The summer sun has a positive effect on most people in a country like the Netherlands – provided it is well rubbed and not too hot. Now only research shows that it could make men hungrier.
We now know: too much or unprotected in the sun and you increase the risk of skin cancer. Spend just enough time in the sun and your life expectancy will increase. Thanks to vitamin D production and substances that would help blood vessels to relax.
Could there also be a link between sunlight and food, researchers from Tel Aviv thought. They analyzed the health data of 3,000 people and found that men, but not women, eat more during the summer months. About 300 extra calories per day.
To better understand what’s going on here, the researchers exposed men and women to the same amount of sunlight and studied what happened in the body. Only in men did they see an increase in the appetite-stimulating hormone ghrelin.
In this case, that hormone seems to be triggered by DNA damage in skin cells. Estrogen prevents this effect from occurring in women. Because ghrelin can also have a blood pressure lowering and anti-inflammatory effect, the researchers now want to delve further into the link between sunlight and cardiovascular disease.
So what it at least says something about is the link between sun and a few extra summer kilos. If you are a man then.
Read more: Sunlight may trigger hormone that makes men hungrier, study suggests.
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