As summer is coming I thought this might be a useful topic to discuss.

I have heard that sunblock itself can cause skin cancer and that sunscreen is better.

It makes sense to stay out of the hot midday sun - I don't know about anybody else but I LOVE feeling the sun on my skin. Emotionally it does me so much good.

I try never to burn but as I get older I find that I do get very itchy skin after I have been in the sun.

My son (24) gets huge red lumps and very itchy spots with very little sun exposure and I am not sure what he can do about that.

Some herbal preparations make you more sensitive to the sun such as St John's Wort and I'm wondering if any foods do this also. I wonder if there are any foods which protect you from the sun's rays - I've not heard of any.

How much sun do you need to keep your Vitamin D topped up? Does anyone have any evidence as to the usefulness of winter sun in the northern areas etc etc

flipperjan,

Quote

I have heard that sunblock itself can cause skin cancer and that sunscreen is better.

Sunblocks typically sit on the surface of skin and block UV A rays, while sunscreens are absorbed into the skin and have chemicals that repel UV A & B rays. They can both be replete with toxic chemicals; it depends on the manufacturer. Here's a comprehensive guide from last year from the Environmental Working Group(be patient with it!):

[breakingnews.ewg.org]

That's the list we use to choose a good one. The kids and I have been walking around all chalky white and ghostly but the ones that have nano particulates aka zinc that's been broken down so small it doesn't stay white on the skin, those are also not good for you according to EWG. So ghostly white it is, lol. It's a fashion statement. One that says "I don't want any more wrinkles on my face" ha ha.

As someone who possesses olive skin, I don't worry about sunblock. I think it is worth reflecting on how much D deficiency we are suddenly hearing about in the last decade or less. Not only that, but has skin cancer gone done? I sure haven't noticed any drops in rates.

It's a catch-22...we've destroyed enough of the ozone layer that harmful rays as well as helpful ones get through from the sun...yet sunblock seems to always have questionable ingredients.

[fresherthanlife.com]

There are lots of sunscreens that don't have bad ingredients, check that EWG list.

A dermatologist told me the sunscreens that are absorbed don't really do the job. They stop you from turning red, but they don't block the harmful rays. She said only preparations that contain zinc as a block do the job.

In Northern climes, they say about 15/20 minutes each day is enough. Don't know if that was winter or summer though Flipper, sorry.

You know, I believe that a diet that depletes/weakens our immune system has more of an adverse effect on whether we aquire skin cancer or not, than the sun alone. For example, why do some people get melanoma where the sun don't shine, or when they spend most of their lives working down a coal mine?

I avoid the midday sun and when I am in the sun for a while I always wear a HUGE visor that is wide on the sides, not just above my eyes.

As a teenager I had a severe sun burn on my shoulders and have been a fanatic about covering up in the sun ever since that. Unfortunately, they say that just one severe sunburn significantly increases the chance of skin cancer, so I watch moles carefully and get ones that look at all suspicious removed.

My husband is a sunblock/sunscreen nut. I appease him and apply some when he gives it to me, but something about it doesn't feel right to me. Maybe it's the weird smell and the idea of applying chemicals. I prefer to cover up and avoid prolonged sun exposure.

Children in New Zealand wear broad brimmed hats at recess. Some wear hats with fabric that drapes down around the ears and back of the neck. (Those hats make me think of the Foreign Legion.) It must be required for children to wear hats at school because it's not as common on non-school hours to see them worn, but on field trips every child wears a broad-brimmed hat.

When I was a child women and men used to wear hats more often. My great-grandmother made hats for a living and my grandmother loved wearing hats. She had a collection of hat pins and I kept one with rhinestones. I wish hats were popular again. Unfortunately, "hat hair" is a deterrent to them making a comeback, I suppose


My favorite raw vegan

mostly I just go out in the early morning and after 4 pm sun - I dont think its dangerous those times and I hope I still get some sunshine benfits...and sometimes i go for a midday swim but limit it to 30 mins or so so I dont need sunscreen.
SO when I have to be walking around in the sun all day I use the lotions and feel that the few days I use them wont do me much harm...

