Consequences of no natural sunlight

People would have to find an alternate source of vitamin D. Lack of vitamin D causes a wide spectrum of illness and affects functioning on many levels. From bone disease to reproductive problems. These problems affect other mammals such as dogs too.

trocadero said:

Thanks Canotila. So, let's say we take Vitamin D supplements. Any other effects?

Thanks

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Hair becomes thicker and stronger if regularly exposed to UV rays. Same goes for nails.

trocadero said:

In a world in which people had lived undercover, away from UV rays, for say, 300 years, is that too short a time for the body to evolve and lose hair? Without UV at all, might your hair fall out? Or just become thin?

If you lived without natural UV, I wonder if regularly using some kind of machine such as those used for tanning could meet your UV needs.

Thanks - I appreciate your knowledge!

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I don't think that's how evolution works. If the hair wouldn't be useful, but didn't hamper the survival of the species it would still be retained in the genome, ie genetic drift. But human bodily hair, isn't so much about necessity, as it it about attractiveness, (like peacock feathers). Unless everybody suddenly thought hair was unsexy, it wouldn't evolve away from people. Which has nothing to do with being indoors. On top of that 300 years is far too short of a time period to find noticeable genetic differences.

Just to digress even more. It should be mentioned that science (ie Evolutionists) don't actually know how humans lost their hair. The only evolutionary process we know of where land-mammals lose their hair are mammals who have gone aquatic at some point, like elephants (proto-cow -> proto-whale -> elephant). But there is no evidence that humans actually went aquatic at any point. There's no evidence that we didn't either. Human hairlessness is just one of those mysteries in evolution we have left to solve. There's no shortage of theories. It's the evidence that is light.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis

Yes, I believe tanning beds would solve all problems with lack of sun.

I don't think being underground would necessarily make so much difference.You could have a vast underground city with Clean air ,artificial sun light etc. Or you could have people living in cold ,dark and damp tunnels.It's the environment that people live in that would have the affect.The Morlocks in The Time Machine lived in a underground factory .The air was polluted without natural light.Wells thought the Morlocks were people that had regressed in to small ,pale ,ape like peopled that could not stand sunlight.Or as we now call them Industrialists.

Our cells are very conservative. Just because we have a gene, it doesn't mean that the gene will be expressed. Our cells don't want to waste valuable resources on proteins we don't need. So I think that there would be some physical changes in human appearances after generations of living underground, the obvious one being paler skin.

I don't know off my head what they would be, but you may want to look into the genetic disorder xeraderma pigmentosum. These are individuals who have defects in enzymes that protect the DNA from UV damge. If they go out into the sun, they will get skin cancer, so they have to spend their entire lives indoor.

Of course this all depends on how you run your world.

Do a bit of Google-fu and check out the problems with people who live in the extreme north. Things like chronic depression hit frequently during the winter periods of little to no sun and there are special visor looking things that doctors can prescribe for those with severe Vitamin D deficiencies.

One of my sisters has barely left the house in the 22 months since the birth of her son. (She lives in a tiny apartment in a place where it isn't safe to spend time outside.)

Without much exposure to natural sunlight, her hair turned very dark, from strawberry blonde to rich auburn.

My own hair, and my daughter's hair, turns darker every winter when we are forced indoors for a few months. And of course we lose any tan we may have.

trocadero said:

I love those morlocks. They were so spooky. My city is above ground, but undercover because of excessive natural UV. I was a little disappointed that many artificial lights emit UV, and I'm sure that in my futuristic setting, they will have developed indoor lighting to emit healthy levels of UV, and added vitamin D to food. The issue will be when people are forced to live somewhere else, where there is either no UV or, if they are forced outside, excessive UV.

I will definitely look up the things everyone has suggested. I didn't realize UV was so vital. I read a really interesting article about levels of melanin, skin color and UV levels around the world. We are really very adaptable creatures. Within quite narrow limits

Thanks for your ideas. I will follow up on them.

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A huge problem will be food. I'm not an expert in agriculture but I know one or two things about nutrition. Humans are part of an eco-system adapted to eat food or food-that-eats-food that uses photosynthesis. I can imagine that there will be nutritional shortages over time. There's only so much nutrition that can be extracted from fungi, or other subterranean life. For example, we require vast quantities of vitamin C, and that's going to be a bitch to get if we live primarily on fungi. All mushrooms, if eaten to excess, are poisonous (as is nearly everything we eat, but not as much). One-sided diets very often lead to all kinds of wonky unforseen effects. Some aren't even known, which gives you some creative latitude. So it could be worth checking out!.

