How to Get Natural Sun Protection by Eating the Right Foods

Eating orange things may help protect your skin from the sun. (Photo by Matt McGee)

Sun lotion and clothes may still the best guard against sunburn, but how about protecting your skin by eating the right foods?

Two nutrients proven to increase your skin's own sun protection are carotenoids and lycopene. Both can be absorbed from food or taken as supplements.

Carotenoids: the green and orange protectors

Carotenoids with molecules containing oxygen are known as xanthophylls, while unoxygenated carotenoids are known as carotenes. Xanthophylls are found in green leafy vegetables such as spinach and kale. Carotenes are found in vegetables and fruits such as sweet potatoes, carrots, pumpkins, mangos and apricots. Carotenes are also responsible for the orange color.

In a study by González et al., mice whose diets were enriched with lutein and zeaxanthin – two common xanthophylls – for two weeks had fewer negative effects from ultraviolet B irradiation. The more lutein and zeaxanthin they ate, the more protection they had. The results suggest that eating foods rich in these nutrients will provide at least some protection from the sun.

A meta-analysis by Köpcke & Krutmann concluded that beta-carotene is effective in protecting against sunburn and that time is important: the longer the duration of supplementation, the stronger the effect. A minimum of 10 weeks was needed to see results, and the protective effect increased with each additional month of supplementation.

Lycopene: the red avenger

Lycopene is found in red fruits such as tomatoes, red bell pepper and watermelon. Unlike many other fruits and vegetables, where the nutritional content is diminished through cooking, processing tomatoes actually increases the amount of bioavailable lycopene. Thus, tomato paste has much more lycopene than fresh tomatoes.

In the study mentioned here, people who consumed tomato paste had 33% more protection against sunburn compared to a control group after 12 weeks. The level of protection was equal to a sun protection factor (SPF) of 1.3, which is low compared to a good sunscreen but still quite significant. The daily amount was 55 grams (or five tablespoons) of tomato paste consumed with olive oil. It also boosted the level of procollagen in the skin, which suggests potential reversal of the skin aging process.

My personal experience

I've always burnt very easily in the sun thanks to my pale complexion, but lately I've noticed that for some reason I'm able to spend more time in the sun without sunscreen and not get sunburn. It could be simply because I've gotten older, but I haven't excluded the possibility that it may have something to do with my diet.

For example, there are claims about coconut oil – which I consumed quite liberally during my hight-fat diet – offering protection from the sun both topically and orally. However, to my knowledge there are no scientific studies to support these claims, unlike with carotenoids and lycopene.

I don't really eat that much green leafy vegetables, and apart from the occasional red palm oil, I don't think I get that much beta-carotene from my food. Thus, carotenoids probably don't play a big role in any skin-protecting effect my diet may have. Lycopene on the other hand just might, since I eat between 250 and 400 grams of crushed tomatoes daily. This would be equal to or more than the amount of lycopene consumed by the people in the tomato paste study.

Have you noticed skin protective effects from consuming carotenoids or lycopene? Drop a comment.

For more information on skin care, see these posts:

Hyaluronic Acid for Skin & Hair - Experiment Begins
Topical Vitamin C, Vitamin E & Ferulic Acid - Experiment Conclusion
How I Accidentally Grew Hair on My Left Temple with Retinol - Experiment Conclusion
Biotin Supplements for Hair & Nails - Experiment Conclusion

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Nature's Hair Growth Medicines: Korean Red Ginseng Extract vs. Tea Tree Oil

Korean red ginseng, also known as the real man's carrot. (Photo by Audrey)

My experiment with tea tree oil has now been going on for about two months. To recap, the idea is to find out whether tea tree oil has the potential to affect hair growth in humans through a claimed antiandrogenic effect. If tea tree oil really is antiandrogenic - that is, if it inhibits the effects of male sex hormones - then it should increase hair growth on the scalp and reduce it elsewhere.

