SPF Zero

Chemical Sunscreen Guide Gets It - Mostly

Chemical Sunscreen Guide Gets It - Mostly

Overuse Contributes to 105 Sunlight Deficiency Diseases

This is the fifth year the Environmental Working Group (EWG) has published a chemical sunscreen guide. Admittedly the guide gets better every year. For example, this year the EWG highlights the importance of sunlight in the production of vitamin D. The EWG correctly identifies problems with current chemical sunscreens, like the fact that many cause skin cancer, none prevent skin cancer, high SPF give a false sense of security, most disrupt normal hormonal function, and most are unsafe for your children. What did EWG's chemical sunscreen get right?

Chemical Sunscreens Do NOT Prevent Skin Cancer

"FDA is not aware of data demonstrating that sunscreen use alone helps prevent skin cancer." – U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), 2007

"Sunscreens were never developed to prevent skin cancer. In fact, there is no evidence to recommend that sunscreens prevent skin cancer in humans." — Zoe Diana Draelos, editor of Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology, 2010

"It is not known if protecting skin from sunlight and other UV radiation decreases the risk of skin cancer. It is not known if non-melanoma skin cancer risk is decreased by staying out of the sun, using sunscreens, or wearing long sleeve shirts, long pants, sun hats and sunglasses when outdoors." – National Cancer Institute, 2009

"The [sunscreen's] ability to prevent sunburns (as measured by SPF) probably does not imply the ability to prevent melanoma or basal cell carcinoma." (Autier 2009, British Journal of Dermatology).

Chemical Sunscreens May Cause Skin Cancer

"Even though more people use sunscreen than ever before, and products are improving in quality, the incidence of skin cancer in the United States and other countries continues to rise (Aceituno-Madera 2010, Jemal 2008, Osterlind 1992)." – EWG 2011 Chemical Sunscreen Guide

"Recently available data from an FDA study indicate that a form of vitamin A, retinyl palmitate, when applied to the skin in the presence of sunlight, may speed the development of skin tumors and lesions (NTP 2009). This evidence is troubling because the sunscreen industry adds vitamin A to 30 percent of all sunscreens." – EWG 2011 Chemical Sunscreen Guide

Too Little Sunlight Is Harmful

"Adding to the confusion is the fact that sunshine serves a critical function in the body that [chemical] sunscreen appears to inhibit — production of vitamin D. The main source of vitamin D in the body is sunshine, and the compound is enormously important to health – it strengthens bones and the immune system, reduces the risk of various cancers (including breast, colon, kidney, and ovarian cancers) and regulates at least 1,000 different genes governing virtually every tissue in the body (Mead 2008)." – EWG 2011 Chemical Sunscreen Guide

"Over the last two decades, vitamin D levels in the U.S. population have been decreasing steadily, creating a 'growing epidemic of vitamin D insufficiency' (Ginde 2009a)." – EWG 2011 Chemical Sunscreen Guide

Before heading to the beach or pool read the EWG 2011 Chemical Sunscreen Guide. You can find the guide at: http://breakingnews.ewg.org/2011sunscreen/.

Superfoods

Superfoods

Oh, You Mean Unprocessed Foods

Man is the only species who tries and usually fails to outsmart evolution. Brilliant chemists process foods in new and tasty ways, but nature gave us unprocessed foods for health and longevity. Today doctors and scientists are rediscovering the health benefits of unprocessed foods. The funny thing is many are now being called "superfoods," but in reality they are just ordinary foods—foods nature intended you to eat.

It turns out food and beverages that are good for your health are also good for your skin, which is your largest, most exposed organ. As you read the short and by no means inclusive list of "surperfoods" below, understand that a diet including these foods supports the health of your skin and your body as a whole. Unprocessed foods prolong youth and thwart skin cancer—things chemical sunscreens were never intended to do and can't do.

Water

Water is not technically food, but among other things, it transports nutrients to all of your organs, including your skin. You've heard you should drink eight, eight-ounce cups of beverage per day. There is no scientific basis for this recommendation, but like many things unproven, this too has become dogma¹.

The Institute of Medicine (IOM), the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences, recommends 3.7 liters per day (almost one gallon) of beverages for men and 2.7 liters (roughly 11 cups) for women, more for pregnancy and lactation². Any beverage, including your coffee, counts toward your daily water intake. Roughly 20% to 50% of your water comes from food, so according to the IOM, men should drink up to 12.5 cups, while women should imbibe nine cups per day. Do you find it curious and convenient that these high-volume recommendations came about after the push to sell bottled water?³

If you think these recommendations are outrageous and that there is no way you can drink that much liquid, you are right. Nature gave you mechanisms to determine if you are dehydrated—thirst, dry skin, dark urine color, muscle and joint pains, and low energy⁴. If you are thirsty, have dry skin, or urinate dark yellow, consume more beverages. If you are constantly achy and lethargic, drink more beverages. It's that simple.