I have a feeling that this might surprise some of y’all…

[articles.mercola.com]
When Should You Go Out in the Sun?
New research shows that to get an optimal vitamin D supplement from the sun at a minimal risk of getting cutaneous malignant melanoma (CMM), the best time of sun exposure is noon.

That means that common health recommendations given by authorities in many countries -- that sun exposure should be avoided for three to five hours around noon and postponed to the afternoon -- could be wrong and may even promote CMM.

This is in part because the action spectrum for CMM is likely to be centered at longer wavelengths than that of vitamin D generation.
Sources:
• Advanced Experiments in Medical Biology 2008; 624: 86-88
Dr. Mercola's Comments:

This is an update for my own personal knowledge as for many years I have advised people to avoid the sun from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. if they were at risk of sunburn. Well it turns out that this is the case where a little bit of knowledge can actually be dangerous.

Cutaneous malignant melanoma (CMM) is the most serious form of skin cancer, accounting for about three-quarters of all skin cancer deaths.

New research now supports that while avoiding the sun at mid-day will decrease your risk of painful sunburn it will actually increase your cancer risk.

How can this be?

If you are a member of my Mercola Inner Circle, and you listened to last month’s expert interview with Dr. William Grant, internationally recognized research scientist and vitamin D expert, you already have your answer.

Though he was not an author of the study above, his research found the same findings: that going out in the sun at mid-day is best for your health.

“Our recommendation, this is based on work in England and Norway, and the United States, that the optimal time to be in the sun for vitamin D production is near to solar noon as possible. That would be between say 10:00am and 2:00pm.

The reason is two-fold.

First of all, you need a shorter exposure time because the UVB is more intense.

Now, the second reason is that when the sun goes down towards the horizon, the UVB is filtered out much more than the UVA. And it turns out that the long wave of ultraviolet called UVA, which runs from about 320 to 400 nanometers, is highly correlated with melanoma -- where the UVB is the one that produces the vitamin D, and that’s from 290 to 315 nanometers,” Dr. Grant explains.

This is truly a profound concept, and one that is just beginning to permeate through the mainstream media.

For instance, U.S. News & World Report featured an article on time in the sun, and in it Robyn Lucas, an epidemiologist at Australian National University, agreed with these findings.

“I believe we all need a little unprotected time in the sun during the middle hours of the day when the sun is at its highest and UV-B rays can penetrate the atmosphere,” she said.

So let me restate this crucial new information:

If you want to get out in the sun to maximize your vitamin D production, and minimize your risk of malignant melanoma, the middle of the day is the best time and safest time to go.

“Squamous cell carcinoma is linked to lifetime ultraviolet B irradiants, whereas melanoma is linked to lifetime UVA irradiants, or sporadic sun burning in youth and things like that,” Dr. Grant says. “And so dermatologists, by telling people to put on sunscreen and avoid the mid-day sun, were actually giving recommendations that led to increased melanoma. And it’s because they didn’t carefully look at the wavelength dependents related to melanoma. And so they just didn’t figure out that they were giving bad advice.”

Both UVA and UVB can cause tanning and burning, although UVB does so far more rapidly. UVA, however, penetrates your skin more deeply than UVB, and is thought to be a much more important factor in photoaging, wrinkles and skin cancers.

Going Out in the Sun Will Lower Your Cancer Risk … NOT Increase It

Getting about 2,000 IU to 4,000 IU a day of vitamin D can help you to reduce your cancer risk by up to 50 percent!

And according to Dr. Grant, about 30 percent of cancer deaths -- which amounts to 2 million worldwide and 200,000 in the United States -- could be prevented each year with higher levels of vitamin D.

However, most people only get 250-300 IU a day from their diet, so another source -- ideally the sun -- is essential.

How Long You Spend in the Sun is Also Critical

A common myth, aside from that of avoiding the mid-day sun, is that occasional exposure of your face and hands to sunlight is "sufficient" for obtaining healthy vitamin D levels. For most of us, this is an miserably inadequate exposure to move vitamin levels to the healthy range.

