Tag: sunscreen

Low in the Vitamin D Department

  • How much sun you need to get enough Vitamin D depends on where you live, the time of year, how much skin you're exposing - and even the color of your skin. (Photo source: Kallerna at Wikimedia Commons)

According to two recent studies,
most kids in this country aren’t
getting enough Vitamin D. Scientists
say a lot of adults are low in the
vitamin, too. Ann Dornfeld looks
at whether the solution is as simple
as spending more time in the sun:

Transcript

According to two recent studies, most kids in this country
aren’t getting enough Vitamin D. Scientists say a lot of
adults are low in the vitamin, too. Ann Dornfeld looks at
whether the solution is as simple as spending more time in
the sun:

(sound of kids building sandcastles on the beach)

If you’ve been to the beach this summer, or anywhere
outdoors, you probably slathered on the obligatory
sunblock. If you were extra-careful, you wore a wide-
brimmed hat, or made sure your kids wore t-shirts in the
water instead of a skimpy suit.

Thing is, the solar radiation you work so hard to avoid is
also kind of healthy. That’s because it creates Vitamin D
through a chemical reaction in your skin.

“Vitamin D is essential.”

Susan Ott is a professor of medicine at the University of
Washington.

“It’s actually a steroid hormone that helps you absorb
calcium from your diet. And it works in your intestines so
the calcium can get into your system and become
available to the bones.”

Ott specializes in bone diseases like osteoporosis and
osteomalacia – both diseases that Vitamin D helps
prevent.

When you slather on sunblock, you’re also blocking the
creation of Vitamin D.

Before you run outside to soak up the last few rays of
summer unprotected, there’s a catch. Ott says no one
knows how much sun you need to get enough Vitamin D.
It depends on where you live, the time of year, how much
skin you’re exposing – and even the color of your skin.

“People with dark skin do not make as much Vitamin D
with the same amount of sunlight exposure – they need to
be out in the sunlight longer to get the same amount of
Vitamin D as a fair person.”

Scientists don’t have a way to recommend how much sun
you need to get enough D.

Kim Nowak-Cooperman is a nutritionist at Seattle
Children’s Hospital. She says a recent study looked at
people who live in Honolulu.

“They looked at 93 people who got three or more hours of
sun every day for five days a week. And they actually
found that half of those people were Vitamin D insufficient,
when you would think that they would be very, very high in
Vitamin D.”

Getting your Vitamin D from food can also be hard. It’s
naturally abundant only in oily fish like sardines, salmon
and mackerel. Since the 1930s, Vitamin D has been
added to milk to prevent the bone-softening disease
rickets in children. Now rickets is making a comeback.

Nowak-Cooperman says that’s because most kids don’t
drink enough milk to get the recommended daily
allowance of Vitamin D. And even that recommendation
might not even be enough.

“Originally that number was derived from the amount of
Vitamin D that would prevent rickets. We are now seeing
that Vitamin D has a more important role and that the
insufficiency of Vitamin D can be implicated in other
disease processes.”

Studies show Vitamin D might prevent everything from
rheumatoid arthritis to diabetes to tuberculosis. So the
American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends kids
get twice the US RDA for Vitamin D. That means 400 IU from either four glasses of milk or a
supplement.

Professor Susan Ott says adults should take a
supplement, too. She recommends 800 to 1000 IU. Any more than that, she says, and you risk
absorbing too much calcium.

“I think right now there’s a fad and people are taking too
much. I just went to the drugstore the other day and I saw
pills that were 5000 units. That’s enough to last you a
week! And I have patients that are taking that every day.
I’m worried they’re gonna get kidney stones.”

Ott says there’s also a trend for people to get blood tests
to determine whether they’re getting enough Vitamin D.
She says unless you’re elderly or have other serious
health problems, it probably isn’t necessary.

So what should you do? Ott says just pop that daily
supplement – 400 IU for kids, 800 for adults – and
keep slathering on the sunblock.

For The Environment Report, I’m Ann Dornfeld.

