Friday, July 22, 2011

Food For Thought - Sun Exposure and Skin Health

 An interesting article on MDA.....natural ways to  improve sun protection and avoid over exposure and burns.



Heading into the dog days of summer I realized that I have yet needed to use sunscreen this season. My time spent outside has not changed from previous years and has probably increased now that I cycle commute. I have yet to get a burn despite some serious sun exposure of late both on the bike and while painting my mother's house.

Now that I think about it I was recently up four tiers of scaffolding on a hot day with the sun to my back. It was quite hot and I remember thinking how I should have had some sun screen. Not only did I not get burnt but my exposed skin was not even tender? Go figure?

So looking at the list of natural protective agents I notice that I consume many of them. I have cut back on my fruit consumption this season so berries have become more prevelant in my diet, specifically blueberries. Not only are they produced locally (in abundance) but they freeze well. I have been eating them frozen by the handfuls as a cool snack on hot days and thawed with coconut milk/cream sprinkled with cinnamon.

One of my major avoidances in my WOE are industrial oils.I consume little O6 pufas but continue to get O3 from cold water fish and mussels. I have increased SFA in my diet through the continued use of coconut(meat, milk and oils), beef/pork/lamb and, more recently, good sources of dairy fat; butter, heavy cream and high fat (unsweetened) yogurt.

I also consume red wine on a daily basis -a minimum of a glass with an evening meal. Interestingly I don`t drink much green tea as I find it too astringent for my tastes but discovered Rooibos tea this past Spring. Touted by South Africans for it`s healthy properties I assume it imparts many of the benefits of both green and white teas? A Google search and I found this......

"The ability of Rooibos to act as "chemopreventors" in skin cancer was highlighted in an article published in 2005, as the result of the work of a South African research team. They showed that topical (external) application of the tea fractions significantly suppressed tumour growth in mice with skin cancer, when using processed and unprocessed Rooibos. Reference for supporting scientific article: Cancer Letters, 224, 193 - 202 (2005). "


A comment from another site......

".....for a lot of Rooibos tea drinkers, we are convinced that the benefits reach much further than what this article conveyed. It also has been demonstrated in a study to combat radiation from sun exposure....A study done in Japan indicates that Rooibos tea has fifty times the antioxidant properties of green tea. "


The Debate Over Sunscreen

There appears to be ongoing research that suggest the use of chemical sunscreens may actually increase the chance of skin cancers......perhaps a "solution being worse than the problem" scenario?


Go figure? Definitely food for thought? Might lead to another personal experiment since I am on vacation for the next two weeks. Stay tuned.......

1 comment:

Blogger said...

3 Studies SHOW Why Coconut Oil Kills Waist Fat.

The meaning of this is that you literally burn fat by consuming coconut fats (including coconut milk, coconut cream and coconut oil).

These 3 studies from major medicinal journals are sure to turn the conventional nutrition world upside down!