Should you be putting toxic chemicals into your skin to avoid sun exposure?
by Paul Fassa
Health Impact News
Recent Health Impact News articles [1] have disclosed the importance of sun exposure for good health. Yet mainstream media (MSM) and the pharmaceutical industry insist that direct sun exposure on skin is unhealthy, even dangerous and carcinogenic.
This fear of the sun has led medical researchers to develop a new compound that allows one to receive a tan without exposure to the sun. The compound hasn’t yet been tested in clinical trials yet, but it was featured in mainstream media reports including the BBC and Science online magazine [2]. The research is being led by David Fisher, a dermatologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
The researchers isolated a protein, salt-inducible kinase (SIK), which impedes melanin pigment production. Melanin pigments are produced by sunshine or tanning beds to create tanning.
Then they found a chemical compound that blocks SIK activity, allowing melanin pigments’ unrestricted growth with little or no sun exposure. So far they’ve had success with mice models and human skin samples saved from surgeries at producing real tans by simply applying the chemical compound. The researchers are looking forward to clinical trials with live humans next. (Source) [2]
This is Another Misguided Chemical Solution
It’s as though the only benefit of sunshine is a cosmetic tan, but sun exposure to skin should be avoided because the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays are bad for you. Dermatology plays this angle for its and the sunscreen makers benefit, and the media promotes this unhealthy misinformation.
This thrust is based on the false notion that sun exposure is hazardous to health, causing several different skin cancers, including the dreaded melanoma, the only skin cancer capable of spreading into vital organs.
But almost everyone wants to have a good tan that doesn’t look fake.
Conversely, Health Impact News publisher and editor Brian Shilhavy observed, during his several years in the Philippines organizing coconut growers to produce high quality coconut oil [3], that the Philippine leisure class frowned on tanning.
They even sought to whiten their skin and looked down on the majority of farmers and outdoor laborers who were well tanned. Yet those who engaged in constant outdoor activity with heavy sun exposure turned out to be healthy. Skin cancer among them was almost non-existent, according to Shilhavy.
It has also been this writer’s experience and observation from growing up in Miami, Florida during the 1950s and stationed at the Key West Naval Base during the 1960s. Construction workers usually worked with shirts off just like the kids who played outdoors all day during the summer. Even though sunburn was common, skin cancer was hardly known among these populations.
The Sun is Vital for Optimum Health, Not Just Tanning
The fact is that a good real tan from sun exposure on skin is an indication of adequate sunshine exposure for vitamin D and other health supportive benefits. Otherwise vitamin D3 cholecalciferol from sheep lanolin or fish oil are necessary to boost vitamin D levels, which provide a myriad of health benefits for strengthening the immune system and reducing cancer risk by an estimated 50 percent.
How does the sun prevent disease? There are two basic types of ultraviolet (UV) rays from the sun, UV-A and UV-B. Although UV-A can dry or burn your skin, UV-B rays initiate a process in the epidermis that begins a cascade of biochemical events with a type of cholesterol substance to create vitamin D3 that the liver and kidneys convert to 25-hydroxyvitamin or D(25-OHD), which we call vitamin D, which is vital for:
- Immune system, which helps you to fight infection.
- Proper muscle and nervous system function.
- Synthesizing calcium and phosphorous for bone matter.
- Optimum cardiovascular function.
- A healthy respiratory system.
- Cellular and tissue brain development.
- Overall anti-cancer effects, an estimated 50% risk reduction.
Although it is possible to supplement with 2,000 IU (international units) or more daily with vitamin D3 with cholecalciferol from sheep’s lanolin or fish oil, the sun’s vitamin D production is safer because its process shuts down automatically when blood levels of D(25 OHD) are optimum.
If you do use vitamin D3 supplements, it’s wise to compliment their metabolism with vitamin K2 and magnesium. One can potentially overdose vitamin D3 supplements and create a toxic effect. And synthetic pharmaceutical vitamin D2 is not recommended by holistic health experts at all.
Additionally there are other health benefits. A large part of tuberculosis (TB) sanatorium healing in Europe, prior to the pharmaceutical industry’s usurping the medical field, was sunlight exposure. Scientist Johanna Budwig used sun exposure as part of her highly successful healing protocol for cancer.
So if there is protection against cancer from vitamin D produced by the sun’s radiation on skin, just how is it that the sun creates cancer? Maybe it doesn’t.
Outspoken naturopathic Dr. Dave Mihalovic, ND, said this regarding the “sun causing cancer” disinformation:
“Those who have attempted to convince the world that the sun, the earth’s primary source of energy and life causes cancer, have done so with malicious intent to deceive the masses into retreating from the one thing that can help prevent disease.”
Even a highly regarded NYC dermatologist, Dr. Bernard Ackerman, turned against the faithful in his own field who insist that sunlight causes cancer, especially melanoma. Here are highlights from a 2004 New York Times interview of dermatologist Dr. Ackerman:
- The link between melanoma and sun exposure (dermatological dogma) is unproven.
- There’s no conclusive evidence that sunburns necessarily lead to cancer.
- There is no real proof that sunscreens protect against melanoma.
- There’s no proof that increased exposure to the sun increases the risk of melanoma. (Source) [4]
How to Avoid Toxic Sunscreens That Hamper Healthy Sunshine
Dermatologists and media reports promote heavy use of commercial sunscreens. According to EWG (Environmental Working Group) at least 75 percent of them contain hormone disruptors and carcinogens. So what’s the point of blocking healthy sunshine with toxic chemicals?
As one slowly develops a tan by getting out of the sun or tanning bed when the skin turns slightly pink and without severe sunburn, those dark melanin pigments gather to protect your skin even more as you tan.
All the while protective vitamin D is being manufactured and stored by the body. Perhaps those who are outdoors a lot are protected by vitamin D while those who stay out of the sun are not. Seems that way, doesn’t it?
Dr. Joseph Mercola, well tanned from visits to Hawaii and Florida as well as from one of his safe tanning beds [5] that contain electronic ballasts instead of EMF producing magnetic ballasts, explains why proper sun exposure is not responsible for the rise in melanoma cases.
Mercola also cites a study [6] that points out how indoor workers who experience more cases of melanoma may be the result of receiving sunlight only through glass windows, which block the vitamin D creating UV-B rays.
Another study [7] Mercola cites explains,”Paradoxically, outdoor workers have a decreased risk of melanoma compared with indoor workers, suggesting that chronic sunlight exposure can have a protective effect.”(Emphasis added) (Source) [8]
There is a sunscreen approach to ensuring you get the benefits of sun exposure without damaging your skin. It uses coconut oil, which screens mostly potentially damaging UV-A rays while permitting UV-B rays through to create vitamin D3 in your skin that is ultimately processed by the liver and kidneys to distribute throughout your body to strongly support overall health.
You can access a complete guide for DIY coconut oil sunscreen here:
