Lycopene and Sun Burns
I’ve talked about this before, but I think it is worth mentioning again. Especially considering the fear and paranoia that the media and others in high influence spread about getting sunlight exposure.
The sun is there for a reason. It showers us with thermal, therapeutic, absorbing heat, which is therapeutic in its own right (who doesn’t love to be drenched with warming sunlight when they walk outside, it’s an instant pickup!).
It also makes our body produce a vitamin that is of vital importance to our bodies, and new things are being found out about its amazing capabilities all the time. That vitamin of course, is vitamin D.
It has been linked to everything from cancer prevention to depression prevention. That is probably why depression is lower in states that get a lot of sunshine. There are a myriad of benefits that sunlight has for the human body, just like it does for plants, which cannot live without its rays.
However, the sun can also cause problems for our skin. It can turn our skin cells cancerous if we are not careful. If we let ourselves get burned in the sun, this causes cell damage that can cause early aging and cell death as well as cell mutation and cancer.
BUT what we have in our corner is the ability to eat right and help our skin build up its own internal defenses against sun burn. One of the nutrients that has been found to prevent sun burn and skin damage to a great degree is lycopene.
Studies have shown that patients with high levels of lycopene in their diet were significantly less likely to burn from UV exposure than their counterparts who did not have this nutrient built up in their system.
Lycopene is very easy to come by, as it is found in abundance in tomatoes and tomato products, as well as some other brightly colored orange, red and yellow veggies.
So make sure you get tomatoes or tomato products in your system every day, and up your antioxidant intake, and you should notice a significant increase in your skins ability to deflect sunburn.