With winter’s cold wind blowing right now, you may only be dreaming of relaxing on a warm sandy beach, playing 18 holes on your favorite golf course or just puttering around the garden on a beautiful sunlit day. And spending time in the sun not only feels good, it’s good for you.
Your Body Needs Sunlight
No matter what the medical establishment and the sunscreen industry say, your body has a physical need for sunlight. You probably already know that your skin reacts to sunlight by making vitamin D. But you may not know just how beneficial vitamin D really is. Here’s just a sample of its clinically proven power.
* Elevates mood and boosts mental performance
* Prevents many types of cancers, including prostate, breast and ovarian
* Reduces the risk of melanoma
* Halts and even reverses the effects of bone diseases like rickets, osteomalacia and osteoporosis
* Relieves depression and lessens the symptoms of schizophrenia
* Enhances the function of your pancreas
* Increases insulin sensitivity and prevents diabetes
* Promotes weight reduction
* Provides more restful sleep
* Lends energy, vitality, and stamina
* Lowers blood pressure
* Brings high blood sugar levels down
* Lowers the amount of bad cholesterol in your blood
* Increases white blood cell activity and strengthens immunity
There’s no question that if you get sunburns often, you’re risking lasting damage to your skin, including melanoma, the most dangerous kind of skin cancer. But it turns out that Nature’s got a weapon against sunburn that may outperform any sunscreen on the market. It halts the processes that lead to sunburn by nearly 80 percent.1 And unlike commercial skincare products, it’s completely safe and natural.
It unleashes your body’s natural healing power so that spending time in the sun won’t hurt you. It lasts for days, long after it’s been washed away. Even better – it works without blocking the sun’s rays.
You won’t have to worry about slathering artificial chemicals on your skin – and can reap all the health benefits of sunlight. And to find the source of the most powerful new ally in skin cancer prevention, you don’t have to look any further than the produce section at your local supermarket.
Meet Sulforaphane: Nature’s Powerful Cancer Fighter
Broccoli’s the simple vegetable that might cut into the $5 billion-a-year sunscreen industry’s profits someday.
There’s a naturally occurring chemical compound in broccoli called sulforaphane. It’s a potent antioxidant and cancer-fighter scientists stumbled on 15 years ago. It’s in kale, cabbage, cauliflower, turnips, even brussels sprouts. (Turns out your mother was right when she told you to eat your brussels sprouts.)
Since it was first discovered, there’s been a mountain of clinical research proving sulforaphane’s power as an ironclad defense against many kinds of cancer, including cancers of the breast and prostate.2 But until recently, studies focused on it as something you’d get in foods or as a supplement. It hadn’t occurred to anyone to look at how sulforaphane might work if you used it like a lotion.
So a team of researchers at Johns Hopkins University did just that. They started out with three-day-old broccoli sprouts, because the sprouts of the plant have 30-50 times more sulforaphane than the mature broccoli we’re used to seeing at the grocery store.
The Johns Hopkins team made a lotion with the broccoli sprout extract and applied it to the skin just like sunscreen, testing it on the skin of mice and on human volunteers. One of the keys to this particular study was that they exposed the skin to high intensity ultraviolet radiation for up to three days.
And that’s when something amazing happened. In the human volunteers, those who hadn’t been given lotion developed sunburns, including reddening and inflammation. But the other group saw a 40 percent reduction in sunburn on average, and nearly 80 percent in one case.
What’s more the lotion’s healing power lasted long after it had already been fully absorbed by the skin. In other words, the broccoli extract lotion practically eliminated sunburn under extreme conditions.
So how does it work?
Turn on Your “Sun-Protecting” Gene
Rather than “coating” the top layer of your skin like commercial sunscreen, the Johns Hopkins researchers found that their broccoli-sprout lotion actually goes straight into your skin cells. From there it fires up a number of processes that maintain robust skin health.
Overexposure to sunlight causes sunburn because the sun’s rays interact with oxygen to create molecules that can eventually damage the DNA in your skin cells. Over time, it causes them to die or become cancerous.
Sulforaphane has the power to guard DNA by turning on a set of skin-protection genes, like a key in an ignition. Once activated, they release chemicals called “phase 2 enzymes.” These enzymes neutralize the molecules that damage DNA. They also reduce inflammation, another painful symptom of sunburn.
