What Foods Prevent Sunburn? (Spoiler: None of Them)

How cool wouldn’t it be if we may stop sunburn and pores and skin most cancers with out sunscreen—simply by consuming sure pure meals? It’s a very engaging thought, which explains why it’s throughout TikTok. Too dangerous it doesn’t truly work.

Can we stop it with the “sunscreen is poisonous” bullshit already?

The food-as-sunscreen TikToks don’t all the time come out and say it, however they’re buying and selling on the established fable of sunscreen being someway dangerous for us. (You don’t wish to know what number of “akshully, sunscreen causes most cancers” statements I needed to scroll via whereas researching this text.) 

As I’ve written earlier than, this isn’t some form of wise danger administration messaging. It’s complete nonsense. The harms of UV publicity are concrete and well-documented. The harms of sunscreen are unproven, largely guesswork, and the occasional official concern is on the extent of “hey, it might be useful to have extra analysis to know if some kinds of sunscreen are safer than others.” These items is totally not on the extent of “keep away from sunscreen as a result of it’s dangerous for you.” 

You don’t should take it from me. The American Academy of Dermatology has a page on sunscreen safety during which they summarize the proof like so: “Scientific research assist the advantages of sporting sunscreen when you may be outdoors.” 

What the science truly says about meals and solar harm

The TikToks about pure solar safety give a laundry checklist of meals, saying vaguely that they defend from solar harm. Typically they’ll suggest a particular complement. However they by no means go into element in regards to the issues which can be vital to know when recommending a preventative remedy, like: 

• What dosage is required to get the meant outcomes? 

• Has this truly been examined in people? 

• How a lot safety does the meals or complement offer you, and the way was that measured? 

• Does the safety begin working instantly, and if not, how lengthy does it take?

• Does the effectiveness differ from individual to individual? 

• Does the protecting ingredient break down over time, and is there a solution to refresh its safety (equal to reapplying sunscreen)?

• What are the downsides to the meals or complement when used within the beneficial dosage?

For precise, FDA-approved sunscreens, there are solutions to all of those questions. For the meals beneficial on TikTok, there are usually not. As an alternative of this totally fleshed-out data, we simply get statements like “Eat watermelons, tomatoes, walnuts, carrots…”

When you look into the analysis, none of it actually helps the claims the TikTokers are making (or implying). For instance, here is a study exhibiting that an antioxidant present in walnuts can defend human pores and skin cells from a number of the results of UV harm. Sounds promising, till you notice that the pores and skin cells weren’t in people, however reasonably are a human-derived mutant cell line (sounds bizarre, however it’s a really regular factor in science labs). The researchers made a walnut extract and mixed it with the cells in cell culture plates, that are principally teeny-tiny take a look at tubes. So to evaluation: This examine didn’t contain individuals, consuming, walnuts (as a meals), daylight, or sunburn. 

Right here’s a more relevant study: Mild-skinned, non-smoking volunteers ate 40 grams of tomato paste (about three tablespoons) together with 10 grams of olive oil day by day. After 10 weeks, they confirmed much less reddening of the pores and skin in response to publicity to a UV lamp. That’s promising! Very cool! Heck, should you felt impressed and wished to start out consuming tomato paste (going via a bit can of it each 4 days), I wouldn’t cease you. 

However take note of what the examine didn’t discover. It doesn’t inform us what outcomes individuals with lighter or darker pores and skin tones would get. It doesn’t inform us how this safety modifications (or doesn’t) over time—would you get the identical outcomes on the finish of the summer time as at first, should you used this as your solely solar safety? 

And, most significantly, it solely discovered that the individuals who used tomato paste acquired much less reddening of the pores and skin. The tomato paste didn’t utterly stop sunburn. The TikTokers are speaking about these meals as if they’re magic potions, or get-out-of-sunburn-free playing cards. Even probably the most promising research don’t again that up. 

And naturally everyone is promoting a complement

If there’s one factor wellness TikTokers love, it’s promoting dietary supplements. Dietary supplements are low cost for producers to make, straightforward to ship, simple to clarify (“X is sweet for Y”) and anyone can throw up an affiliate hyperlink of their bio to get a reduce of the earnings. 

And so it’s with these allegedly sunburn-preventing dietary supplements. The recent one proper now’s Heliocare, which of course has a “brand affiliate” program. It’s made out of a fern known as Polypodium leucotomos, and there is actually research (!) supporting the concept that it could assist a bit bit to reduce sunburn. 

However, as with the tomato research, the outcomes are on the “hmm, form of attention-grabbing” stage. This isn’t one thing that may allow you to ditch your sunscreen should you’re being in any respect accountable about it. I’m trying on the graphs within the paper’s outcomes, and actually I’m unsure if I can see a distinction in redness on the later timepoints. If the complement solely delays how lengthy it takes for a sunburn to point out up, that doesn’t appear very helpful. (I’d truly surprise if it’s worse, since that would lead you to remain out longer earlier than you notice how dangerous a burn you’re growing.) 

Once more, a statistically detectable distinction in redness will not be the identical as utterly (and even largely) stopping sunburn. It’s additionally price noting that the dosage of Heliocare (one 240-milligram capsule per day) is lower than what was used within the examine (7.5 milligrams per kilogram of body weight, which works out to be 528 milligrams for a 154-pound particular person, or over two tablets’ price). When you take three tablets per day, that $34.99 bottle will solely final you 20 days. I’m not seeing the benefit over simply making use of sunscreen usually.