Yes, you still need to use sunscreen, despite what you’ve heard on TikTok
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Summer is nearly here. But rather than getting out the sunscreen, some TikTokers are urging followers to chuck it out and go sunscreen-free.
They claim it’s healthier to forgo sunscreen to get the full benefits of sunshine.
Here’s the science really says.
How does sunscreen work?
Because of Australia’s extreme UV environment, most people with pale to olive skin or other risk factors for skin cancer need to protect themselves. Applying sunscreen is a key method of protecting areas not easily covered by clothes.
Sunscreen works by absorbing or scattering UV rays before they can enter your skin and damage DNA or supportive structures such as collagen.
When UV particles hit DNA, the excess energy can damage our DNA. This damage can be repaired, but if the cell divides before the mistake is fixed, it causes a mutation that can lead to skin cancers.
The most common skin cancers are basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). Melanoma is less common, but is the most likely to spread around the body; this process is called metastasis.
Two in three Australians will have at least one skin cancer in their lifetime, and they make up 80% of all cancers in Australia.
Around 99% of skin cancers in Australia are caused by excessive exposure to UV radiation.
Excessive exposure to UV radiation also affects the appearance of your skin. UVA rays are able to penetrate deep into the skin, where they break down supportive structures such as elastin and collagen.
This causes signs of premature ageing, such as deep wrinkling, brown or white blotches, and broken capillaries.
Sunscreen can help prevent skin cancers
Used consistently, sunscreen reduces your risk of skin cancer and slows skin ageing.
In a Queensland study, participants either used sunscreen daily for almost five years, or continued their usual use.
At the end of five years, the daily-use group had reduced their risk of squamous cell carcinoma by 40% compared to the other group.
Ten years later, the daily use group had reduced their risk of invasive melanoma by 73%
Does sunscreen block the health-promoting properties of sunlight?
The answer is a bit more complicated, and involves personalised risk versus benefit trade-offs.
First, the good news: there are many health benefits of spending time in the sun that don’t rely on exposure to UV radiation and aren’t affected by sunscreen use.
Sunscreen only filters UV rays, not visible light or infrared light (which we feel as heat). And importantly, some of the benefits of sunlight are obtained via the eyes.
Visible light improves mood and regulates circadian rhythm (which influences your sleep-wake cycle), and probably reduces myopia (short-sightedness) in children.
Infrared light is being investigated as a treatment for several skin, neurological, psychiatric and autoimmune disorders.
So what is the benefit of exposing skin to UV radiation?
Exposing the skin to the sun produces vitamin D, which is critical for healthy bones and muscles.
Vitamin D deficiency is surprisingly common among Australians, peaking in Victoria at 49% in winter and being lowest in Queensland at 6% in summer.
Luckily, people who are careful about sun protection can avoid vitamin D deficiency by taking a supplement.
Exposing the skin to UV radiation might have benefits independent of vitamin D production, but these are not proven. It might reduce the risk of autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis or cause release of a chemical that could reduce blood pressure. However, there is not enough detail about these benefits to know whether sunscreen would be a problem.
What does this mean for you?
There are some benefits of exposing the skin to UV radiation that might be blunted by sunscreen. Whether it’s worth foregoing those benefits to avoid skin cancer depends on how susceptible you are to skin cancer.
If you have pale skin or other factors that increase you risk of skin cancer, you should aim to apply sunscreen daily on all days when the UV index is forecast to reach 3.
If you have darker skin that rarely or never burns, you can go without daily sunscreen – although you will still need protection during extended times outdoors.
For now, the balance of evidence suggests it’s better for people who are susceptible to skin cancer to continue with sun protection practices, with vitamin D supplementation if needed.
Katie Lee, PhD Candidate, Dermatology Research Centre, The University of Queensland and Rachel Neale, Principal research fellow, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Healing Your Gut: Anastasia’s Journey and Tips
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Anastasia Gurova shares her inspiring journey from chronic gut issues to vibrant health.
A Personal Journey to Gut Health
In the below video, Anastasia shares her long struggle with gut problems, including SIBO, IBS, and gastritis. She talks about ending up in the hospital with severe bloating, only to find that a range of medical approaches didn’t provide her with any lasting relief. This led her to explore the importance of the microbiome and its crucial role in gut health, which is what we’ll be focusing on in this overview.
Key Insights and Tips
The most valuable parts of Anastasia’s story for 10almonds readers are, in our opinion, the solutions she discovered to her gut issues. You’ll have to watch her video to discover all of them, but here are some of our favorites:
- Reintroduce Whole Grains and Legumes: Despite the popularity of grain-free diets, Anastasia found significant improvements in her gut health by adding whole grains like quinoa, oats, and buckwheat back into her diet. These foods provide essential fibers that feed beneficial gut bacteria.
- Soaking and Fermenting Foods: To make grains and legumes more digestible, Anastasia recommends soaking them overnight. This is similar to the common technique people use on oats. She also includes fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, and yogurt in her diet, which introduce beneficial bacteria to the gut.