To see whether it works, I've been patiently mixing drops of tea tree oil into sesame oil and rubbing the resulting mixture on my leg daily. As of yet, I haven't seen any difference between the hair growth of one leg and the other. Why, you ask? Well, several possible explanations come to mind.

The first one is that I simply haven't been doing it long enough. It could take up to six months to see real results. And I admit that on some days I've forgotten to put the stuff on my leg. Still, I would've expected to at least see the hairs growing thinner or shorter.

The second possibility is that the mixture is not being properly absorbed into my skin. This would mean that I've chosen a poor carrier oil. However, sesame oil is widely used for massage and is reputed to penetrate the skin easily.

The third explanation is that the mixture is too weak. Until now, I've added 6-8 drops of tea tree oil into a few tablespoons of sesame oil and mixed them together. There is very little information available on the right dosage for this kind of experiments, so the proportions are largely the result of guesswork.

Since the third explanation seems plausible enough, I'm going to turn the heat up and start rubbing the tea tree oil straight into my skin without the carrier oil. I know, people will warn you against doing that, saying it will irritate the skin, but they're being sissies and I'm getting impatient. Besides, maybe a little skin irritation is just what this experiment needs.

And that's not where the madness ends, dear readers. Since the tea tree oil bottle is quite small, I'm only going to apply the on one side of my leg. The other side of the leg will be treated with the Korean red ginseng extract I bought earlier, which has been shown to increase hair growth in mice. Korean red ginseng apparently isn't antiandrogenic, so the effect, if there is one, must be due to something else - perhaps its claimed capability to promote cell activity.

Thus, the hypothesis to be proved or disproved by this experiment is that

- topically applied tea tree oil will decrease body hair growth (but increase scalp hair growth)
- topically applied Korean red ginseng extract will increase hair growth anywhere

For the hypothesis to be correct, the side with the tea tree oil should grow less hair and the side with the ginseng extract should grow more hair. So far, it's not looking so great, but maybe upping the ante will do the trick.

I'm sure the Korean red ginseng extract - an alcoholic extract - is also supposed to be diluted with something to prevent irritation, but it's too late to be wasting precious time and energy on such meaningless matters. I'm going at this Cajun style.

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Increasing the Absorption of MSM with Vitamin C

Onions are a good source of sulfur. (Photo by Mullica)

I've been taking one teaspoon of the MSM - chondroitin - glucosamine combo daily to see whether it has any effect. The spesific effects I'm looking for are those mentioned in the study by Ronald Lawrence: increased hair growth, brilliance and thickness, and improvement in nail strength, thickness and appearance. All this after only six weeks. Imagine that.

I haven't noticed such effects just yet, but what I have most certainly noticed is the foul taste of this stuff. Apparently the taste comes from the sulfur, which is the main ingredient of this osteoarthritis-fighting, hair-growing, nail-thickening mixture. Sulfur is also the reason why things like onions are sometimes recommended for hair loss. There may be some logic to that, as at least one study suggests that onion juice is effective for alopecia areata.

To get this vile powder down my throat, I tried adding it to a spoonful of orange jam, which made the taste quite bearable. I've since then read claims that it should be taken with vitamin C to aid its absorption, though the validity of these claims is debatable. I haven't seen any actual references to studies done on how well MSM is absorbed with and without vitamin C, so the evidence seems to be purely anecdotal.

Still, since there's no harm in taking some extra vitamin C, I'm now mixing the MSM, chondroitin and glucosamine with water, into which I dissolve a 500 mg table of vitamin C The taste is very unnatural - nothing like onions, in case you were wondering - but I'm beginning to get used to it.

It seems that people who report positive effects are taking much more than 1,000 mg of MSM daily. As far as I know, overdosing is not really a problem. If there are no results after I've finished this expensive but small bottle, I think I'm going to try and find a cheaper source and increase the dosage.

Go to next post on this experiment

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