What are ‘collarium’ sunbeds? Here’s why you should stay away
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Reports have recently emerged that solariums, or sunbeds – largely banned in Australia because they increase the risk of skin cancer – are being rebranded as “collarium” sunbeds (“coll” being short for collagen).
Commercial tanning and beauty salons in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria are marketing collariums, with manufacturers and operators claiming they provide a longer lasting tan and stimulate collagen production, among other purported benefits.
A collarium sunbed emits both UV radiation and a mix of visible wavelength colours to produce a pink or red light. Like an old-school sunbed, the user lies in it for ten to 20 minute sessions to quickly develop a tan.
But as several experts have argued, the providers’ claims about safety and effectiveness don’t stack up.
Why were sunbeds banned?
Commercial sunbeds have been illegal across Australia since 2016 (except for in the Northern Territory) under state-based radiation safety laws. It’s still legal to sell and own a sunbed for private use.
Their dangers were highlighted by young Australians including Clare Oliver who developed melanoma after using sunbeds. Oliver featured in the No Tan Is Worth Dying For campaign and died from her melanoma at age 26 in 2007.
Sunbeds lead to tanning by emitting UV radiation – as much as six times the amount of UV we’re exposed to from the summer sun. When the skin detects enough DNA damage, it boosts the production of melanin, the brown pigment that gives you the tanned look, to try to filter some UV out before it hits the DNA. This is only partially successful, providing the equivalent of two to four SPF.
Essentially, if your body is producing a tan, it has detected a significant amount of DNA damage in your skin.
Research shows people who have used sunbeds at least once have a 41% increased risk of developing melanoma, while ten or more sunbed sessions led to a 100% increased risk.
In 2008, Australian researchers estimated that each year, sunbeds caused 281 cases of melanoma, 2,572 cases of squamous cell carcinoma (another common type of skin cancer), and $3 million in heath-care costs, mostly to Medicare.
How are collarium sunbeds supposed to be different?
Australian sellers of collarium sunbeds imply they are safe, but their machine descriptions note the use of UV radiation, particularly UVA.
UVA is one part of the spectrum of UV radiation. It penetrates deeper into the skin than UVB. While UVB promotes cancer-causing mutations by discharging energy straight into the DNA strand, UVA sets off damage by creating reactive oxygen species, which are unstable compounds that react easily with many types of cell structures and molecules. These damage cell membranes, protein structures and DNA.
Evidence shows all types of sunbeds increase the risk of melanoma, including those that use only UVA.
Some manufacturers and clinics suggest the machine’s light spectrum increases UV compatibility, but it’s not clear what this means. Adding red or pink light to the mix won’t negate the harm from the UV. If you’re getting a tan, you have a significant amount of DNA damage.
Collagen claims
One particularly odd claim about collarium sunbeds is that they stimulate collagen.
Collagen is the main supportive tissue in our skin. It provides elasticity and strength, and a youthful appearance. Collagen is constantly synthesised and broken down, and when the balance between production and recycling is lost, the skin loses strength and develops wrinkles. The collagen bundles become thin and fragmented. This is a natural part of ageing, but is accelerated by UV exposure.
Katie Lee/UQ
The reactive oxygen species generated by UVA light damage existing collagen structures and kick off a molecular chain of events that downgrades collagen-producing enzymes and increases collagen-destroying enzymes. Over time, a build-up of degraded collagen fragments in the skin promotes even more destruction.
While there is growing evidence red light therapy alone could be useful in wound healing and skin rejuvenation, the UV radiation in collarium sunbeds is likely to undo any benefit from the red light.
What about phototherapy?
There are medical treatments that use controlled UV radiation doses to treat chronic inflammatory skin diseases like psoriasis.
The anti-collagen effects of UVA can also be used to treat thickened scars and keloids. Side-effects of UV phototherapy include tanning, itchiness, dryness, cold sore virus reactivation and, notably, premature skin ageing.