- Resistant Starches: Foods like cooked and cooled rice, potatoes, and green bananas contain resistant starches that promote healthy gut bacteria. Anastasia emphasizes incorporating these into meals to support gut health.
- Mindful Eating: Anastasia found that taking time to chew food thoroughly and savor each bite helped improve her digestion. She avoids distractions like TV while eating and pays attention to the textures and flavors of her meals.
- Avoid Overly Restrictive Diets: Anastasia warns against overly restrictive diets like keto and strict SIBO diets that cut out all carbs and fiber. These can worsen gut health by starving beneficial bacteria.
That’s Only The Beginning
Anastasia’s video goes far beyond what we’ve covered in this short introduction; she provides a detailed look at the steps she took, from dietary changes to lifestyle adjustments, and offers tips that anyone can apply. Plus, she explains the science behind these changes, which, of course, we love.
Enjoy the video! (It would be remiss for us to not bring up our general intro to gut health, or our more specific article on the gut-brain connection)
Good luck on your gut-health journey!
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Scheduling Tips for Overrunning Tasks
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Your Questions, Our Answers!
Q: Often I schedule time for things, but the task takes longer than I think, or multiplies while I’m doing it, and then my schedule gets thrown out. Any ideas?
A: A relatable struggle! Happily, there are remedies:
- Does the task really absolutely need to be finished today? If not, just continue it in scheduled timeslots until it’s completed.
- Some tasks do indeed need to be finished today (hi, writer of a daily newsletter here!), so it can be useful to have an idea of how long things really take, in advance. While new tasks can catch us unawares, recurring or similar-to-previous tasks can be estimated based on how long they took previously. For this reason, we recommend doing a time audit every now and again, to see how you really use your time.
- A great resource that you should include in your schedule is a “spare” timeslot, ideally at least one per day. Call it a “buffer” or a “backup” or whatever (in my schedule it’s labelled “discretionary”), but the basic idea is that it’s a scheduled timeslot with nothing scheduled in it, and it works as an “overflow” catch-all.
Additionally:
- You can usually cut down the time it takes you to do tasks by setting “Deep Work” rules for yourself. For example: cut out distractions, single-task, work in for example 25-minute bursts with 5-minute breaks, etc
- You can also usually cut down the time it takes you to do tasks by making sure you’re prepared for them. Not just task-specific preparation, either! A clear head on, plenty of energy, the resources you’ll need (including refreshments!) to hand, etc can make a huge difference to efficiency.
See Also: Time Optimism and the Planning Fallacy
Do you have a question you’d like to see answered here? Hit reply or use the feedback widget at the bottom; we’d love to hear from you!
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Heart Smarter for Women – by Dr. Jennifer Mieres
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Dr. Mieres takes us through understanding our own heart disease risks as individuals rather than as averages. As the title suggests, she does assume a female readership, so if you are a man and have no female loved ones, this might not be the book for you. But aside from that, she walks us through examining risk in the context of age, other health conditions, lifestyle factors, and so forth—including not turning a blind eye to factors that might intersect, such as for example if a physical condition reduces how much we can exercise, or if there’s some reason we can’t follow the usual gold standard of heart-healthy diet.
On which note, she does offer dietary advice, including information around recipes, meal-planning, and what things to always have in stock, as well as what things matter the most when it comes to what and how we eat.
It’s not all lifestyle medicine though; Dr. Mieres gives due attention to many of the medications available for heart health issues—and the pros and cons of these.
The style of the book is very simple and readable pop-science, without undue jargon, and with a generous glossary. As with many books of this genre, it does rely on (presumably apocryphal) anecdotes, though an interesting choice for this book is that it keeps a standing cast of four recurring characters, each to represent a set of circumstances and illustrate how certain things can go differently for different people, with different things then being needed and/or possible. Hopefully, any given reader will find themself represented at least moderately well somewhere in or between these four characters.
Bottom line: this is a very informative and accessible book, that demystifies a lot of common confusions around heart health.
Click here to check out Heart Smarter For Women, and take control of your health!
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Sauerkraut vs Pickled Cucumber – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing sauerkraut to pickled cucumber, we picked the sauerkraut.
Why?
Both of these fermented foods can give a gut-healthy microbiome boost, but how do they stack up otherwise?
In terms of macros, sauerkraut has more protein, carbs, and fiber. They are both low glycemic index foods, so we’ll go with the one that has more fiber out of the two, and that’s the ‘kraut.
In the category of vitamins, sauerkraut has more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, C, E, and choline, while pickled cucumbers have more of vitamins A and K. An easy win for sauerkraut.
When it comes to minerals, sauerkraut has more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while pickled cucumbers are not higher in any mineral, except sodium (on average, pickled cucumbers have about 2x the sodium of sauerkraut). Another clear win for sauerkraut.
In short, enjoy either or both in moderation, but it’s clear which boasts the most nutritional benefits, and that’s the sauerkraut!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Make Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)
Take care!
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Fitness In Our Fifties
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
Q: What’s a worthwhile fitness goal for people in their 50s?
A: At 10almonds, we think that goals are great but habits are better.