Consider adding one additional cup per day to your routine. In one week, evaluate how you feel. Is your skin moister? Do your joints and muscles ache less? Are you more energetic? Add another beverage per day to your routine if you see improvement but are not yet asymptomatic. Forget the one-size-fits-all daily intake of water. There are too many variables, and no one really knows what your daily intake should be. Let nature and your body be your guide.

Berries

Berries, especially blueberries, are packed with antioxidants and phytoflavinoids. They lower your risk of heart disease and cancer, and they are also anti-inflammatory⁵. "Inflammation is a key driver of all chronic diseases, so blueberries have a host of benefits," says Dr. Ann Kulze, MD, of Charleston, S.C., author of Dr. Ann's 10-Step Diet, A Simple Plan for Permanent Weight Loss and Lifelong Vitality. The richer the color, the more antioxidants your berries have.

Vegetables

Broccoli, bok choy, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts contain the powerful cancer fighter brassinin⁶. Try to eat one of these three times a week.

Omega-3 Fatty Acid

Omega-3 Fatty Acid is well known for its health-deriving properties^{7 8 9}. We are told wild salmon is the best source of Omega-3s and vitamin D, but that is incorrect. Salmon are carnivores, and suggesting hundreds of millions of people eat salmon three times every week is irresponsible and unsustainable. If lions and cheetahs were high in Omega-3s, would you recommend eating them?

Pasture-fed, organic beef, chicken, and turkey, as nature intended, are high in Omega-3s¹⁰ and are a sustainable source of protein. Eggs from free-range, pasture-fed chickens are high in Omega-3s as well. Insist your grocer carry locally grown, pasture-fed organic meat and eggs.

Tea

White, green, and black teas are all high in cancer-fighting antioxidants^{11 12 13 14 15}. There is evidence that green and white teas contain a higher quality antioxidant known as Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). To maximize the cancer-fighting benefit, dunk your teabag or stir your loose tea for ten seconds, about the time it takes to sing one verse of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." Then let it steep for two to three minutes.

If you can't stomach green or white tea, then black tea will do just fine. Sweeten, if necessary, with no-calorie natural sugar made from the stevia plant instead of honey, maple syrup, cane sugar, or artificial sweeteners. Replace all your sodas and fruit juices with tea to fight cancer and for the added benefit of reducing caloric intake.

Tomatoes

Tomatoes have cancer-fighting lycopene¹⁶, and heating the tomato makes the lycopene benefits more readily available to your body. Lycopene also reverses photo-aging effects of UV overexposure¹⁷. Enjoy pizza with tomato slices cooked on top and pasta with plenty of tomato sauce.

Dark Chocolate

Dark chocolate is high in flavonol antioxidants and low in sugar. Flavonol antioxidants may improve DNA resistance to oxidative stress¹⁸. This is not a license to eat more foods made with dark chocolate. Remember: Everything in moderation.

Nature gave you tools to fight oxidative stress from the sun, pollution, exercise, anguish, and living in general. A diet rich in unprocessed foods, high in antioxidants, Omega-3s, and other phytonutrients gives your body the resources it needs to keep your skin young and cancer free.

"No other method to prevent cancer has been identified that has such a powerful impact."

—Dr. Cedric Garland, vitamin D expert

¹ "Drink at least eight glasses of water a day." Really? Is there scientific evidence for "8 × 8"? by Heinz Valdin, Department of Physiology, Dartmouth Medical School, Lebanon, New Hampshire.

² http://iom.edu/Activities/Nutrition/SummaryDRIs/~/media/Files/Activity%20Files/Nutrition/DRIs/Total%20Water%20and%20Macronutr.pdf

³ http://www.factsmart.org/h2o/h2o.htm

⁴ http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/dehydration/DS00561/DSECTION=symptoms

⁵ "Therapeutic potential of inhibition of the NF-κB pathway in the treatment of inflammation and cancer." Yamamoto and Gaynor 107 (2): 135 -- Journal of Clinical Investigation.

⁶ Mehta, Rajendra G., et al. (1994). "Cancer chemopreventive activity of brassinin, a phytoalexin from cabbage". Oxford Journals, Carcinogenesis,Volume16, Issue 2: 399-404.

