Is Sunscreen safe?

Lee Asked: "Yo yo, what’s your opinions on sun cream 🤣 I follow some health fitness people on Twitter and a lot of them say that sun cream is awful and you shouldn’t ever use it.

And then other people are like always put factor 50 on your face or it’ll f*ck your skin"

I tend to combine logic/common sense with science. Logic and Common sense aren't always backed up by science because they don't always lead to profits. The advice I'll give you here are all things that you can do for free.

Where it all starts

The Sun has been around for roughly 4.6 billion years

The Earth for roughly 4.5 billion years Life on Earth, roughly 3.5 billion years Homosapiens (you and I) roughly 200,000 years Suncream - roughly 70-80 years In terms of seniority evolution trumps suncream by a few billion years but let’s look at things a little deeper because, clearly the Sun can cause damage to your skin and overall health but it isn’t the Sun’s fault. It's just out there doing it's thing like it's been doing for a very long time.

It is us that has changed.

Suncream - is it really that awful?

The majority of Suncreams you’ll find on the shelves have known carcinogens - these are chemicals or products known to have Cancer causing effects - in them. Oxybenzone seems to be a big culprit - US and EU laws differ on how much (we’ve, in the EU, got the better end of the stick) but still we're told to slap on a bunch of cream to help prevent giving us skin Cancer only to increase our risk of getting another form of Cancer. Plus if you're applying it multiple times per day you're getting dose after dose after dose. Topical creams once absorbed through the skin get directly into the blood - they’re going to be processed by the Liver and Kidneys (hopefully) but at what price to the rest of the body? UV light is good for you.

The purpose of Suncream is to decrease the amount of UV light your body absorbs to enable you to spend longer in the Sun without getting burnt. That is it’s only purpose. It doesn't block UV light totally, that's why you can still get a tan and vitamin D whilst using it.

Benefits of UV light 1. UV light helps us to create vitamin D - vitamin D is an anti-oxidant, immune supporter, it keeps calcium and cholesterol in the right places - calcium in the wrong places could lead to heart attacks, arthritis, muscle tightness and pain. Cancer can take hold more easily when our immune system is supressed.

red blood cells - unclumped (not a real image of blood)

2. UV light is a vasodilator - UV light helps us to create nitric oxide - in turn this opens up our blood vessels allowing oxygen to more easily get into our cells, oxygenated cells don't malfunction as often. 3. UV light thins the blood - further helping oxygenation to the cells - thinner (less clumping) blood travels through the capillaries more easily delivering Oxygen more effectively. No or low oxygen in a cell can lead to cell malfunction or cell mutation = disease 4. Kills bacteria and viruses - helps to keep our skin clean and prevent the passing on of bugs via touch and if we were to have any cuts and grazes sunlight helps to keep them clean and heal faster 5. Helps to produce melanin - the skin pigament that acts like our internal suncream - if you prevent the UV light you prevent your natural defences. 6. Melanin is an antioxidant - antioxidants keep our body and immune system healthy

Serotonin is made here

7. Helps produce serotonin - widely known as a happy drug - helps prevent depression and anxiety. Serotonin - antioxidant. 8. Happy gut bacteria - did you know your gut bacteria change throughout the seasons depending on light exposure. This means you are more likely to heal/improve any gut problems, digest food better and make more effective use of the nutrition you're eating. There's no point having a super healthy diet if your gut bacteria can't extract the nutrition out of it because they don't get enough of the right light. 9. Serotonin, when it gets dark, gets converted into melatonin - not only will melatonin help you sleep it’s also an excellent antioxidant. Twice as effective as Vitamin E as an antioxidant.

10. UV light can help to clear up skin conditions like psoriasis and eczema.

Thyroid Gland

11. UV light protects the thyroid gland and helps us produce active thyroid hormone - better Energy, thyroid hormone is antioxidant, promotes cellular health (prevents disease)

When I started to realise all might not be right with Sun cream.