You can also invent a situation where power is limited. This would cause all kinds of problems where they'd have to weigh various health problems against each other.

I used to be a fitness nut, and also worked as a chef, in a restaurant for health nuts, so I did a lot of research back then. There's a lot about nutrition which defies common sense. My advice is to pick up a real book on it, a university book for nutritionists. They all list deficiencies, symptoms and what causes it. It'll let you know exactly what you're looking for. And there are case studies made on people who have never had their skins exposed to sun-light. It's not all that rare as one might expect, and cases are found in countries on the equator.

People believe all kinds of things about food which is just flat out wrong. So trusting people on boards like this, or even people who sound clever will often be misleading. That's my advice.

trocadero said:

Thanks, Pink Lily. That's interesting about the hair color change. I'll have to think about its implications. What will be considered attractive in this indoor world...

Dr Zoidberg, I appreciate your comments. I've done a (very) little research about UV and plants, and I found it interesting that different types of edible plants have varying sensitivities to UV. I've taken the approach of adapting farming methods, rather than radically adapting diet.

If some lights emit UV light, isn't it possible that in three hundred years we could have lights which emitted safe levels of UV, and varying wavelengths of light to promote photosynthesis in a range of plants? I don't need to explain the scientific details in my novel, but I'd like to think the general idea was reasonable.

Thanks - I appreciate everyone's help.

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There already exist lightbulbs that emit "natural sunlight" (can be bought at any large gardening retailer). This is not a problem. If power consumption or space is not an issue there will be no problems for your subterranean dwellers when it comes to getting a varied diet.

DrZoidberg said:

There already exist lightbulbs that emit "natural sunlight" (can be bought at any large gardening retailer)..

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They might exist for plants but not necessarily for animals. Our biologies are different and we have different but overlapping requirements. Tanning beds are inadequate for Vitamin D production. Their wavelengths are designed to excite the melanocytes.

I have significant health problems that in part are due to inadequate sunlight exposure for a couple decades and have tried to find lamps that produce the correct wavelengths. The problem is that the lamps that are advertised as "full spectrum" or "natural sunlight" won't specify the wavelengths that they emit. At several thousand dollars a pop, it is cost prohibitive to just try them out. I've also found that there is something in sunlight that hasn't been identified that helps; something beyond the heat and Vitamin D, and it isn't SADD.

If you know of a lamp that is advertised as "full spectrum" or "natural sunlight", AND specifies the wavelengths that it emits, then please, please let me know.

trocadero said:

Thanks, Pink Lily. That's interesting about the hair color change. I'll have to think about its implications. What will be considered attractive in this indoor world...

Dr Zoidberg, I appreciate your comments. I've done a (very) little research about UV and plants, and I found it interesting that different types of edible plants have varying sensitivities to UV. I've taken the approach of adapting farming methods, rather than radically adapting diet.

If some lights emit UV light, isn't it possible that in three hundred years we could have lights which emitted safe levels of UV, and varying wavelengths of light to promote photosynthesis in a range of plants? I don't need to explain the scientific details in my novel, but I'd like to think the general idea was reasonable.

Thanks - I appreciate everyone's help.

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You're thinking of gro-lights, and they work quite well. There are also special lights you buy for reptiles that emit rays on the UV spectrum. Most diurnal reptiles will get metabolic bone disease without daily exposure to UV. The trick with their bulbs is that the UV only emanates about 10 inches from the surface of the bulb, so it has to be positioned close for them to get any. Also, they stop making UV after 6 months and use and you have to buy a new one.

Animal protein doesn't have to come from mammals either. They could farm fish (there are subterranean species, you could make one up similar to a catfish or something), or insects. Earthworms could be tasty. There's a cave about 10 miles from here with giant creepy crickets inside, they eat the fungus growing inside.

They look like this, have a 2-3 inch leg span, and don't hop. They scuttle about like huge spiders.


The idea of a tanning bed type setup is a good one.

Perhaps they could use geothermal power? That should be nice and plentiful.

Quizing my mom with her homework recently (She's in school to be a radiologist) One of the things in there said that artificial vitamin D is a carcinogen, so if everyone was taking the artificial ones as their main source, there might be a higher rate of cancer.

Canotila said:

Animal protein doesn't have to come from mammals either. They could farm fish (there are subterranean species, you could make one up similar to a catfish or something), or insects. Earthworms could be tasty. There's a cave about 10 miles from here with giant creepy crickets inside, they eat the fungus growing inside.

