Get your summer on!
August 29, 2016 01:04 AM

August is already here! Make sure you take some time off to enjoy the weather. Winter comes much too quickly.

Get your daily recommended intake of Vitamin D

Vitamin D has potent anticancer properties. In fact it acts more as a hormone than a vitamin. Did you know that if you spend 10-15 minutes in the sun during peak hours without sunscreen, you will get 1000 international units of vitamin D? This website calculates the time you need to spend in the sun to get your daily recommended intake of vitamin D: http://zardoz.nilu.no/~olaeng/fastrt/VitD-ez_quartMED.html. To find your longitude and altitude coordinates, use this site: http://www.latlong.net/?lat=&lng=. You can see that if you have darker skin or if it’s cloudy out, you need longer sun exposure.

What about skin cancer? If you limit your sun exposure to 15 min without sunscreen during peak hours (11am-2pm), you shouldn’t burn. After that you can apply sunscreen. Speaking of sunscreen, how do you know that the one you use, is good for you?

Sunscreen choices

 

Out of all the brands, Neutrogena seems to stand out because it is rated the worse sunscreen on Environmental Working Group (www.ewg.org)! All sunscreens are rated on that site so take a look to see if yours is listed and how well it is scored. They also make an app, so add it to your smartphone.

Did you know that SPF greater than 50 doesn’t really show more protection? 80% of Neutrogena’s sunscreens contain oxybenzone which is a hormone disrupting ingredient. A derivative of vitamin A (retinyl palmitate, retinyl acetate, retinyl linoleate and retinol) is added to a lot of sunscreens and there is some research showing that this isn’t good for your skin, especially in high doses.

Overall, a mineral sunscreen is better than a chemical one. Mineral sunscreens contain zinc oxide and titanium dioxide which block the sun but when applied appears like a chalky white coating. It’s not very appealing to the eyes, but it’s healthier than the chemical ones (oxybenzone, Octinoxate (Octylmethoxycinnamate)).

Some good brands include: Green Beaver, Badger and Goddess Garden.

If you have any questions about your skin care line or if you want to make sure you have adequate vitamin D levels, do not hesitate to contact me at cecilia@drcecilia.ca