⁷ Augustsson, Katarina, et al. (2003). "A prospective study of intake of fish and marine fatty acids and prostate cancer". Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention 12 (1): 64–67.

⁸ De Deckere, E. A. (1999). "Possible beneficial effect of fish and fish n−3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in breast and colorectal cancer". Eur J Cancer Prev 8 (3): 213–221.

⁹ Caygill, C. P., & Hill, M. J. (1995). "Fish, n−3 fatty acids and human colorectal and breast cancer mortality". Eur J Cancer Prev 4 (4): 329–332.

¹⁰ http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/food_and_environment/greener-pastures.pdf.

¹¹ Das, A., Banik, N. L., & Ray, S. K. (November 2009). "Flavonoids activated caspases for apoptosis in human glioblastoma T98G and U87MG cells but not in human normal astrocytes". Cancer 116 (1): NA.

¹² Hsieh, T. C., & Wu, J. M. (October 2009). "Targeting CWR22Rv1 prostate cancer cell proliferation and gene expression by combinations of the phytochemicals EGCG, genistein and quercetin". Anticancer Research 29 (10): 4025–32.

¹³ Bettuzzi, S., Brausi, M., Rizzi, F., Peracchia, G., & Corti, A. (January 2006). "Chemoprevention of Human Prostate Cancer by Oral Administration of green Tea Catechins in Volunteers with High-Grade Prostate Intraepithelial Neoplasia: A Preliminary Report from a One-Year Proof-of-Principle Study".

¹⁴ Qiao, Y., Cao, J., Xie, L., Shi, X. (September 2009). "Cell growth inhibition and gene expression regulation by (-)-epigallocatechin-3-gallate in human cervical cancer cells." Archives of Pharmacal Research 32 (9): 1309–15.

¹⁵ Philips, B. J., Coyle, C. H., Morrisroe, S. N., Chancellor, M. B., & Yoshimura, N. (August 2009). "Induction of apoptosis in human bladder cancer cells by green tea catechins." Biomedical Research 30 (4): 207–15.

¹⁶ Giovannucci, E., Ascherio, A., Rimm, E. B., Stampfer, M. J., Colditz, G. A., & Willett, W. C. (1995). "Intake of carotenoids and retinol in relation to risk of prostate cancer." J. Natl. Cancer Inst. 87 (23): 1767–76.

¹⁷1 Di Mascio, P., Kaiser, S., & Sies, H. (1989). "Lycopene as the most efficient biological carotenoid singlet oxygen quencher." Arch. Biochem. Biophys. 274 (2): 532–8.

¹⁸ Spadafranca, A., Martinez, Conesa C., Sirini, S., & Testolin, G. (Nov 2009). "Effect of dark chocolate on plasma epicatechin levels, DNA resistance to oxidative stress and total antioxidant activity in healthy subjects." Br J Nutr. 5 (11): 1–7.

The 8 Cups a Day Myth

Really? Is There Scientific Evidence for That?

Water, among other things, transports nutrients to all of your organs, including your skin. You've heard you should drink eight 8-ounce cups of water per day. There is no scientific basis for this recommendation but like many things unproven this too has become dogma¹.

The Institute of Medicine (IOM), the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences, recommends 3.7 liters per day (almost one gallon) of beverage for men and 2.7 liters (roughly 11 cups) for women, more for pregnancy and lactation². Any beverage, including your coffee, counts towards your daily water intake. Roughly 20% to 50% of your water comes from food so according to IOM men should drink up to 12.5 cups while women should imbibe 9 cups per day. Do you find it curious and convenient that these high-volume recommendations came about after the advent of bottled water³?

If you think these recommendations are outrageous and there is no way you can drink that much liquid you are right. Nature gave you mechanisms to determine if you are dehydrated – thirst, dry skin, dark urine color, muscle and joint pains and low energy. If you are thirsty, have dry skin or urinate dark yellow consume more beverages. If you are constantly achy and lethargic drink more beverages. It's that simple.

Consider adding one additional cup per day to your routine. In one week evaluate how you feel. Is your skin moister? Do your joints and muscles ache less? Are you more energetic? Add another beverage per day to your routine if you see improvement but are not yet asymptomatic. Forget the one-size-fits-all daily intake of water. There are too many variables and no one really knows what the daily intake should be. Let nature and your body be your guide.

