If you love to be tanned all year, then keep reading! As you know, sun exposure in small amounts is essential for good health. You need it to ensure you maintain adequate vitamin D levels. However, excessive sun exposure can increase your risk of skin cancer.
I am writing this article, because I want you to understand just how serious skin cancer is! My father died very young because of a malignant melanoma, the most serious type of skin cancer.
He was a healthy, athletic person who loved the sun. I miss him everyday. It is my hope that the information provided here will help to keep you and your skin healthy.
I will describe some tips and some supplements that can help to prevent skin cancer:
1. Screening and early diagnosis. Visit your Dermatologist to check your moles and skin. Early detection is key!
2. Don’t use tanning beds. Tanning beds emit UV radiation levels up to six times higher than the midday summer sun!
3. Use sunscreen. Today, you will find hundreds of brands with all different ingredients and formulations (including organic and mineral). So, there is no excuse to not use one. Make sure you put one on even when you’re not going to be exposed to direct sun. You get sun exposure even when you’re driving in your car.
4. Include fruits and vegetables with apigenin. “Eat onions, broccoli, celery and tomatoes, as well as fruits including apples, cherries and grapes. All contain apigenin, which may help prevent melanoma from forming,” notes the University of Maryland Medical Center.
5. Drink red wine. Red wine contains a flavonoid called resveratrol, which can help prevent cancer according to University of Maryland Medical Center.
6. Use tumeric. I love this spice, because it has numerous benefits. Just sprinkle tumeric in your food for flavor, color and cancer protection.
7. Eat food with carotenoids. Yellow and orange foods like carrots, sweet potatoes and cantaloupe are rich in carotenoids, which is a precursor to vitamin A. Vitamin A is a powerful antioxidant known to help prevent some forms of cancer.
8. Add these foods into your diet too. Some studies suggest to eat flaxseed, kale, blueberries, watercress, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower to help prevent melanoma and other cancers.
9. Drink coffee. My favorite! “It’s possible coffee’s antioxidant effect helps to protect against skin cancer,” says Ernest L. Abel, Ph.D., professor of OB-GYN at Wayne State University School of Medicine. “But part of it may be that people who drink a lot of coffee tend to stay indoors more.
10. Supplement with Vitamin D3. There are over 3,500 PubMed articles on Vitamin D3 and cancer, including over 80 clinical trials that indicate vitamin D3 can help to prevent cancer.
11. Consider supplementing with powerful nutrients and antioxidants. Lycopene, CoQ10, alpha lipoic acid and green tea extract have all been shown to help protect the body from this type of cancer.
All in all, if you take nothing else away from this article, please use sunscreen, do not over expose yourself to the sun and live as healthy as possible. I’m very pale and I like a very tan look, but I stay out of the sun and use self-tanners instead. I will follow-up with an article about self-tanners soon!
I also want to dedicate this article to a very close and important friend of mine whose mother was diagnosed with melanoma and asked me for this information.
References:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/melanoma/DS00439
http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/skin-cancer-000029.htm
http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/13/6/1042.full
http://www.livestrong.com/article/469199-foods-that-help-prevent-melanoma/#ixzz2Ru4z0s21