You need to expose large portions of your skin to the sun, and you need to do it for more than a few minutes.

In Caucasian skin, an equilibrium occurs within 20 minutes of ultraviolet exposure. It can take three to six times longer for darkly pigmented skin to reach the equilibrium concentration of skin vitamin D. So, bearing in mind that you need to gradually increase your time, starting in the spring, you should be aiming toward exposing large areas of your skin to the sun, anywhere from 20 minutes at a time to two hours at a time, depending on your skin type and environmental factors.

Longer exposures will be needed if sunbathing occurs at off-peak times for ultraviolet light (before 12 p.m. or after 3 p.m.) or at the beginning or end of the summer (April or September).

You’re probably wondering, now that fall and winter are approaching in the United States, what to do when it’s too cold for sun exposure.

In the winter months, if you’ve had your vitamin D levels tested and found them to be low, a vitamin D3 supplement (cholecalciferol), which is the type of vitamin D found naturally in foods like eggs, organ meats, animal fat, cod liver oil, and fish, can be used. Continue to have your vitamin D levels monitored during this time, though, so you don’t overdose.

To learn more about how to use sunlight for your health -- and the dangers of not getting enough -- keep an eye out for my new book, Dark Deception, which is coming out shortly.

Related Articles:
What's the Most Dangerous Part of Sun Exposure?

Sunscreens Don't Provide the Protection They Claim

Daily Sunlight Can Keep Cancer Away
[articles.mercola.com]

Peace and Love..........John

Your best bet is a physical sunblock, titanium or zinc oxide... [www.drfuhrman.com]

just a physical block.. nothing else.... best

Paul

Sun lotion is just another scam perpetrated by the pharmaceutical companies.

What people do that actually have to spend long hours in the sun (agricultural workers, etc) is wear white colored long sleeve clothing. You'd think this would make you hot, but it actually keeps you cooler by keeping the radiation of the sun off your skin. And personally I use tights (ie long sleeved/panted, white colored wool/polyester/lycra) because they keep me even cooler by eliminating stagnant air pockets and allowing perspiration to evaporate directly off the skin (also, paradoxically seems to keep me warmer in the winter cause it doesn't retain water/ice and seems to give my body better feedback so it can better regulate on its own, but that's another topic).

Haven't quite worked out a good solution for my face yet (brimmed hats are no good for me because most of my hours outdoors are spent cycling at 15+ mph), but I've been considering a niqab...assuming the anti-Islamic witch hunters haven't made them illegal yet.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2012 04:47PM by ExperimentsWithTruth.

In very hot weather (heat waves) I like linen fabric to keep cool and I prefer long sleeves and pants. In the area I live, one can only obtain vitamin D from march-sept, IIRC. I read a book called the vitamin D solution which provides this info for each area in the U.S. I no longer take vitamin D pills because vitamin D from the sun is thought to have 5 cofactors that aren't available in any pill.

"vitamin D from the sun is thought to have 5 cofactors that aren't available in any pill."

I don't trust pills. Do you have more information about that? I'd love to share it!

I read it in the book - The Vitamin D Solution.

I try not to burn while having faith that my healthy lifestyle will prevent cancer. I also don't want to be too wrinkly when I get older. Vanity is a very powerful sun-block on its own. That's all I can do. Drug store sunblock feels weird to me.

what do u think of Jason's sunblock ( 45 SPF)

i sometimes get their toothpaste because it tastes great and its all natural and etc. etc.

so i thought the sunblock might be the same

lo and behold, the only thing that had a common name was aloe

all the other stuff seemed like it came out of a chemistry lab

but that doesn't necessarily mean it is "bad" per se

cuz every thing is a chemical... just take a broccoli for example
there are a lot of chemicals inside of it that are its basic components and are "good"

so, i was wondering what people thought about jason's sunblock

the one that says "sport natural sunblock" 45 spf

that was the one that was on sale ( half price)

and like i said

i sometimes get their toothpaste which is pretty darn clean ingredients

so i wasn't really thinking that their sunblock would be so far out

but its kind of on a different realm

i've seen a lot cleaner sunblocks

but maybe its cuz i'm just too lazy to look up each and every single ingredient in this jason thing

cuz i like it when i recognize mostly all the ingredients

truth be known though

it smells pretty good

oh yeah, here is the link to its ingredients for the jason sunblock i was talking about