____________________________

¹ "Drink at least eight glasses of water a day." Really? Is there scientific evidence for "8 × 8"? by Heinz Valdin, Department of Physiology, Dartmouth Medical School, Lebanon, New Hampshire

² http://iom.edu/Activities/Nutrition/SummaryDRIs/~/media/Files/Activity%20Files/Nutrition/DRIs/Total%20Water%20and%20Macronutr.pdf

³ http://www.factsmart.org/h2o/h2o.htm

Agents of Sunburn

Tequila Makes Your Clothes Fall Off

Have you ever sunburned, but didn't understand why? You remember not burning under similar conditions, but this time you inexplicably burned. The culprit could be your food, drink, drugs or cosmetics. Certain things you ingest or put on your skin can make you photosensitive.

For example, alcohol increases your sensitivity to sunlight. Drinking alcohol is like applying a negative SPF cream. Instead of allowing you to stay out in the sun longer without sunburn, alcohol shortens the time it takes to get sunburn. Drinking too much alcohol can also make you do foolish things like exposing too much of your body. Like the song says, "Tequila makes my clothes fall off." There are many photosensitizing drugs like alcohol.

The list of drugs that increase your sensitivity to sunlight is long and growing¹. If a drug drastically increases your sensitivity to sunlight it will have a warning on the bottle and in the product instructions. That is not the case with food and cosmetics. The level of photosensitivity ranges from mild to severe and varies from person to person. Here are some diseases, drugs, foods and cosmetics that typically increase sensitivity to UV from the sun or a sunbed:

• Acne medication like isotretinoin and acitretin
• Alcohol like the kind that makes your drunk
• Antibiotics like quinolones, tetracyclines and solfonamides
• Antihistamines like diphenhydramine
• Antimicrobials like chlorhexidine, hexachlorophene and dapsone
• Birth control pills containing estrogen
• Cardiac drugs like amiodarone, nifedipine, quinidine and diltiazem
• Chemotherapy drugs like 5-fluorouracil, vinblastine and dacarbazine
• Cholesterol drugs like cholestyramine, fluvastatin, lovastatin, simvastatin
• Diabetic drugs like sulfonylureas
• Diseases like albinism, atinie prurigo, dermatomysitis, lichen rubber, lung tuberculosis, lupus erythemotosum, melasma, photoallergic eczema, polymorphous light eruption, porphria, related allergies, rosacea, solar urticaria, sun poisoning, varix, vitiligo, xeroderma pigmentosum
• Diuretics like furosemide and thiazides
• Excessive exfoliation from alpha hydroxyl acids, salicylic acids, waxing, laser treatments and chemical peels
• Foods like carrots, celery, citrus fruit, clover, dill, eggs, figs, garlic, ginko biloba, wheat, barley, mustard, onions, parsley, parsnips, Saint John's Wort, and smartweed²
• Fragrances like 6-methylcoumarine, coumarin, musk ambrette and ethereal oils; bergamot, cedar, citron, lavender, lemon, lime, rosemary, sandalwood, vanilla
• Malaria medications like quinine, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine
• Medicine psoralens like methoxsalen, 5-methoxypsoralen and trisoralen
• Pain killers like nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and celecoxib
• Psychiatric drugs like phenothiazines and tricyclic antidepressants
• Retinoids like retinoic acid, retinol (vitamin A) and retinaldehyde

When spending time in the sun or a sunbed avoid photosensitizing agents. Conversely, if you are unable to avoid photosensitizing agents adjust your UV exposure to avoid sunburn. Certainly, if you have a disease that makes you sensitive to UV then minimize your exposure altogether. In some circumstances you may not know you've ingested or applied a photosensitizing agent. If you find yourself inexplicably sunburn, even when you've taken precautions to avoid it, consider you may be victim of a photosensitizing agent.

"Excessive avoidance and UV screening is a danger because it does not allow a tan, nature's own sun block, to develop and as a result exposure is likely to cause sunburn."

~ Sam Shuster, Author, "The Skin Cancer Cover-up," and Professor Emeritus, Department of Dermatology, Newcastle University

______________________

¹ http://www.medicinenet.com/sun-sensitive_drugs_photosensitivity_to_drugs/page5.htm.

² http://www.ncradiation.net/Tanning/documents/medlist-1.pdf.

Virtual Escapism

You Are What You Don't Do

Dr. Leonard Sax, in his book Boys Adrift, makes a compelling argument that boys and many girls are trading real-world activities like sports, community and academics for the virtual escape of video games. Virtual escapism is rampant in technological societies.

As of this writing:

• There are 1,094,770,000 hardware gaming systems in homes across the world¹.
• Nine of the top ten paid and eight of the top ten free iPhone applications are games².
• Over 12 million people subscribe to just one online game World of Warcraft³.
• 80% of U.S. homes have a computer with 92% of them connected to the internet⁴.

