Protect Your Skin From UV Radiation and Reduce the Risk of Skin Cancer

0:00 Speaker 1 Well, Sunday morning with us today is Dr. Peter Michalos. Well, live long and prosper. And Dr. Peter, what can we do today to make us live a little bit longer?

0:14 Speaker 2 Well, John, one of the things that people always look at when they are trying to determine our age is they look at the condition of our skin. And our skin is a reflection of what’s happening inside our bodies.

0:30 And we now know that ultraviolet radiation from the sun is cumulative and it adds up and it collects. And the people you know who spend a lot of time in the sun who don’t have the protection of, for example, Mediterranean skin or melanin in their skin, they get more damage.

0:48 And we now know that the cumulative exposure can result in things like melanoma, basal cell, squamous cell, which are skin cancers and melanoma can be very dangerous because it can spread to different parts of the body and it can kill you and squamous cells can also go to regional lymph nodes and that’s why it’s so important to

1:10 protect our skin and that’s why wearing things like sun shirts that have actual spf rating which tells you how much it protects you sun hats wide with a brim a cap is not enough annual body checks. If you have light skin, you have to do it like two or three times a year. If you don’t, at least

1:27 once a year, have a body check and look at certain parts of the body that are more susceptible. Like I was talking to leading dermatologist Kenneth Mark, who’s a Mohs surgeon and does skin cancer, that the top of the ears are a big problem, the nose, the cheeks, the top of the hands and the thin skin on

1:49 our shins are common places where people develop cancer. And like, for example, even the eyelid is a place where people get cancer. And someone sent me a picture today of a lady and it was a classic on an edge of an eyelid. And you could see rough spots on the edge of the eyelid and you actually can see

2:06 a patch of loss of eyelashes, loss of hair. That’s also a sign of cancer because wearing sunglasses sometimes is enough because the sun comes in through the side. And that’s why wearing polarized sunglasses that block UVA and UVB. Also, it can cause melanoma in the back of the eye.

2:27 So that’s why having a dilated exam with your ophthalmologist at least once a year to check the back of the eye to make sure you don’t have any tumors, because it looks like a little brown mushroom that it can grow in the back of the eye, though it’s not that common. It can happen. Other things we can

2:44 do to protect our skin are use sunscreens that are mineral-based. Avoid the ones that say nanoparticles or microparticles because those are like microplastics. Also, avoiding the sun between 12 and 3. The other thing you and I have talked about is the gut-brain axis, but there’s a gut-skin axis. If you eat something bad and have an allergic reaction, where does

3:06 it show up sometimes? You get a skin rash or it shows up on the skin. So that’s why eating good farm-to-table organic food helps the skin. The foods that help the skin stay and look healthier are wild salmon that’s not farm-raised, things like avocados, green tea, extra virgin olive oil, green leafy vegetables, sweet potatoes. Those are all

3:32 things that strengthen the skin. And also taking, if you’re going to do supplements, vitamin C helps collagen repair, and omega-3 fatty acids help collagen repair. And also they found that when they studied the poop of centenarians, people lived to be 100, they have good bacteria in their gut.

3:52 So taking a probiotic that’s soil-based, that mimics what the centenarians have, that’s also been found to be helpful with the skin. Also, for the skin protection in the summer, avoid polyester shirts, polyester underwear. Why? Because they don’t breathe, and under that moisture of the polyester, you get more yeast and skin irritations, and that’s why it’s better to

4:16 wear a cotton shirt in the summer or materials that breathe. In the winter, wool is good, cashmere is good, and they’re readily available at a fair price. And also the other area that people can tell your age from your skin damage is the top of the hands. And that’s why every day before you go out, if you put

4:36 a little sunscreen moisturizer on the top of your hands, you wipe a little on the top of your ears. If you’re bald like me, I put on the top of my head, back of my neck, and that helps to decrease the chance of getting exposed to too much UV light, which can be very damaging and result in

4:55 the in skin cancer. So the skin is a reflection of our inner cells. And we now know that we have DNA repair mechanisms. And as we age, those mechanisms to fix the cells that were damaged by the UV, it gets more difficult. So that’s why we have to stress our immune system less by staying out of the sun,

5:16 like we said, between noon and three, wearing a protective hat, protective sunglasses, especially for small children and babies. You have to start young, putting on the mineral-based sunscreen and protecting them from cumulative exposure to light and wearing hats even on small children. And these are some of the things you can do. And actually, myself and my co-author, Dr. Maglano,

5:43 we did a whole chapter on skin, skin protection, in our new released book on Amazon called The Death of Aging. because skin is a very important area and an important organ that we must protect.

5:58 Speaker 1 Understood. Now, is there a time period that if you’re going to stay in the sun, because we all need a little bit of vitamin D, is there a time period that it’s better to be in the sun than not?

6:15 Speaker 2 Yeah, early in the morning when sunrise until around 11, 11.30 is okay, but then when sun peaks, That’s when the solar rays are at their maximum. And then 3 o’clock to 6 o’clock is a great time to be on the beach where you’re not getting fried by all of that UV energy because all this light energy does damage

6:39 to the skin. And you can see the people who were on boats didn’t wear sunscreen, didn’t wear hats. They look much older than their age. And, for example, women who’ve stayed indoors, for example, wear hats with a brim.

6:52 Sometimes they can look 10 years younger because you don’t get the wrinkling of the skin, especially if you come from an area where you have very light eyes and light skin. Because the lighter your skin is, you have less protection from UV light. And that’s why most of the skin cancers occur in people, for example, Irish people,

7:11 in Germans, English, Scottish people. Those people who didn’t evolve near bright sunlight, they don’t have as much protection. So when they’re brought to a sunny climate, they get more skin cancers. And you can also even buy sun shirts, which I buy frequently. I go to Greece and it has SPF 50, and I tell people with small children

7:34 to buy the kids sun shirts to protect them from that cumulative exposure.

7:39 Speaker 1 But when you go into an ordinary store, they don’t know the difference, ordinary vendors. So I guess you would have to buy that on the Internet where you could specify what you really want to buy.

7:50 Speaker 2 Right. There are specialty shops, like, for example, in Long Island where beach communities are. They do sell... SPF shirts, but you’re right. A lot of times I buy mine online from Australia or New Zealand because there it’s mandatory.

8:07 Even on the beaches, they have little pumps with the sunscreen. And in school, they teach the kids from a young age how to protect themselves from the sun because the sun is very strong in places like New Zealand. Interestingly, they get more cancers on the right side of their face and arm because they drive on the right side.

8:25 In the United States, we usually get our first skin cancer on the left arm, left face, and our first cataract on the left because we drive on the left because we get hit with the UV on the left.

8:35 So that’s another interesting fact. Dr.

8:37 Speaker 1 Peter, we are out of time. Thank you so much for calling in this Sunday morning, and we’ll talk again real soon.

8:44 Speaker 2 Thanks for always getting the truth out on the Cats Roundtable and read The Death of Aging on Amazon.