I was on holiday in Greece - Rhodes, Summer 2012 - I remember because it was the London Olympics while we were away we watched super Saturday in the Hotel Bar playing cribbage. I was using a sun cream at the time, i took SPF 15 and 30 with me on holiday. By day 3 or 4 into a 10 day holiday I had an incredible rash across the top of my chest and neck, it was so itchy and uncomfortable, it nearly ruined my holiday. I can't truthfully say that it was the sun cream that did it, the heat (it was 35+ degrees every day) or something else but for the rest of the holiday I couldn't expose my skin to the sun for long periods of time. Stuck in the shade feeling sorry for myself reading my kindle (not all bad) This is a reaction I'd never had before, I've been to Greece a few times, Iraq and Afghanistan all of them had hot temperatures up to 40 degrees and more. This was the first holiday where I really thought I was being smart with sun cream and using it regularly throughout the day. All of my other holidays prior to this I'd used sun cream but was in the shade more frequently and less in the midday heat. The sun cream may have been the cause, it may have been I was more confident, because I was wearing sun cream, and stayed out too long, overheating my body. I didn't burn at all in those first few days but I was out longer than I'd been before. It was a horrible experience and I've been wary of sun cream ever since - I've also not had a reaction like that ever since either despite being on other hot and sunny holidays but now I also know a lot more. I avoid a lot of the bad habits I had and make better choices too.

Why we might get sunburn more easily nowadays and why does it seem like the Sun is more dangerous than before.

Artifical light - sick environment

1. We spend most of our days indoors and when we do venture out it’s often at peak sun intensity. The light intensity of indoor lighting is vastly less strong than Sunlight which means our skin doesn't get the "training" it needs to produce the right chemicals to protect us. 2. We are dehydrated - dry cells will burn faster - just think about a BBQ, which would burn faster - dry coal or wood you’ve just chopped from a tree? 3. The reason we’re dehydrated is that sunlight turns water into a gel in our body and we don’t get enough sunlight. Water ingested without sunlight comes straight through the system and is not effective at getting the water to where it actually needs to be. 4. Sunglasses and UV protection coated glass, spectacles and contact lenses (this should probably be number 1) - when UV light hits our retina it triggers a chain of events, a cascade of neurochemicals, that help us produce melanin which gives us our internal sun protection. Always wearing sunglasses (or UV coated lenses) means your body never gets that message. Work around - pinhole glasses - they let much less light in but do not filter the light, your eyes and brain still recieve the right messages from the sunlight but at much lower intensity. 5. Circadian rhythm is out of whack - staying up late, not getting up early makes your pituitary gland a dull boy (or girl …..or nonbinary) - the pituitary gland produces MSH - melanin stimulating hormone. No MSH - No melanin - no internal protection. Not only is poor circadian rhythm not good for your skin health, if this is off then you're leaving yourself open to a whole host of potential problems, physically and mentally. Luckily taking your glasses off and seeing more daylight helps to repair that. 6. Lack of training - you can’t spend all of spring and winter inside and expect to come out in summer and tan like a Greek god. Get outside in spring, when sunlight intensity is much lower to build your defenses internally, early. 7. Blue light after sunset - this messes with your circadian rhythm and affects your hormone production, not to mention your sleep, recovery, moods and well, everything. Blue light in the morning is quite natural, it helps us get ready for the day, it elevates cortisol (stress hormones) - blue light after dark still elevates cortisol, your eyes don't know the difference - blue is a signal for wake up and get ready, redder is a signal for sleep/rest.

