This is a UV light designed to provide the benefits of endogenously synthesised vitamin D even in the absence of UVB photons from the sun. Most of the days in the year in in Stockholm, Sweden do not provide UVB light from the sun due to the low solar angle. While it may be tempting to use UV therapy during periods of time where no natural UVB is present, this type of therapy could be considered an incongruent environmental signal. Much like eating a pineapple here in winter, I would personally avoid using such a device as the signal it is sending to my body is at odds with the natural signals around me.