If your goal is to run a marathon, that’s a fine goal, and can be very motivating, but then after the marathon, then what? You’ll look back on it as a great achievement, but what will it do for your future health?
PS, yes, marathon-running in one’s middle age is a fine and good activity for most people. Maybe skip it if you have osteoporosis or some other relevant problem (check with your doctor), but…
Marathons in Mid- and Later-Life ← we wrote about the science of it here
PS, we also explored some science that may be applicable to your other question, on the same page as that about marathons!
The thing about habits vs goals is that habits give ongoing cumulative (often even: compounding) benefits:
How To Really Pick Up (And Keep!) Those Habits
If you pressingly want advice on goals though, our advice is this:
Make it your goal to be prepared for the health challenges of later life. It may seem gloomy to say that old age is coming for us all if something else doesn’t get us first, but the fact is, old age does not have to come with age-related decline, and the very least, we can increase our healthspan (so we’re hitting 90 with most of the good health we enjoyed in our 70s, for example, or hitting 80 with most of the good health we enjoyed in our 60s).
If that goal seems a little wishy-washy, here are some very specific and practical ideas to get you started:
Train For The Event Of Your Life!
As for the limits and/or extents of how much we can do in that regard? Here are what two aging experts have to say:
And here’s what we at 10almonds had to say:
Age & Aging: What Can (And Can’t) We Do About It?
Take care!
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How Nature Provides Us With A Surprisingly Powerful Painkiller
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It’s well-known (at least to regular 10almonds-readers) that seeing nature, ideally green leaves and blue sky, improves our mood by stimulating production of serotonin.
See also: Neurotransmitter Cheatsheet
But it does a lot more.
Reducing the actual signals of pain
Researchers at the University of Vienna have discovered that viewing nature scenes (even if just on video) alleviates physical pain—not just in self-reported subjective assessments, but also by a reduction of the neural activity that signals pain:
❝Pain is like a puzzle, made up of different pieces that are processed differently in the brain. Some pieces of the puzzle relate to our emotional response to pain, such as how unpleasant we find it. Other pieces correspond to the physical signals underlying the painful experience, such as its location in the body and its intensity.
Unlike placebos, which usually change our emotional response to pain, viewing nature changed how the brain processed early, raw sensory signals of pain.
Thus, the effect appears to be less influenced by participants’ expectations, and more by changes in the underlying pain signals❞
This was tested against, varyingly, viewing an urban environment or viewing an indoor environment, neither of which gave the same benefits.
The setup of the experiment is relevant, so…
Matching soundscape accompanied each visual stimulus. The three pain runs had a total duration of 9 min each, during which one environment was accompanied by 16 painful and 16 non-painful shocks. Neuroimaging was used for all parts, and participants were exposed to all environments:
- First, a cue indicating the intensity of the next shock (red = painful, yellow = not painful) was presented for 2000 milliseconds (ms).
- Second, a variable interval of 3500 ± 1500 ms was shown.
- Third, a cue indicating the intensity of the shock was presented for 1000 ms, accompanied by an electrical shock with a duration of 500 ms.
- Fourth, a variable interval of 3500 ± 1500 ms followed.
- Fifth, after each third trial, participants rated the shock’s intensity and unpleasantness at 6000 ms each.
- Sixth, each trial ended with an intertrial interval (ITI) presented for 2000 ms.
They found that as well as the self-assessment reports being as expected (nature scenes reduced subjective experience of pain),
❝In summary, the multivoxel and region of interest analyses converged in showing that pain responses when exposed to nature as compared to urban or indoor stimuli were associated with a decrease in neural processes related to lower-level nociception-related features (NPS, thalamus), as well as in regions of descending modulatory circuitry associated with attentional alterations of pain that also encode sensory-discriminative aspects (S2, pINS).❞
In other words—to the extent that pain can be quantified objectively by neural imaging—the pain was also objectively reduced, much like with a chemical painkiller.
You can read the paper in full, here:
Nature exposure induces analgesic effects by acting on nociception-related neural processing
How to benefit from this
Well, first there is the obvious, “view nature“.
However, note the timescales involved in the testing periods: 2000 milliseconds is two seconds, and that was the intertrial interval used—the equivalent of a washout phase in an interventional trial (but a drug/supplement/diet washout is usually a number of weeks).
The fact that the test periods were a matter of seconds, and the intertrial period was also literally two seconds, this means:
It works quickly, and the effect disappears quickly, too.
In other words: if you want pain relief from nature, the good news is you can get it immediately while viewing nature, and the bad news is that you have to keep viewing nature to continue enjoying the painkilling effect.
So that’s a limitation, but it’s still clearly a very worthy option for a little respite from chronic pain now and again, for example.
Want to learn more?
We’ve written quite a bit about pain management, including:
- Before You Reach For That Tylenol…
- How To Stop Pain Spreading
- How To Dial Down Your Pain
- Managing Chronic Pain (Realistically!)
- Get The Right Help For Your Pain
- The 7 Approaches To Pain Management
- Science-Based Alternative Pain Relief (When Painkillers Aren’t Helping, These Things Might)
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
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