Masters of Health Magazine October 2020 | Page 61

A study published in 2009, which analyzed almost 300 million person-years of data over more than a ten-year period, concluded that the rate of skin melanoma increased by 3.1% per year from 1992 to 2004 in the United States.6 A population-based study published in 2019— involving 12,462 cases of head and neck melanoma in the United States and Canada spanning the interval from 1995 to 2014 — found that this type of cancer had increased by 51% over two decades, with males aged 15 to 39 years being the population group most strongly affected. 7 Meanwhile, the sun protection market value increased from 940 million dollars in 2006 to 1.6 billion dollars in 2016.

As far back as 1996, researchers published a paper that investigated whether sunscreen protects from skin cancer. The authors wrote: “Our results support the hypothesis that sunscreens do not protect against melanoma, probably because of their ability to delay or avoid sunburn episodes, which may allow prolonged exposure to unfiltered ultraviolet radiation.”8 In other words, sunscreen gives you the illusion that you are safe because you don’t feel the pain or experience the skin redness that naturally happens when your body is letting you know it’s time to get out of the sun. Your skin is getting damaged by too much UV radiation, but the signal that would stop the exposure is missing.

MORE PROBLEMS WITH SUNSCREEN

Worse than this, in my opinion, is that sunscreen disrupts the body’s natural mechanism of sun protection: melanin synthesis. Melanin is produced in response to sunlight exposure. Sunscreen protection lasts only while the sunscreen is topically present; melanin, on the other hand, builds up over time and eventually produces a healthy tan with protection that can last for weeks or even months. The smart way to protect yourself from the potential damage of UV rays is to develop a tan slowly during the spring while the sun is not so intense—this arms you with a defense against the intense summer sun that would otherwise be dangerous. As melanin’s powerful antioxidant effects protect you from the UV rays, you can still enjoy the many health benefits of visible light and infrared light, far beyond what you would get from a vitamin D supplement.

Sunscreens contain toxic ingredients that cause damage to the skin in ways that might result in sustained disruption of sulfate synthesis.9 Particularly disturbing is the aluminum that is added to emulsify the zinc oxide and titanium dioxide additives (the active ingredients). Aluminum is known to suppress cytochrome P450 enzymes (CYP enzymes). The enzyme that I propose as crucial for sulfate synthesis—endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS)—is an orphan CYP enzyme.

I believe that glyphosate, the active ingredient in the pervasive herbicide Roundup, also disrupts eNOS. It is known to suppress CYP enzymes in the liver in rat studies. Worse than this, glyphosate interferes with the shikimate pathway in the gut microbes, which is essential for producing the aromatic amino acids.10 One of these, tyrosine, is a precursor to melanin. Thus, glyphosate likely induces melanin deficiency, which prevents you from developing a healthy tan, and therefore interferes with natural protective mechanism against UV damage.

Instinctively, most people who are diagnosed with skin melanoma make special efforts to avoid the sun following their diagnosis, which is probably a very bad idea. Remarkably, increased sun exposure, more frequent sunburns and solar elastosis (evidence of photo-aging in the skin) were all associated with improved survival statistics in a study of 528 patients diagnosed with cutaneous melanoma.11 It has seemed logical to many that the benefit of increased sun exposure must be due to the rise in vitamin D levels induced by sun exposure.