Besides making technological societies soft and indolent, virtual escapism has detrimental health consequences. The obvious consequence is obesity from insufficient physical activity and excess consumption. One of the less obvious consequences results from spending too much time indoors. Avoiding the sun causes your skin to lighten and become thin. Thicker darker skin is your natural defense against sunburn and skin damage. Without this defense you are more susceptible to sunburn and skin damage when you do go outside or go on vacation to that sunny destination.

Put down the game controller for twenty minutes, grab your friends and family and go for a walk. Next week pick one day to be video-game free. When was the last time you had a picnic? You like picnics, remember. Only in the last forty years of the information and technology age have you shunned the sun. Nature intended for you to get fresh air, clean water, diverse food and non-burning sunshine. Little by little get back to nature. Leave the chemical sunscreen at home.

"Studies suggest that some of the most popular video games are disengaging boys from real-world pursuits."

~ Dr. Leonard Sax, MD, PhD

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http://www.vgchartz.com/hardware_totals.php.

² iPhone App Store, April 19, 2011.

³ "World of Warcraft subscriber base reaches 12 million worldwide". Blizzard Entertainment Press Release Oct 7, 2010. http://blizzard.com/en-gb/company/press/pressreleases.html?101007.

⁴ "An Overview of Home Internet Access in the U.S.", Nielsen Company, December 2008. http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/overview-of-home-internet-access-in-the-us-jan-6.pdf.

Cognitive Dissonance

Are aliens coming to get you?

How do you reconcile information that is inconsistent with your beliefs? You might expect rational people to change their beliefs. The truth is you are biased to your opinion, regardless of contrary evidence. This dissonance results in rejecting the inconsistent information, seeking like-minded support, and attempting to persuade others in order to restore consonance. In other words, once you have drunken the Kool-Aid you reject it is poison, seek comfort with other Kool-Aid guzzlers and persuade non-believers and agnostics to swallow the Kool-Aid.

Sun Scare believes the sun and sunbeds are inherently bad, sun avoidance is safe and chemicals can protect you from skin cancer. These beliefs have taken on a cult-like life of their own. The massive wealth of contrary evidence has only strengthened Sun Scare's resolve. Not unlike the religious order that believed aliens would come to destroy the earth and rescue the believers. When the aliens did not arrive and the earth was not destroyed the believers restored consonance by changing interpretation of the data, convincing more non-believers and growing membership even larger¹. This explains how, despite the available and mounting contrary evidence, the Sun Scare cult continues to attract believers.

Look at the dissonance of chemical sunscreen:

• Does not prevent skin cancer

"The evidence is insufficient to recommend sunscreens for the prevention of skin cancer."

~ U.S. Preventive Services Task Force

• Interrupts normal hormonal function causing fish to change gender² and men to produce less testosterone³
• Responsible for killing coral reefs⁴
• Generates more free radical damage than it prevents⁵
• May cause melanoma cancer, the most deadly form of skin cancer⁶
• Promotes skin aging⁷

"Most sunscreen chemicals are far from innocuous. In sunlight, some release free radicals that can damage DNA and cells, promote skin aging and possibly raise risks for skin cancer. Some act like estrogen and may disrupt normal hormone signaling in the body. Others may build up in the body and the environment."

~ Environmental Working Group

• Overuse has contaminated 97% of Americans with Oxybenzone the leading sunscreen chemical⁸
• Blocks 95% of your natural vitamin D production contributing to the vitamin D deficiency epidemic⁹

You're biased to your opinion. It's your nature. If you've already drunken the Sun Scare Kool-Aid there may be no hope for you. You will justify and reconcile the facts to coincide with your belief paradigm – the aliens are coming. However, if your intuition is telling you the Sun Scare message is not natural then there is hope. Nature got it right; you need sunshine like you need food, air and water. Never sunburn.

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."

~Joseph Goebbe

________________________________

¹ Festinger, L. (1956). When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of A Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World, by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter. Harper-Torchbooks, Jan. 1956. ISBN 0061311324

² Kunz PY, Galicia HF, Fent K. 2006. Comparison of in vitro and in vivo estrogenic activity of UV filters in fish. Toxicol Sci 90(2): 349-361.

³ SCCNFP (Scientific Committee on Cosmetic Products and Non-Food Products). 2001. Opinion on the Evaluation of Potentially Estrogenic Effects of UV-filters adopted by the SCCNFP during the 17th Plenary meeting of 12 June 2001. Opinion: European Commission - The Scientific Committee on Cosmetic Products and Non-Food Products Intended for Consumers.