So you can see how differently it works from sunscreen. It lets the sunlight in while sparking your skin’s natural healing power. Think of it as a kind of skin cream that works from the inside out.
Since it works without blocking the sun’s rays, broccoli-extract lotion has the potential to protect you from overexposure without robbing your body of the sun’s many health benefits.
It will probably be a while before broccoli extract lotion becomes available to the general public. (Among other things, they still need to figure out how to keep it from breaking down before it makes its way onto store shelves.)
Four Steps to “Sun-Living”
In the meantime, there’s plenty you can do to take advantage of the sun’s health-promoting power and protect yourself. Here are four simple steps you can take right now.
1. Find an all-natural sunscreen.
Most people don’t know this – even many dermatologists – but sunscreen not only offers no real protection against skin cancers from overexposure to the sun. In fact, it can actually cause cancer. Here’s a short list of some of the artificial, carcinogenic compounds widely used by the sunscreen industry:
Cancer-causing Chemicals in
Commercial Sunscreens
Chemical Effects
PABA (also known as octyl-dimethy and padimate-O)
When exposed to sunlight, it attacks DNA and causes genetic mutation.
Octyl-methoxycinnamate (OMC)
Toxic to and can kill cells.
Octyl-dimethyl-PABA (OD-PABA)
Benzophenone-3 (Bp-3)
Homosalate (HMS)
Octyl-methoxycinnamate (OMC)
4-methyl-benzylidene camphor (4-MBC).
Mimics estrogens, causing disruption of real hormone and stimulates cancer cells to grow
What’s more, there’s never been any evidence that sunscreens prevent the most serious kinds of skin cancer. A recent study published in the prestigious Lancet Journal found that while sunscreen may protect against two of the three most common skin cancers, there’s no conclusive evidence showing it protects against melanoma, the most lethal type.1
I’m currently working on producing an all-natural sunscreen with none of the harmful chemicals found in commercial sunscreens. I’ll let you know as soon as it’s ready to go.
2. Get your skin-healthy nutrients, especially antioxidants.
While sunlight is definitely good for your skin, overexposure to sun may cause some free-radical damage. The good news is antioxidants are powerful free-radical “scavengers.” They not only prevent skin damage, they can actually reverse the effects of aging from long-term sun exposure.
For your skin, these three supplements in particular are important every day: Vitamin C (1,000 mg), CoQ10 (100 mg) and vitamin E (400 IEU). They’re inexpensive and readily available in most health-food stores.
You also can ramp up the antioxidant content in your diet. Look for foods rich in vitamins E, C and A. Here are a few of the best foods for your skin:
Food
Vitamin Levels
Citrus fruit – oranges, grapefruit, tangerines, etc.
Up to 70 mg/serving of vitamin C – builds collagen, reduces inflammation, protects cells
Cantaloupe
29 mg/serving of vitamin C
Guava
165 mg/serving of vitamin C
Kiwifruit
162 mg/serving of vitamin C
Eggs
140 micrograms (mcg)/serving vitamin A – powerful antioxidant that helps maintain healthy cells
Plain Yogurt
35 mcg/serving of vitamin A
Chicken Liver
11,000 mcg/serving of vitamin A
Almonds
11 IU/serving of vitamin E – beneficial to skin health, prevents skin cell damage
Peanut Butter
6 IU/serving of vitamin E
Cooked Spinach
2.5 IU/serving of vitamin E
Beef
3.4 mg/serving CoQ10 – important antioxidant and a building block of the body’s tissues
Sardines
7.3 mg/serving of CoQ10
And by the way, even without the extract, you can still get those phase 2 enzymes by eating broccoli or broccoli sprouts, which are widely available in many supermarkets.
As always, I encourage you to buy locally grown organic, free-range, grass-fed and minimally processed foods whenever possible.
3. Get outside and enjoy the sun every day – even in winter!
A recent study published in Anticancer Research found that just by getting a little sunlight every day – about 20 minutes for fair-skinned folks, and two to four times that much for those with dark skin – you can reduce the risk of 16 types of cancer in both men and women.2
4. Try natural lotions that truly promote skin health.
Look for all-natural lotions with vitamins E or C. Vitamin C is especially good for your skin. It’s been clinically proven to protect you from overexposure to both UV-A and UV-B rays, reduce the appearance of age spots, and reduce inflammation in the skin.3
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD
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