These treatments use the minimum exposure necessary to treat the condition, and are usually restricted to the affected body part to minimise risks of future cancer. They are administered under medical supervision and are not recommended for people already at high risk of skin cancer, such as people with atypical moles.
So what happens now?
It looks like many collariums are just sunbeds rebranded with red light. Queensland Health is currently investigating whether these salons are breaching the state’s Radiation Safety Act, and operators could face large fines.
As the 2024 Australians of the Year – melanoma treatment pioneers Georgina Long and Richard Scolyer – highlighted in their acceptance speech, “there is nothing healthy about a tan”, and we need to stop glamorising tanning.
However, if you’re desperate for the tanned look, there is a safer and easy way to get one – out of a bottle or by visiting a salon for a spray tan.
Katie Lee, PhD Candidate, Dermatology Research Centre, The University of Queensland and Anne Cust, Professor of Cancer Epidemiology, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Tranquility by Tuesday?
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I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make The Most of Their Time
This is Laura Vanderkam, author of “Tranquility By Tuesday” (amongst other books). Her “thing” is spending more time on what’s important, and less on what isn’t. Sounds simple, but she’s made a career out of it, so condensed here for you are…
Laura’s 7 Keys To Productivity
Key One: Plan your weeks on Fridays
You don’t want your Monday morning to be a “James Bond intro” (where everything is already in action and you’re just along for the ride, trying to figure out what’s going on). So, take some time last thing each Friday, to plan ahead for the following week!
Key Two: Measure what matters
Whatever that means to you. Laura tracks her use of time in half-hour blocks, and likes keeping track of streaks. For her, that means running daily and keeping a log of it. She also keeps track of the books she reads. For someone else it could be music practice, or a Duolingo streak, or eating fruit each day.
On which note…
“Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen” is simpler than most nutrition trackers (where you must search for everything you eat, or scan barcodes for all ingredients).
Instead, it keeps track of whether you are having certain key health-giving foods often enough to maintain good health.
We might feature his method in a future edition of 10almonds, but for now, check the app out for yourself here:
Get Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen on iOS / Get Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen on Android
Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen @ Nutrition Facts
Key Three: Figure out 2–3 “anchor” events for the weekend
Otherwise, it can become a bit of a haze and on Monday you find yourself thinking “where did the weekend go?”. So, plan some stuff! It doesn’t have to be anything out-of-this-world, just something that you can look forward to in advance and remember afterwards. It could be a meal out with your family, or a session doing some gardening, or a romantic night in with your partner. Whatever makes your life “living” and not passing you by!
Key Four: Tackle the toughest work first
You’ve probably heard about “swallowing frogs”. If not, there are various versions, usually attributed to Mark Twain.
Here’s one:
“If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”
Top Productivity App “ToDoist” has an option for this, by the way!
Laura’s key advice here is: get the hard stuff done now! Before you get distracted or tired and postpone it to tomorrow (and then lather rinse repeat, so it never gets done)
10almonds Tip:
“But what if something’s really important but not as pressing as some less important, but more urgent tasks?”
Simple!
Set a timer (we love the Pomodoro method, by the way) and do one burst of the important-but-not-urgent task first. Then you can get to the more urgent stuff.
Repeat each day until the important-but-not-urgent task is done!
The 10almonds Team
Key Five: Use bits of time well
If, like many of us, you’ve a neverending “to read” list, use the 5–10 minute breaks that get enforced upon us periodically through the day!
- Use those few minutes before a meeting/phonecall!
- Use the time you spend waiting for public transport or riding on it!
- Use the time you spent waiting for a family member to finish doing a thing!
All those 5–10 minute bits soon add up… You might as well spend that time reading something you know will add value to your life, rather than browsing social media, for example.
Key Six: Make very short daily to-do lists
By “short”, Laura considers this “under 10 items”. Do this as the last part of your working day, ready for tomorrow. Not at bedtime! Bedtime is for winding down, not winding up
Key Seven: Have a bedtime
Laura shoots for 10:30pm, but whatever works for you and your morning responsibilities. Your morning responsibilities aren’t tied to a specific time? Lucky you, but try to keep a bedtime anyway. Otherwise, your daily rhythm can end up sliding around the clock, especially if you work from home!
