So as far back as I can remember, I’ve quietly wondered what it means that we “get vitamin D from the sun”. Clearly, vitamin D isn’t sunlight, so the body must be doing something with that light.

For whatever reason, though, I never asked the question that seemed so obvious, but today I did. I asked Google, “how is vitamin D synthesized in the body”, and the first non-advertising link was pretty interesting.

tl;dr: if you protect your skin with sunscreen and protect your arteries with cholesterol meds, you’re also cutting off your body’s ability to synthesize vitamin D.

I haven’t done any research to validate the accuracy and/or biases of this particular site, but I feel like I’m about to go down a rabbit hole.

I’ve long wondered about unintended side effects of common medications. It started when Seldane was the best solution for seasonal allergies. And then people taking that drug who also ate grapefruits started dropping off like flies, dying of heart attacks, so they took it off the market.

These days, they give out cholesterol medication like candy, and occasionally you hear people complaining about tangible side-effects. But something like this–if true–is subtle and could have a wide range of affects on your mental health that may be difficult for someone outside of a controlled experiment to link to the medication they’re taking.