⁴ Danovaro R, Bongiorni L, Corinaldesi C, Giovannelli D, Damiani E, Astolfi P, et al. 2008. Sunscreens cause coral bleaching by promoting viral infections. Environmental health perspectives 116(4): 441-447.

⁵ Hanson, KM; Gratton, E; Bardeen, CJ (2006). "Sunscreen Enhancement of UV-induced Reactive Oxygen Species in the Skin". Free Radical Biology and Medicine 11 (8): 1205.

⁶ Hanson, KM; Gratton, E; Bardeen, CJ (2006).

⁷ Hanson, KM; Gratton, E; Bardeen, CJ (2006).

⁸ Calafat AM, Wong L-Y, Ye X, Reidy JA, Needham LL. 2008. Concentration of the sunscreen agent, benzophenone-3, in residents of the United States: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2003-2004. Environmental health perspectives 116: Available online March 21, 2008.

⁹ Holick, Michael, PhD, MD (2010). "The Vitamin D Solution". Penguin Books Ltd.

Too Little Too Much

The duality of sunshine

A critical thinker would ask why have humans spent the last six million years evolving under the sun and only in the last forty years has it been necessary to avoid it especially with chemical sunscreen. Cosmetic dermatologists advocate avoiding the sun to prevent skin cancer – a mostly non-fatal disease easily cured. Melanoma's cause, the most deadly and rarest skin cancer, is still a mystery. In exchange you put yourself at risk for 105 sunlight deficiency diseases including heart disease, diabetes, multiple sclerosis and most forms of cancer.

The chart above approximates the most likely risk of receiving too little or too much UV from the sun or a sunbed. The bases for this chart is the 105 diseases and more than 400,000 premature American deaths associated with sunlight deficiency and the three diseases and less than 12,000 premature American deaths associated with frequent overexposure or sunburn. The obvious conclusion: receiving too little sun is a much greater risk than receiving too much.

It is easy to know if you are receiving too much sunlight. Nature has built in a mechanism that tells you to get out of the sun – sunburn. How do you know if you are receiving too little sunlight? One method is to determine if you have symptoms of sunshine deficiency. Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD is a form of depression related to too little sunshine, for example. Waiting to become symptomatic may be too late, especially if being diagnosed with colon, prostate, ovarian or breast cancer is the symptom.

Another method is to test for 25-hydroxyvitamin D or 25(OH)D in your blood. 25(OH)D is a hormone made in your liver from a photoproduct, cholecalciferol or vitamin D₃, made when your unprotected skin is exposed to the sun or a sunbed. A very small amount of cholecalciferol comes naturally from food. If you supplement with vitamin D₃ pills then this test will not determine if you are getting enough sunshine and missing out on the many other photoproducts your body makes from sunshine, like serotonin for example.

When tested, Australian cosmetic dermatologists score 13-14 ng/ml of 25(OH)D – severally sunshine deficient. Dr. Hollick at the University of Boston tested for 25(OH)D in indoor tanners and non-tanners and discovered indoor tanners have 90% more 25(OH)D than non-tanners. Primates living in the wild have 98% more 25(OH)D than even indoor tanners at 80-100ng/ml. Who is smarter when it comes to sunshine - cosmetic dermatologists or monkeys? Where will you get your sun exposure advice – nature or cosmetic dermatologists profiting from chemical sunscreen overuse?

"The danger of too much sun is minimal — the danger of too little sun is enormous."

~ Dr. Michael R. Eades

The New Tobacco

Bad guys wear white coats too

"You cannot have power for good without having power for evil too. Even mother's milk nourishes murderers as well as heroes." George Bernard Shaw is suggesting heroes may wear white coats, but they can still do evil.

It is now 1950s America, a black and white TV in every home and doctors make house calls. Laughter fills the air as The I Love Lucy show comes to a commercial break. The announcer begins:

"Time out for many men of medicine means just long enough to enjoy a cigarette. Because they know what a pleasure it is to smoke a mild good tasting cigarette, they're particular about the brand they choose. In a repeated national survey, doctors in all branches of medicine, doctors in all parts of the country were asked, 'What cigarette do you smoke, doctor?' Once again the brand named most was Camel. According to this repeated nationwide survey more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette."

Doctors and the AMA or American Medical Association were paid to represent tobacco as medicinal. In their book, Serpent on the Staff, Chicago Times reporters Howard Wolinsky and Tom Brune expose such unhealthy practices of the AMA and their 300,000 doctor members. You might dismiss their behavior as simple greed, but surely they didn't know the harmful effects of tobacco. Would you believe doctors continued to represent big tobacco six years after the U.S. Surgeon General's first warning appeared on a pack of cigarettes? Big tobacco was big business for the AMA and their doctor members.

