Can Basking In A Little Sunshine Help You Lose Weight?

It sure can! According to a new study by University of Alberta, researchers have shown that the fat cells that lie just beneath our skin shrink when exposed to the blue light emitted by the sun. “When the sun’s blue light wavelengths—the light we can see with our eye—penetrate our skin and reach the fat cells just beneath, lipid droplets reduce in size and are released out of the cell. In other words, our cells don’t store as much fat,” said Peter Light, senior author of the study, who is a professor of pharmacology and the director of the U of A’s Alberta Diabetes Institute. So in addition to the wonderful and beneficial vitamin D you receive from the sun, you can now add fat burning to the list of sun benefits. Obviously, you want to stay smart with your sun exposure when not wearing sunscreen and step out in the early morning hours or late afternoon, never when the sun is at its highest in the sky.