Sunlight boosts your immune system

It is already proven that sunlight helps the body to produce vitamin D which is very important for good health, and now recent studies have revealed another powerful benefit of getting enough sun. Researchers at Georgetown University (US), have found that sunlight energizes the T-cells that play a central role in human immunity. "We all know that sunlight provides vitamin D, which has an impact on immunity among other things. But what we found is a completely separate role of sunlight on immunity," says the study's senior investigator, professor Gerard Ahern.

They specifically found that low levels of blue light, found in the sun’s rays, make T-cells move faster. "T-cells need to move to do their work, which is to get to the site of an infection and orchestrate a response," Ahern says. "This study shows that sunlight directly activates key immune cells by increasing their movement." He added that blue light from the sun, as well as from special lamps, is the safest form of sunlight and does not promote skin cancers. The study concludes that there is still much work to be done to understand the full impact of these findings. However, they suggest that T-cell activation by blue light is completely safe with no side effects, so it makes sense to offer it to patients to boost their immunity.