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Superfood Pesto Pizza
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Not only is this pizza full of foods that punch above their weight healthwise, there’s no kneading and no waiting when it comes to the base, either. Homemade pizzas made easy!
You will need
For the topping:
- 1 zucchini, sliced
- 1 red bell pepper, cut into strips
- 3 oz mushrooms, sliced
- 3 shallots, cut into quarters
- 6 sun-dried tomatoes, roughly chopped
- ½ bulb garlic (paperwork done, but cloves left intact, unless they are very large, in which case halve them)
- 1 oz pitted black olives, halved
- 1 handful arugula
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
- ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
For the base:
- ½ cup chickpea flour (also called besan or gram flour)
- 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ⅛ tsp MSG or ¼ tsp low-sodium salt
For the pesto sauce:
- 1 large bunch basil, chopped
- ½ avocado, pitted and peeled
- 1 oz pine nuts
- ¼ bulb garlic, crushed
- 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1 tsp black pepper
- Juice of ½ lemon
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Preheat the oven to 400℉ / 200℃.
2) Toss the zucchini, bell pepper, mushrooms, shallots, and garlic cloves in 1 tbsp olive oil, ensuring an even coating. Season with the black pepper and MSG/salt, and put on a baking tray lined with baking paper, to roast for about 20 minutes, until they are slightly charred.
3) When the vegetables are in the oven, make the pizza base by combining the dry ingredients in a bowl, making a pit in the middle of it, adding the olive oil and whisking it in, and then slowly (i.e., a little bit at a time) whisking in 1 cup cold water. This should take under 5 minutes.
4) Don’t panic when this doesn’t become a dough; it is supposed to be a thick batter, so that’s fine. Pour it into a 9″ pizza pan, and bake for about 15 minutes, until firm. Rotate it if necessary partway through; whether it needs this or not will depend on your oven.
5) While the pizza base is in the oven, make the pesto sauce by blending all the pesto sauce ingredients in a high-speed blender until smooth.
6) When the base and vegetables are ready (these should be finished around the same time), spread the pesto sauce on the base, scatter the arugula over it followed by the vegetables and then the olives and sun-dried tomatoes.
7) Serve, adding any garnish or other final touches that take your fancy.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Which Bell Peppers To Pick? A Spectrum Of Specialties
- Ergothioneine In Mushrooms: “The Longevity Vitamin” (That’s Not A Vitamin)
- Black Olives vs Green Olives – Which is Healthier
- Lycopene’s Benefits For The Gut, Heart, Brain, & More
- Coconut vs Avocado – Which is Healthier?
- Herbs for Evidence-Based Health & Healing
- Spermidine For Longevity
Take care!
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Is chocolate milk a good recovery drink after a workout? A dietitian reviews the evidence
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Whether you enjoy chocolate milk regularly, as a weekend treat, or as an occasional dose of childhood nostalgia, it probably wouldn’t be the first option you think of for post-workout recovery.
Unless you’re on TikTok, perhaps. According to many people on the social media platform, chocolate milk is not only delicious, but it offers benefits comparable to sports drinks after a workout.
So is there any evidence to support this? Let’s take a look.
eldar nurkovic/Shutterstock Rehydrating after a workout is important
Water accounts for somewhere between 50% and 60% of our body weight. Water has many important functions in the body, including helping to keep our body at the right temperature through sweating.
We lose water naturally from our bodies when we sweat, as well as through our breathing and when we go to the toilet. So it’s important to stay hydrated to replenish the water we lose.
When we don’t, we become dehydrated, which can put a strain on our bodies. Signs and symptoms of dehydration can range from thirst and dizziness to low blood pressure and confusion.
