Summer.<\/p>\n
It's synonymous with group rides, races, fondos, picnics, beers and burgers with your riding buddies and….sun. \u00a0Lots and lots of sun.<\/p>\n
Of course, with sun comes the ever present worries of sunburn, skin damage, melanoma, and general misery that goes along with the “lobster burn.” \u00a0The typical course of action involves slathering yourself with a shot glass or more of sunscreen, wearing “sun sleeves” or finding some other way to keep those UV rays from touching your skin.<\/p>\n
Sadly, we as human beings need some of those UV rays. \u00a0Truly, around three quarters of the US population is deficient in Vitamin D3<\/a>, which can cause anything from increased risk of cancer<\/a> to insufficient secretion of insulin in Type 2 diabetes<\/a>. This can partially be blamed on the fact that we generally work inside, and that the UVB radiation we need to produce D3 naturally doesn't pass through glass. \u00a0We also don't get much exposure if we slather ourselves or our families with sunscreen all summer long, either.<\/p>\n So what can you do? \u00a0We don't want to be burned up, we don't want to peel, we don't want to get skin cancer. \u00a0Well, a couple of\u00a0easy biohacks can reduce your risk of sunburn, skin cancer and reduce the use of those greasy sunscreens, while leaving you nicely golden brown after your ride.<\/p>\n Read on to find out this easy recipe after the jump:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What happens to our body when we're out in the sun? \u00a0Our body converts cholesterol into cholecalciferol, which is vitamin D D3 is a further “refined” variety of this compound.)\u00a0And it goes without saying that D3 is critically important to our bodies. \u00a0If we look at the uses of vitamin D3, we find a large variety of things. \u00a0D3 regulates calcium and phosphate levels in serum, and promotes bone mineralization. \u00a0This function is synergistic with calcium, vitamin A and vitamin K2. \u00a0It plays a significant role in immune responses by activating T-cells (those are the cells that kill things like bacteria and other infectious agents.) Perhaps the two largest effects we're looking at in terms of sun exposure: \u00a0D3 also controls the expression of some genes that regulate cell growth, death and differentiation. \u00a0Some studies have looked at this link in terms of cancers, and found that there are correlations between low vitamin D3 levels and most cancers. \u00a0It also reduces chronic systemic inflammation in general.<\/p>\n So, getting sun exposure creates vitamin D, which protects you from the sun, so you can get more of it without damaging your body. Why are we so deficient in D3 then? \u00a0Consider the fear of skin cancer (remember, no D3 means no natural protection) and the vanity of looking great into old age (sun still can do a number on your skin's collagen) and the fact that kids no longer go outside to play or swim (or swim with a t-shirt on because they're self conscious about their body) and you've got a recipe for D3 deficiency. \u00a0In actuality, it's not “deficiency” per se, according to most lab results. \u00a0But lab values are typically very low-normal; most practitioners don't bother to even look at the value if it's not highlighted or bolded, so many people don't supplement.<\/p>\n A nifty 2011 study suggested that high EPA\/DHA (Omega 3 fatty acids) decrease cutaneous P53 expression<\/a>. \u00a0Why does it matter and how does it work? \u00a0P53 is a tumor suppressor\u00a0gene that comes into play when the skin is damaged by\u00a0UV radiation. \u00a0As with any gene, the more expression of that gene, the more turnover it deals with, and the more times it multiplies the more change that it becomes mutated and unable to do it's job. \u00a0This is one of the theorized mechanisms of tumor generation in the dermis and epidermis. \u00a0There may be other protective mechanisms such as helping to decrease the inflammation in the dermal tissue and mitigate the UV damage to the tissue in the first place, but this article doesn't explore those.<\/p>\n Interestingly, no increase in P53 expression was noted in increased serum omega 6s, but they don't specify a distinct omega 6 status for the test subjects. \u00a0It may\u00a0be that the typical western diet is so Omega 6 rich that even at “low” serum levels, we are above the threshold for sun damage. \u00a0A great experiment would be to significantly reduce Omega 6s in the diet while keeping Omega 3s stable and see what happens. \u00a0My guess is that if you reduce the Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio, skin resilience will increase and P53 expression will drop even further.<\/p>\n Saturated fats still get a bad rap in the world of nutrition, but they really shouldn't. \u00a0 After all, there is some evidence that saturated fat intake can be inhibitory to cancer cells<\/a>. \u00a0Of course, the diet fed to these mice was not fully described and there could be loads of junk in it (most rodent diets in studies are devoid of Omega-3s and decent overall nutrition) but it seems that the saturated fatty acid diet inhibited tumor cell growth compared to a high intake in poly unsaturated fatty acids. \u00a0Anecdotally, myself and several others I know who have upped their saturated fatty acid intake have found they are more resistant to skin damage from the sun, including decreased sunburn and increased recovery from the mild sunburns we've experienced.<\/p>\n Impressive.<\/p>\n And just\u00a0another reason to shove all that butter and MCT\/coconut<\/a> oil into your coffee<\/a> (and chase it with a couple tablets of fish oil and vitamin D3)… Summer is synonymous with riding and lots of time in the sun. How can we protect ourselves naturally without sunsceen? I’ll tell you:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,116],"tags":[189,186,178],"yst_prominent_words":[1848,1841,5584,1840,1833,1843,5588,1836,1831,1845,1846,1838,1844,5586,1849,1839,1834,1830,1847,1842],"wppr_data":{"cwp_meta_box_check":"No"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/sunburn3.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3972"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3972"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13454,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3972\/revisions\/13454"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3972"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=3972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Cycling](\"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/sunburn3-269x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\nVitamin D3 (35IU\/pound)<\/h2>\n
Fish Oil (3-5g\/day)<\/h2>\n
Saturated Fats<\/h2>\n