Alright, fast forward to 2011. Today, you are lead to believe chemical sunscreens are safe because they are sold in stores and recommended, for profit, by doctors and trusted organizations like the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD). However, a recent U.S. Center for Disease Control study finds 97% of Americans, all ages from child to senior, are contaminated with Oxybenzone – the chemical found in 588 sunscreens, 172 facial moisturizers, 111 lip balms, and 81 different types of lipstick. Many of those products buy "seals of approval" from trusted organizations like the AAD, the Skin Cancer Foundation and the American Cancer Society.

Oxybenzone and other sunscreen chemicals behave like estrogens, disrupting normal hormonal functions of humans and animals. In lakes, where chemical-laden swimmers frequent, fish are jumping gender from male to female. Oxybenzone is also responsible for killing coral reefs.

Chemical sunscreens, contrary to popular belief, do not reflect sunlight harmlessly away. When sunlight strikes the sunscreen a chemical reaction occurs converting the energy into free radicals responsible for premature aging and DNA damage – which can cause, of all things, skin cancer.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, host of the Dr. Oz Show and professor of surgery at Columbia University, on national TV told viewers to put one ounce of chemical sunscreen on your face every day. That's more than two gallons of chemical sunscreen a year just on your face. I bet his sponsors loved that endorsement.

One study confirmed a significant decrease of testosterone in men who use sunscreen. Finally, chemical sunscreens block nearly all your vitamin D production contributing to hundreds of thousands of deaths from vitamin D deficiency diseases every year, like breast, colon, ovarian and prostate cancers. Whose health is Dr. Oz supporting; yours or Neutrogena?

In his book, Toxic Beauty, Dr. Samuel S. Epstein writes, "We are all playing Russian roulette with toxic-laden personal-care products that we apply to our skin and to the skin of our infants and children every day." I predict the media and medical community one day will tell you to avoid chemical sunscreen like you avoid tobacco or at least limit its use to sunburn prevention as it was intended.

Doctors recommended tobacco for profit as they recommend chemical sunscreen today for profit. Today as in the 1950s, many doctors are concerned more about profit than your health - making chemical sunscreen the new tobacco.

"Sunscreens were never developed to prevent skin cancer. In fact, there is no evidence to recommend that sunscreens prevent skin cancer in humans."

~Zoe Diana Draelos, editor of Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology, 2010

Your Family Tree

Have you met grandma E Huxleyi?

Way down your evolutionary tree is a phytoplankton emiliania huxleyi that has existed 750,000,000 years. In a laboratory experiment Dr. Michael Holick exposed these ancients to artificial sunlight and discovered they make ergocalciferol or vitamin D₂.¹ This proves the hormone vitamin d is ancient; you are an infant.

About 350 million years ago, give or take a few, your ancestors headed for terra firma – dry land. The ocean is a calcium bath but dry land has relatively little calcium. The sunshine vitamin became essential for vertebrates to make bones from scarce calcium sources.

It is generally believed that hominids separated from other primates about 4.2 – 8 million years ago.²³⁴ That is, the path to modern humans started about 6,000,000 years ago in Sub-Saharan Africa.⁵ Anatomically modern-appearing humans originated in Sub-Saharan Africa about 200,000 years ago.⁶

This is worth repeating – for 6 million years your ancestors were hunting and gathering under the Sub-Saharan African sun. You only left Sub-Saharan Africa about 70,000 years ago, minutes in evolutionary time.⁷ Except for the last ten decades most humans spent the last 10,000 years hunting and working the fields under the sun – mere seconds in evolutionary time.

Is it fair, given your history, to call sunshine a carcinogen – public enemy number one? How valuable is that classification when red wine, plutonium, salted fish and birth-control pills sit side by side on the same list? This kind of exaggeration is dangerous. Most become skeptical and eventually ignore the carcinogen classification as everything in sufficient quantity is bad for you.

Too much water in your lungs will cause you to drown. Drink too much water and your cells explode. Water intoxication is a painful agonizing death. Should you avoid water? Eat too much food and over time you risk cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Should you avoid food? Drink one glass of red wine for a healthy heart; drink a bottle for cirrhosis of the liver. Are you getting the picture?

Sun avoidance is the wrong message. You spent the last hundreds of thousands of years under the sun. You are attracted to the sun like you are attracted to food, air and water. This attraction is healthy, in moderation. Daily chemical sunscreen use is the wrong message. Sun enjoyment with sunburn prevention is the right message.