Athletes, because of their higher levels of exertion, lose more water through sweating and from respiration (when their breathing rate gets faster). If they’re training or competing in hot or humid environments they will sweat even more.
Dehydration impacts athletes’ performance and like for all of us, can affect their health.
So finding ways to ensure athletes rehydrate quickly during and after they train or compete is important. Fortunately, sports scientists and dietitians have done research looking at the composition of different fluids to understand which ones rehydrate athletes most effectively.
The beverage hydration index
The best hydrating drinks are those the body retains the most of once they’ve been consumed. By doing studies where they give people different drinks in standardised conditions, scientists have been able to determine how various options stack up.
To this end, they’ve developed something called the beverage hydration index, which measures to what degree different fluids hydrate a person compared to still water.
According to this index beverages with similar fluid retention to still water include sparkling water, sports drinks, cola, diet cola, tea, coffee, and beer below 4% alcohol. That said, alcohol is probably best avoided when recovering from exercise.
Beverages with superior fluid retention to still water include milk (both full-fat and skim), soy milk, orange juice and oral rehydration solutions.
This body of research indicates that when it comes to rehydration after exercise, unflavoured milk (full fat, skim or soy) is better than sports drinks.
But what about chocolate milk?
A small study looked at the effects of chocolate milk compared to plain milk on rehydration and exercise performance in futsal players (futsal is similar to soccer but played on a court indoors). The researchers found no difference in rehydration between the two. There’s no other published research to my knowledge looking at how chocolate milk compares to regular milk for rehydration during or after exercise.
But rehydration isn’t the only thing athletes look for in sports drinks. In the same study, drinking chocolate milk after play (referred to as the recovery period) increased the time it took for the futsal players to become exhausted in further exercise (a shuttle run test) four hours later.
This was also shown in a review of several clinical trials. The analysis found that, compared to different placebos (such as water) or other drinks containing fat, protein and carbohydrates, chocolate milk lengthened the time to exhaustion during exercise.
What’s in chocolate milk?
Milk contains protein, carbohydrates and electrolytes, each of which can affect hydration, performance, or both.
Protein is important for building muscle, which is beneficial for performance. The electrolytes in milk (including sodium and potassium) help to replace electrolytes lost through sweating, so can also be good for performance, and aid hydration.
Compared to regular milk, chocolate milk contains added sugar. This provides extra carbohydrates, which are likewise beneficial for performance. Carbohydrates provide an immediate source of energy for athletes’ working muscles, where they’re stored as glycogen. This might contribute to the edge chocolate milk appears to have over plain milk in terms of athletic endurance.
The added sugar in chocolate milk provides extra carbohydrates. Brent Hofacker/Shutterstock Coffee-flavoured milk has an additional advantage. It contains caffeine, which can improve athletic performance by reducing the perceived effort that goes into exercise.
One study showed that a frappe-type drink prepared with filtered coffee, skim milk and sugar led to better muscle glycogen levels after exercise compared to plain milk with an equivalent amount of sugar added.
So what’s the verdict?
Evidence shows chocolate milk can rehydrate better than water or sports drinks after exercise. But there isn’t evidence to suggest it can rehydrate better than plain milk. Chocolate milk does appear to improve athletic endurance compared to plain milk though.
Ultimately, the best drink for athletes to consume to rehydrate is the one they’re most likely to drink.
While many TikTok trends are not based on evidence, it seems chocolate milk could actually be a good option for recovery from exercise. And it will be cheaper than specialised sports nutrition products. You can buy different brands from the supermarket or make your own at home with a drinking chocolate powder.
This doesn’t mean everyone should look to chocolate milk when they’re feeling thirsty. Chocolate milk does have more calories than plain milk and many other drinks because of the added sugar. For most of us, chocolate milk may be best enjoyed as an occasional treat.
Evangeline Mantzioris, Program Director of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Accredited Practising Dietitian, University of South Australia
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Cucumber vs Lychee – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing cucumber to lychee, we picked the lychee.
Why?