Related Links

Not All Sunscreens Created Equal

  • The Environmental Working Group is critical of the Food and Drug Administration for not requiring sunscreens to filter out UVA rays (Photo courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)

Labor Day weekend means backyard
grilling, maybe some time at the
beach. The last holiday of summer
usually includes a lot of time outside.
Lester Graham reports sunscreen
seems like a good idea, but there’s
some controversy about what works:

Transcript

Labor Day weekend means backyard
grilling, maybe some time at the
beach. The last holiday of summer
usually includes a lot of time outside.
Lester Graham reports sunscreen
seems like a good idea, but there’s
some controversy about what works:

The Environmental Working Group issued a report saying not all sunscreens are equal. The group is critical of the Food and Drug Administration for not requiring sunscreens to filter out one kind of solar radiation.

“There currently are no requirements for UVA filters in sunscreens. And they’ve been working on sunscreen standards since 1978.”

David Andrews is a senior scientist with the group. He’s says with a gap in FDA regulation, the industry is making unverified statements about how well sunscreens protect.

“So these are claims that are very misleading to the consumer and it makes it hard for everyone to get adequate protection.”

The Personal Care Products Council is a trade group for sunscreen makers. It says the Environmental Working Group’s report is – quote – “unscientific and unsubstantiated.”

Bottom line: look for a sunscreen that does protect you from both UVB and UVA rays, reapply often, and stay out of the sun as much as possible.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Marketplace Ready for Soybean Sunscreen?

Scientists at the USDA Agriculture Lab in Peoria may have discovered a way to protect skin from sun damage without harming the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tanya Koonce reports the new mixture has a soybean or vegetable oil base:

Transcript

Scientists at the USDA Agriculture Lab in Peoria may have discovered a way to protect skin from
sun damage without harming the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tanya
Koonce reports the new mixture has a soy bean or vegetable oil base:


Right now most sunscreens are made from a cream or petroleum base that doesn’t break down in
the water. Two scientists at the Ag Lab in Peoria think they may have a way to remedy that by
using soybean oil and another plant based product called ferulic acid. Joe Lazslo is the lead
scientist who came up with the idea.


“The ferulic acid is present in plants. And if plants were worried about getting sunburned they
already have their sunscreen present. We’re just taking it out of plants and putting it into
soybean oil so that it can then be incorporated into cosmetics or other suntan lotions, that type of
thing.”


Laszlo and his colleague Dave Compton are standing in the lab next to a bottle of Kroger brand
vegetable oil. They use the same soybean oil in the lab you’d buy at the store. Lazslo says it gets
the job done. He says they’ve been working on their so-called soy screen mixture for
more than a year:


“There are many aspects or uses of the process that we are doing right now that are very
environmentally sound. We don’t pollute with this process. All the starting materials and
products are very environmentally benign. That means Soy Screen itself does not accumulate in the
environment. It’s biodegradable. All these types of things.”


Lazslo says most importantly Soy Screen doesn’t build up in the water supply. But because it’s
just barely out of the lab, doctors and other scientists are not willing to weigh in on its pros or cons
for human use. Specifically they are quiet on the dermatological effects – like whether the
vegetable oil-based product clogs skin pores.


But Lazslo says other scientists have found anti-oxidants like ferulic acid prevent wrinkling and protect against the sun’s rays that are known to cause
skin cancer. He says before Soy Screen makes its way into face lotions and other consumer
products licensing companies will have to confirm these claims.


While doctors aren’t ready to sing the praises of Soy Screen, soybean growers are. In the best
case scenario, Soy Screen would require about a million pounds of soybean oil each year. That
just barely scratches the surface
of the 800 million pound annual surplus. But the Soybean Growers Association’s Theresa Miller
says it does have an impact on public perception.


“We always are looking for any new use that might develop. You know as much as anything, of
course getting a product like a soy sunscreen or soy crayons or some of these uses that maybe don’t
mean a lot in terms of bushels, they do mean a lot in terms of public relations. In terms of getting
the word soy out in front of consumers and making them more aware of what all those soybeans out in
the field get used for.”


Soy Screen is likely years away from receiving the FDA’s blessing, despite the perks it may offer
the environment and soybean growers. Co-developer Dave Compton says it takes several years
and several million dollars for the FDA to approve something as a sun block:


“Currently the FDA regulates these active ingredients as “category one” drugs. So you have to have
FDA approval to claim an SPF. So before you will see a packaged retail item with the word Soy
Screen and an SPF we would have to go through an FDA approval of the Soy Screen.”


Compton says in the meantime Soy Screen will likely work its way into cosmetic products that
claim anti-aging effects. He says the money earned from its use in those anti-aging cosmetics will
help defray the cost of the FDA approval process. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m
Tanya Koonce.