[www.swansonvitamins.com]

please nitpick and tell me the low down of anything that grabs your radar

as being something i should be aware of

i hear that aloe vera is a good sunblock or kind of a good thing in general if you are out in the sun

any other advice concerning natural sunscreens ( though i also here that its no substitute for all that other stuff like the zinc and titanium dioxide etc.)

This is what apparently happens when you drive a truck for 28 years and only one side of your face is consistently exposed to the sun. [estaticos02.cache.el-mundo.net]

Coconut oil has a natural spf of like a 4. I use coconut & castor oil on my face (google "oil cleansing method" ) daily. Before my daily runs I slap a little C.O. on my arms and shoulders & wear a hat & sunglesses to keep the wrinkles at bay.

Direct DNA damage

[en.wikipedia.org]


"Sunscreen and melanoma

A study by Hanson suggests sunscreen that penetrates into the skin and thereby amplifies the amount of free radicals and oxidative stress [5] contributes to the formation of melanoma, but this idea has not been validated by other researchers.


Effect of topical sunscreen and effect of absorbed sunscreen

The direct DNA damage is reduced by sunscreen. This prevents sunburn. When the sunscreen is at the surface of the skin, it filters the UV-rays, which attenuates the intensity. Even when the sunscreen molecules have penetrated into the skin, they protect against the direct DNA damage, because the UV-light is absorbed by the sunscreen and not by the DNA."

I wear a moisturizer with SPF on my face every day. Jane Iredale brand.

I don't normally put anything on other parts of my body, even for running outside, unless I'm going to a beach or going to have 1.5+ hours of exposure.

I love the sun.

Smiles may cause more wrinkle lines, too, but that ain't stopping me from showing my happiness.

i prefer not to use anything topical due to all the questionable ingredients out there

in the summer if im out running about its all white and light materials , floppy hat an sunglasses and it works for me

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Yeah, I do similar Jodi, but I reckon that if you brown up gradually you won't need anything IMO. After all, isn't that's why we turn brown, to protect us from burning, where the real damage is done???

Cheers, jalan

If only the ozone layer was not as damaged as it is, if only our natural immunity was not compromised by stress, pollution, and nutritionally depleted produce, if only we weren't a few generations down the line living under those conditions. Then I'd feel OK about using a tan to protect my skin from sunburn. Can't travel back in time though so for now it's natural sunscreen, covering up, and staying out of direct sun.

I've always said that the sun does not cause skin cancer; it the the sun reacting to toxins on the skin that causes skin cancer.

I work outside as a farmer, and as was already stated, I use long sleeved white shirts and light colored long pants and wide brim hats.

utopian life

what's the jane iredale brand u use

what's the ingredients

Research has now shown that Vitamin D can help prevent 16 forms of cancer by up to 83%.

It has also been proven that Sunscrean blocks the good UVB rays (280 – 320 nm), but is designed so it allows the cancer causing UVC and UVA rays to get into the skin. With the introdcution of sunscrean came an explosion of melanomas. Just a coincidence? So yes, besides from the chemicals used in sunscrean, it does more harm than good because it does NOT stop the harmful rays of the sun, but it also stops the body from making vitamin D3, and if we don't supplement we risk getting cancer (see top sentense of this post).

Anothger problem is the northern and southern hemisphere people at roughly 40 degree latitude don't get vitamin D from the sun during cooler months when the sun is below a 50 degree angle.

Another problem is when we shower everyday. Showering everyday washes off the oils which helps us to make CALCIDIOL 25(OH)D3 which we then convert to CALCITRIOL 1,25(OH)2D3.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/22/2012 06:56PM by The Sproutarian Man.