Straight from vitamin D expert Dr. John Cannell comes a new and interesting benefit from exposing your skin to the right amount of sunshine: Improving your peak athletic performance.

Dr. Cannell's investigation began when several patients asked him why they felt better, faster and stronger after receiving the right amount of vitamin D, and knowing it was a steroid hormone (substances made from cholesterol that circulate in the body and work at distant sites by setting in motion genetic protein transcription).

It took more than a year for my friend and colleague to locate convincing evidence from five independent bodies of research (largely from German and Russian medical texts) before concluding that maintaining the right amount of vitamin D does improve your athletic performance depending, of course, on how good an athlete you are and how vitamin D-deficient your body is at the time.

Of course, the world of con-ventional medicine isn't very interested in something as simple and natural for your health as a safe, daily dose of sunshine that your body converts into vitamin D. Drug companies can't sell it, doctors can't prescribe it and federal agencies can't regulate it.

Just remember, if appropriate sun exposure is a problem and you're taking a supplement or cod liver oil, please have your blood levels checked regularly, as dangerous elevations of vitamin D can occur needlessly.