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If space, power or other resources are at all an issue for subterranean humans (which I'm assuming it is) they'd probably go vegetarian. Meat protein is a huge waste of resources. They'd save about 90% of the resources if they stuck to purely vegetarian sources of nutrition.

It was a while since I did my homework regarding this, but I do remember a plate consisting of 70% rice and 30% soy protein, has an amino acid profile perfect for a highly physically active human (ie there's a one to one match between which amino acids are needed and which amino acids are contained in the food). There's of course other combinations equally as good. This is just the one I remember. All you need is an amino acid table and a calculator.

Sorry if I'm too basic now, but protein consists of amino acids. We say that we need such and such amount of protein, but that's a simplified model. It's the amino acids it consists of which really matter. Eating meat means that it's easier to get a complete amino acid profile, and you need to do less homework. But it's not difficult if one bothers to learn it. If humans are stuck underground, I'd imagine this would be top priority to get right. Vegetables are an even more efficient ways to produce protein than eating insects are.

Side note, if you look at traditional menu's our ancestors had or menus eaten by people who still have had very little access to modernity, it's menu's that have evolved to produce as an complete vitamin, mineral and amino acid profile as possible, with the minimum amount of effort. Spices are added to make it palatable.

Nivarion said:

Quizing my mom with her homework recently (She's in school to be a radiologist)

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Radiologist, or a radiation technologist? What initials will she get to use after her name when she completes her coursework?

Nivarion said:

One of the things in there said that artificial vitamin D is a carcinogen,.

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I don't suppose you have a link? because this sounds highly suspicious.

GeorgeK said:

Radiologist, or a radiation technologist? What initials will she get to use after her name when she completes her coursework?

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Radiation therapist.

I don't suppose you have a link? because this sounds highly suspicious.

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No I don't.

Vitamin D is fat soluble which means that it gets stored in your fat cells if you take too much, unlike water soluble vitamins like vitamin C that gets flushed through you. Taking too much fat soluble vitamins can cause problems, cancer is probably one of them.

The only difference between "artificial" vitamin D and natural vitamin D is that your body won't make more than you need, but you certainly can OD on vitamin D suppliments.

MAP said:

Vitamin D is fat soluble which means that it gets stored in your fat cells if you take too much, unlike water soluble vitamins like vitamin C that gets flushed through you. Taking too much fat soluble vitamins can cause problems,

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yes, but...

MAP said:

cancer is probably one of them...

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This last part is an assumption, I presume based on the premiss that the news seems to announce that everything causes cancer, therefore this must too. The only actual studies that I know of regarding Vitamin D and cancer are the risks of cancer escpecially breast and prostate in people with subnormal levels not high levels.

I've been retired for almost 5 years, but could not find anything in my texts and online there's
https://www.google.com/health/ref/Hypervitaminosis+D#Prognosis
which does not list malignancy as a potential expected outcome. I do remember years ago reading an article that tried to use this as a premiss but it was quickly refuted when a third party analyzed the supplements and found they were not what the original author claimed. However that was long enough ago that I don't remember where it was. I only remembered to not trust the listings of ingredients on dietary supplements.

My concern was that if myths are making their way into nurses and technician's training manuals (as in Nivarion's mother's book) those things need to be identified and editted.

GeorgeK said:

yes, but...



This last part is an assumption, I presume based on the premiss that the news seems to announce that everything causes cancer, therefore this must too. The only actual studies that I know of regarding Vitamin D and cancer are the risks of cancer escpecially breast and prostate in people with subnormal levels not high levels.

I've been retired for almost 5 years, but could not find anything in my texts and online there's
https://www.google.com/health/ref/Hypervitaminosis+D#Prognosis
which does not list malignancy as a potential expected outcome. I do remember years ago reading an article that tried to use this as a premiss but it was quickly refuted when a third party analyzed the supplements and found they were not what the original author claimed. However that was long enough ago that I don't remember where it was. I only remembered to not trust the listings of ingredients on dietary supplements.

My concern was that if myths are making their way into nurses and technician's training manuals (as in Nivarion's mother's book) those things need to be identified and editted.

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Thanks for clarifiying. I didn't know for sure if excess vitamin D caused cancer. That is why I said probably (assuming that the textbook mentioned previously was correct). I should have looked into it.

The point of my post was just to suggest a reasonable explanation as to why synthetic vitamin D could cause problems over our naturally produced vitamin D since chemically they are identical.