Speaker 1 (00:00):
How to eat your sunscreen. You probably heard me say vitamin D is important. And while this is true, you still need to protect your skin from getting too much sun. First off, betacarotene. Beta carotene is a nutrient that can aid in the maintenance of your skin health. Fun fact, it’s also one of the carotenoids that give fruits and vegetables like mango carrots and sweet potatoes. They’re natural colors. Now, beta carotene produces vitamin A activity in your body. It’s also acting as a plant derived photo protector. In other words, it acts as a natural sunscreen for your skin. Now, what should you eat to get beta carotene? I’ll tell you right now. Raw carrots are a great source. Sweet potatoes are a great source. And leafy greens like kale and spinach. Now, number two, omega-3 fatty acids are the healthy fats that are essential for your skin protection.

(01:00):
They maintain healthy cell membranes, helping to fight DNA changes due to skin exposure. Now, some great sources of omega-3 fatty acids, you probably well know by now, wild-caught salmon. Flax seeds, walnuts, hemp seeds, organic canola oil, and perilla oil are all great sources. Another fun fact, it turns out that farm-raised trout, not farm-raised salmon, actually convert their omega-6 feeds into omega-3s. So if you see farm-raised trout on a menu, or sometimes you’ll see it at Costco, don’t be afraid to buy it. But if you see Atlantic salmon or farm-raised salmon run the other direction. Okay. Astaxanthin. So astaxanthin has been shown to have wonderful photo protective effects. You can get astaxanthin in your diet by eating algae. So spirulina, chlorella, great sources of astaxanthin, wild-caught salmon. That color in wild-caught salmon is astaxanthin. And there are now a number of supplements that are readily available to get astaxanthin.

(02:16):
How about FernBlock? Fernblock is actually polypodium leukotomus. It’s a plant protective property that’s very photoprotective. Fernblock is an all- natural antioxidant extract. It’s used both topically on the skin and can be taken orally. It helps protect our skin cells from UV damage and supports an increase in skin collagen, hyaluronic acid production, and elastin. A major part of its photoprotective properties rely on its antioxidant properties due to its high phenolic content. And in fact, it has tons of polyphenols, which will change your gut bacteria for the better. Timed release vitamin C is the next one. Now, interestingly enough, vitamin C repairs damage to collagen. Vitamin C unfortunately is not readily available shortly after you take it. Oral vitamin C only lasts a couple of hours in our blood. That’s why I really recommend people take time to release vitamin C, about 1,000 milligrams twice a day.

(03:27):
Interestingly, the reason smokers have such sun damage and wrinkles is because their vitamin C is all used up by the oxidative stress that smoking gives to them. And the reason the smokers have so much wrinkles and sun damage is they don’t have the vitamin C that’s necessary for repair. Now, next up is foods that have high levels of egalic acid. Egalic acid has wonderful photoprotective effects when it comes to collagen breakdown, redness and swelling in irritated human skin cells. So to get the benefit of egalic acid, you should be eating pomegranates in season, not just pomegranate juice folks, much too much sugar, strawberries in season, raspberries in season, and blackberries in season. Next up, dark mushrooms. Turns out that dark mushrooms contain lots of melanin. Now, most of you know what melanin is. Melanin is what gives the dark pigmentation to our skin. And melanin exists to absorb UV light.

(04:37):
So the more melanin you eat, believe it or not, the more that’s transmitted into more melatont to protect you from UV exposure. So don’t hesitate to get more of the darker mushrooms into your diet. Leave the white button mushrooms alone. Get the brown mushrooms, the cremony mushroom. Portobello mushrooms are a great dark mushroom that are now available in almost all grocery store. I’ve got a great Portobello mushroom pizza recipe on YouTube. Now, one more thing I’ll add. When your skin is exposed to the sun, it produces vitamin D and you actually want that to happen. Vitamin D promotes calcium absorption from your gut. It enables mineralization of the bone. And it’s also very essential to prevent low calcium in your bloodstream. And vitamin D production is necessary to actually grow bones. So the last thing you wanna do is block vitamin D production from sunlight.

(05:44):
Once again, another really important reason. And one of the most famous dermatologists, perhaps infamous dermatologists, Dr. Holick from Boston University, was one of the first dermatologists to actually tell people to get their vitamin D levels from sun exposure. And long story short, he got into a lot of trouble, but luckily got reinstated. And now we know that sunlight is not as bad for you as you once thought. If you can’t get enough sunlight to get your vitamin Ds up and most people can’t, I recommend most adults take 5,000 international units a day. The University of California, San Diego recommends that the average American take 10,000 international units a day for protection.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dr. Gundry Podcast. If you did, please share this with family and friends. You never know how one of these health tips can completely transform someone’s life when you take the time to share it with them. There’s also the Dr. Gundry Podcast YouTube channel, where we have tens of thousands of free health insights that can help you and your loved ones live a long, vital life. Let’s do this together.