The Good , The Bad and The Ugly vs . the Helios : A Physician ’ s Perspective
image by Dr . Iyer
I
was flipping the TV remote to find something of interest before falling asleep on a Sunday night . To my surprise I noticed one of the channels showing the 1966 movie The Good , The Bad and The Ugly . I have seen that movie more than once but could not resist watching it again to enjoy the exhilarating theme song The Ecstasy of Gold composed by Ennio Morricone and the fabulous cinematic performance by Clint Eastwood .
I was a bit sleep-deprived the next day , but an early morning clinic forced me to get to my office by 6:30 a . m . This gave me 30 minutes to take my usual walk around the office . The birds were busy chirping , and several geese came in formation and touched down nearby and started their noisy breakfast meeting . Their chatter became louder when a large convoy of starlings landed close by announcing the imminent sunrise . It was an inspiring sight to see the sun coming up from the horizon , a big golden ball in all its majestic glory . I was reminded of my early childhood in my village home , where the wake-up time was 6:00 a . m .; my siblings and I used to play a game as the sun was just coming up at the horizon : how long can one keep staring at the sun without
20 LOUISVILLE MEDICINE by VASUDEVA IYER , MD
blinking ? Perhaps it was a good game as it probably fine-tuned ( entrained ) our circadian clock . Despite these thoughts , I still could not shake off the scenes from the previous night ’ s movie and the theme song from my mind ; I tried to fight this perseveration by one of my favorite distraction techniques . I imagined , what in clinical medicine parallels the theme of The Good , The Bad and The Ugly in relation to the awesome sun beaming right at me .
The sun was viewed with awe and wonder and worshipped in almost every ancient culture as a god / goddess ; to name a few : Ra ( Egypt ), Surya ( India ), Helios ( Greek ), Amaterasu ( Japan ), Inti ( Inca , South America ) and Lugh ( Celtic , Europe ). There is universal recognition that sun exposure is critical for human life on Earth . Let us first explore The Good of the sun from a physician ’ s vantage point . Perhaps the most important benefit of exposure to sunlight is the synthesis of vitamin D , which has moved to the limelight in the past decade with a major role not only in disorders of osteogenesis , but also in a plethora of conditions including multiple sclerosis and immune disorders . 7-dehydrocholesterol in the epidermis is converted to pre-vitamin D3 by exposure to solar ultraviolet B rays and subsequently isomerized to vitamin D3 ( cholecalciferol ).
Yet another crucial role that the sunlight plays is in relation to