"For hundreds of thousands of years, man has lived with the sun: Our ancestors were outdoors far more often than indoors. We developed a dependence on sunshine for health and life, so the idea that sunlight is dangerous does not make sense. How could we have evolved and survived as a species, if we were that vulnerable to something humans have been constantly exposed to for their entire existence?"

~ Dr. Frank Lipman, internationally recognized expert in the fields of Integrative and Functional Medicine and practicing physician.

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¹ Holick, Michael, PhD, MD (2010). "The Vitamin D Solution". Penguin Books Ltd., P. 27.

² Goodman, M., Porter, C.A., Czelusniak, J., Page, S.L., Schneider, H., Shoshani, J., Gunnell, G., & Groves, C.P (June 1998). "Toward a phylogenetic classification of primates based on DNA evidence complemented by fossil evidence". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 9 (3): 585–598.

³ Purvis, Andy (29 June 1995). "A composite estimate of primate phylogeny". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 348 (1326): 405–421.

⁴ Jay Kelley (1994). "Evolution of apes". In Steve Jones, Robert Martin & David Pilbeam. Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution. Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press. pp. 223–230. ISBN 0-521-46786-1 (see pp229-230 for summary of DNA dating)

⁵ Feng-Chi Chen1, & Wen-Hsiung Li (February 2004). "Genomic Divergences between Humans and Other Hominoids and the Effective Population Size of the Common Ancestor of Humans and Chimpanzees". The American Journal of Human Genetics 68 (2): 444–456.

⁶ "Human Evolution by The Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program". Human Origins Initiative. Smithsonian Institution. http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/sap.htm. Retrieved 2010-08-30.

⁷ Wolman, David (2008). "Fossil Feces Is Earliest Evidence of N. America Humans" National Geographic

Is Your Doctor Above Average?

Someone's doctor finished at the bottom of the class.

The normal distribution is the limiting distribution of a random quantity which is the sum of smaller, independent random phenomena. In other words, some doctors are good, some bad, but most fall in the middle. According to one study¹ male doctors have an IQ range of 110-135 placing them all in the top quartile or among the top 25% of IQs. Sorry ladies, but the study did not include women doctors. That is good news, right? But what other factors contribute to the quality of your doctor?

Even Einstein believed creativity is more important than knowledge. The more educated you are the more your mind is confined to limited associations - shaped to conform. All this stifles creativity and your ability to improvise and invent. Is your doctor creative, can she think outside the proverbial box?

Is your doctor influenced by greed? The Journal of the American Medical Association claims doctors are bribed by pharmaceutical companies. Some bribes include luxurious vacations, tickets to shows and dinners, and others are small gestures, free samples and pens. Nevertheless, a doctor overtly or subtly feels obligated² to prescribe a particular medicine.

Of the top four smartest professions, doctors, lawyers, educators and engineers, doctors smoke more cigarettes³. In fact, doctors also smoke more than managers, financiers, scientists and social workers – all considered less intelligent based on IQ scores. Does your doctor smoke and what does that say about their decision making abilities? More important, do you believe your doctor or doctors in general are above average?

Lake Wobegon is the fictional world of Garrison Keillor where "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average." This fictional world aptly illustrates our tendency to see ourselves as above average and has been observed⁴ among drivers⁵, college students, parents, and doctors, among others. Your doctor, the doctor you see hocking pills on TV and the doctor who claims chemical sunscreens prevent melanoma are as likely to be below average as above.

"Exposing yourself to sunlight is the most important source of vitamin D. Sunlight is far more likely to provide you with your vitamin D requirement than food is."

~ Dr. Jack D'Angelo, The Richmond (New York) County Medical Society, as printed in a letter on getting adequate vitamin D titled, "Think of vitamin D as the sunshine vitamin" on Staten Island Live.

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¹ Hauser, Robert M. 2002. "Meritocracy, cognitive ability, and the sources of occupational success." CDE Working Paper 98-07 (rev). Center for Demography and Ecology, The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin. http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/cde/cdewp/98-07.pdf

² Cialdini, R. B. (2001). The science of persuasion. Scientific American, 284, 76-81.

³ 2006 to 2008 SAMHSA National Surveys on Drug Use and Health (NSDUHs).

⁴ Aronson, Wilson, Akert 2010, "Most of us have moderate to high self-esteem. Like the mythical residents of Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon, we need to believe that we are above average. For example, in a survey of a million high school students, only 2 percent stated that they were below average in their leadership ability (Gilovich 1991)", Social Psychology, 150: 9780138144579

⁵ Svenson, Ole 1981, "We are all less risky and more skillful than our fellow drivers", Acta Pyschologia, 47: 143-8