Simply Fresh Living

Photo Credit: She-Hates-Mondays

It’s already sunny here in Arizona and all around the country people are gearing up for Spring & Summer. It means flip flops, bathing suits, pool parties and amidst all of the fabulousness the sunshine brings it also means one other important aspect for most people, SUNSCREEN. I formed my opinions regarding sunshine at the very beginning of my “more natural way of living” adventure but it has been popping up in my life a lot lately from questions, to comments, a segment from my teacher in class last week, and of course the fact that the shining sun is in full effect around me.

In short, sunscreen is not necessary, the most “natural” and “free” brands still contain harmful fillers, there are numerous epidemiological studies showing that increased use of sunscreen causes an increase in instances of melanoma, and MOST IMPORTANTLY the sun is GREAT GREAT GREAT GREAT GREAT for your body, not only great but absolutely NECESSARY to be healthy.

When the sun hits your skin (during the times of 10am and 2pm the sun is in a position in which your skin can absorb it’s rays) it turns the UV rays into Vitamin D3. Although the RDA of Vitamin D is much different the average person needs around 4,000 units of Vitamin D3 per DAY.

An average fair skinned person can produce 10,000 units of D3 by being in the sun with 80% of their body exposed (think a bathing suit or sports bra and shorts) for 20 minutes between the times mentioned above, 10am to 2pm. Along with all of the other astonishing things one’s body is capable of we are also capable of storing Vitamin D for later use. So aim for at the VERY LEAST 70 minutes a week or more depending on the color of your skin tone.

Vitamin D & Cancer

People look at me crazy when I say sunscreen actually increases the occurrence of cancer, but it couldn’t be more truthful. It increases your risk of developing melanoma significantly. When you apply sunscreen to your skin it blocks its ability to use the UV rays to produce Vitamin D, but you can not stop ALL UV rays from hitting your skin no matter how much you put on. So the UV rays that do get by your sunblock shield can not be utilized by your skin and therefore are nothing but harmful. Sunscreen also weakens your skin’s ability over time to efficiently do it’s Vitamin D producing job, therefore increasing the likelihood of UV rays damaging your skin cells.

Sunscreen is not just responsible for skin cancer though, by inhibiting your body from naturally producing it’s own Vitamin D the way it needs to you are increasing your chance of many other deadly forms of cancer. The Vitamin D council cites several different studies on their website, below is an excerpt:

“It not only reduced the unregulated growth of cancer cells by promoting normal cell death (apoptosis); vitamin D prevented new cells from becoming cancerous (promoted differentiation). It even helped prevent cancer cells from spreading (metastasis) and inhibited cancer cells from developing new blood supply (angiogenesis).”

They also go on to explain why exactly this is not common knowledge to the vast majority of people:

“Somewhere along the line, the vitamin D and cancer story took a tragic twist. As vitamin D could not be patented, it held little interest for the medical industry. Plain vitamin D3 held no promise for financial gain for drug companies or for the researchers who are often financially involved in such companies. Therefore, the medical industry seemed to ignore the evidence that simple vitamin D helped prevent cancer and that adequate vitamin D nutrition may help retard the growth of cancer.”

The next question that most people ask is how do they protect themselves then? Honestly, there is no quick fix or ingenious idea you are not aware of, just plain common sense. If you are going to be outside cover your face, wear a hat of some sort. The face is usually the biggest concern of most people. If you are going to be outside longer than your burning threshold, seek shade or cover up.

The healthier you are internally, the more it will show externally. The more beta carotene you eat will help your body create a type of “internal sunscreen” that will not only serve as providing your skin with a more bronzed color but it will take much longer amounts of sun exposure for a burn. As long as you eat a balanced diet with plenty of fruits, vegetables, and most importantly antioxidants, the common harmful sun myth of wrinkles, aging skin, etc. will not affect you.

Most people these days work in offices, offices with little natural light, hardly any plants and definitely no chance of their skin receiving the adequate amount of Vitamin D. As necessary as it is to eat right, it is JUST as imperative to get outside and give your body the Vitamin D it craves. Take your lunch outside during the sunny months or bring a change of clothes and go for a long walk before you eat.

Below are more scientific reads and additional research regarding Vitamin D:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19900346

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D#Production_in_the_skin (basic read for how the actual production takes place)

http://www.naturalnews.com/001264.html

Tags: Aging, Antioxidants, Cancer, Skin, Sunshine, Vitamin D

This entry was posted on Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 1:16 pm and is filed under Health & Diseases. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.