In terms of macros, the lychee has more carbs and more fiber, but both are low glycemic index foods. Functionally a tie, though we could consider it a nominal win for cucumber.
In the category of vitamins, cucumber has more of vitamins A, B1, B5, and K, while lychee has more of vitamins B2, B3, B6, B9, C, E, and choline. In particular, cucumber has a lot more vitamin K and lychee has a lot more vitamin C. Nevertheless, in terms of overall vitamin coverage, lychee is the clear winner here.
Looking at minerals, cucumber has more calcium, magnesium, manganese, and zinc, while lychee has more copper (especially rich in this), iron, phosphorus, potassium, and selenium. Another clear win for lychee.
Both have an abundance of anti-inflammatory polyphenols, but we could find no strong argument for one being better than the other in this category, just different.
In short, both are fine options, but the more nutritionally dense is the lychee, so that’s our choice!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Cucumber Extract Beats Glucosamine & Chondroitin… At 1/135th Of The Dose?!
Take care!
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How to Prepare for Your First Therapy Session
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Everyone (who ever has therapy, anyway) has a first therapy session. So, how to make best use of that, and get things going most effectively? Dr. Tori Olds has advice:
Things to prepare
Questions that you should consider, and prepare answers to beforehand, include:
- Why are you here? Not in any deep philosophical sense, but, what brought you to therapy?
- What would you like to focus on? Chances are, you are paying a hefty hourly rate—so having considered this will allow you to get your money’s worth.
- How will you know when you’ve met your goal? Note that this is really two questions in one, because first you need to identify your goal, and then you need to expand on it. If you woke up tomorrow and all your psychological problems were solved, how would you know? What would be different? What does it look like?
If you have a little time between now and your first session, journaling can help a lot.
Remember also that a first therapy session can also be like a mutual interview, to decide whether it’s a good match. Not every therapist is good at their job, and not every therapist will be good for you specifically. Sometimes, a therapist may be a mismatch through no fault of their own. Considering what those reasons might be can also be a good thing to think about in advance, to help find the best therapist for you in fewer tries!
For most on these ideas, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
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Exercise with Type 1 Diabetes – by Ginger Vieira
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If you or a loved one has Type 1 Diabetes, you’ll know that exercise can be especially frustrating…
- If you don’t do it, you risk weight gain and eventual insulin resistance.
- If you do it, you risk dangerous hypos, or perhaps hypers if you took off your pump or skipped a bolus.
Unfortunately, the popular medical advice is “well, just do your best”.
Ginger Vieira is Type 1 Diabetic, and writes with 20+ experience of managing her diabetes while being a keen exerciser. As T1D folks out there will also know, comorbidities are very common; in her case, fibromyalgia was the biggest additional blow to her ability to exercise, along with an underactive thyroid. So when it comes to dealing with the practical nuts and bolts of things, she (while herself observing she’s not a doctor, let alone your doctor) has a lot more practical knowledge than an endocrinologist (without diabetes) behind a desk.
Speaking of nuts and bolts, this book isn’t a pep talk.
It has a bit of that in, but most of it is really practical information, e.g: using fasted exercise (4 hours from last meal+bolus) to prevent hypos, counterintuitive as that may seem—the key is that timing a workout for when you have the least amount of fast-acting insulin in your body means your body can’t easily use your blood sugars for energy, and draws from your fat reserves instead… Win/Win!
That’s just one quick tip because this is a 1-minute review, but Vieira gives:
- whole chapters, with example datasets (real numbers)
- tech-specific advice, e.g. pump, injection, etc
- insulin-specific advice, e.g. fast vs slow, and adjustments to each in the context of exercise
- timing advice re meal/bolus/exercise for different insulins and techs
- blood-sugar management advice for different exercise types (aerobic/anaerobic, sprint/endurance, etc)
…and lots more that we don’t have room to mention here
Basically… If you or a loved one has T1D, we really recommend this book!
Order a copy of “Exercise with Type 1 Diabetes” from Amazon today!
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