Belgua Whale

8. Skin tone - if you’re paler than a beluga whale then a) you’re producing a tonne of vitamin D in seconds - you lucky devil b) you don’t need to spend long in the Sun c) you’ve got more training to do if you want to spend longer in the Sun. If you have dark skin you’ve got to spend longer in the Sun to get your Vitamin D requirement - ricketts has been making a comeback in the UK and other Northern Countries due to lack of Vitamin D and that's effect on bone development. 9. Holidays - so you’ve spent spring time and early summer in England and now it’s time to go on holiday to Greece/Spain. Sunlight intensity increases by 1% for every 6 miles towards the equator you go (yep, just 6 miles) - travel 600 miles south and sunlight intensity has doubled. Travel 1200 miles south and it’s doubled again - that's 4 times stronger than where you were 4 hours ago before you stepped on the plane. If you could spend an hour in the Sun, at noon, in the UK then that's only 15 minutes in the south of Spain or Greece. Use the shade, get up early, see sunrise, use the pool/sea to cool off, cover up if you can’t get in the shade. The training you did in England helped but it hardly compares to sunlight farther south. 10. Altitude matters - the higher up you go the more UV you get - both good and bad - be aware that even if you’re on a winter holiday you may still need to seek the shade or cover up those exposed body parts especially at peak sunlight hours. Switzerland has the highest counts of skin Cancer in Europe i suspect largely due to their altitude and USE of suncream.

Light in a prism

11. We miss dawn - dawn is the earliest opportunity to get our hormones working for us, if you’re missing hours of early sunlight (that is mostly safe) then your body is trying to play catch-up and it doesn’t stand much chance. UV light only passes through the atmosphere to ground level after the sun is above 30 degrees from the horizon.

12. Air-conditioning - going from cold to hot, hot to cold - your body just doesn’t really know what’s going on. 1 second it’s spring time the next moment 40 degrees slaps you around the face. Give yourself a chance and avoid the air-con as much as possible especially if you're on holiday. So - should you wear suncream? You decide, I’ve made my decision. Burning your skin is NOT good but neither are the usual sun creams you get from high-street stores

Biggest takeaways from my perspective

Train your skin in the Spring as much and as often as you can - you still may need to avoid peak sunlight hours even in Spring in the UK.

NEVER wear sunglasses and take off contact lenses and spectacles where and when you can - they block important UV signals that help us to protect ourselves - anything that prevents us from doing what nature (evolution) intended is nearly always going to end with us losing. 1 exemption and there may be a couple of others - driving when it's sunny and there's glare off the road, it would be dangerous not to wear sunglasses. Cover up and seek shade and/or wear a hat - you don't have to sit in the sun all day to get a tan and your Vitamin D dose. Save yourself a ton of time by not wearing sunscreen, still get the tan, still get the Vitamin D and you'll have so much more time to do other fun stuff. If 15-20 minutes is all it takes then do that instead of SPF 15 which will: 1. put carcinogens in your body and 2. make it 15 times longer to create the same amount of vitamin D (225 minutes - 3 hrs 45 minutes) assuming you applied it as per instructions. Get out at Dawn and the first couple of hours of the day - sun intensity is far lower and UV index too. You still get all the benefits with much lower risk of negative side-effects your body chemistry has much more time to prepare and get melanin into the skin before peak hours.

Stay hydrated - dry stuff burns faster - if you keep your body hydrated effectively (think fruits and vegetables rather than tap water) then your cells will remain "wet" and less likely to burn so quickly. If you have access, use the sea or a pool use it, just like you would use a tap with running water with a burn at home. Cool off regularly. If you MUST be out in the sun and don't have access to shade or clothing to cover up then prepare with non-toxic sun creams - they exist, they are on the market and they aren't much more expensive - it's worth it.

If you like what you read then please take a minute to share this with a friend or on social media and leave me a message. Thank you for your time Cheers to your health Pete - Health Coach - Houchin

Send me your questions info@retrainpain.co.uk

p.s. another way you can strengthen your immune system and achieve improved healing is through red light therapy - get 10% off when you follow this link and use RETRAINPAIN at checkout. emr-tek.com/discount/RETRAINPAIN

p.s. you can also get some cool blue light blockers there to aid sleep and boost melatonin production.