Given up on a tan?

Turn pink after minutes in the sunshine?

Bask in the sun longer—without dreaded “lobster skin”

Do you sunburn easily? Or do you have trouble getting a tan at all when you’re out in the sun? Sunshine is good for us, and not just for vitamin D. (See the June 2009 issue of Nutrition & Healing.) But what can you do, besides use a sunblock or just cover up, to prevent sunburn? If you want a tan, are suntan oils your only option?

You can certainly defend your skin against quick burning by adjusting your diet (see the May 2010 issue of Nutrition & Healing) and by using the new supplement SunPal to lengthen the time before you start to burn. But you may not know that you can actually take advantage of your own body’s natural “tanning chemistry” to further prolong the length of time before you start to turn pink. And if you’re someone who’s used to staying pale  through August, you can at the very least get a little more tan than you’ve been able to in the past.

Years ago, John Myers, M.D., a clinical faculty member at Johns Hopkins University Medical School and a pioneer (1930s through 1980s) in the use of minerals (especially iodine and iodide), vitamins, thyroid, and other natural substances, taught physicians how to do exactly these two things. He pointed out that melanin (the dark skin pigment produced by sunlight) is made in human bodies from the amino acids pheylalanine and tyrosine. Several enzymes are involved in the process; these enzymes are particularly dependent on copper, vitamin C, and vitamin B6 to do their jobs.

So when Dr. Myers’s patients went to Florida, the Caribbean, or just planned to spend the summer in the backyard, he’d advise them to take supplemental amounts of these same nutrients for at least a week to ten days before the “extra” sunshine exposure, and to continue taking the same supplements until they came home, or summer sunshine exposure was over. He reported that those who sunburned easily could be in the sun significantly longer before they started to turn pink, and those who could hardly tan at all would actually get a little tan.

Two extra hours in the sun—and no turning pink!

After hearing about this from Dr. Myers, I passed the information along to clinic clients, and heard from nearly everyone who tried it that Dr. Myers was “right on.” So even though I personally tan quite easily, and take awhile to start turning pink in strong sunshine, I tried it when Holly and I went to very sunny areas (not Seattle!) and observed that I could last one or two hours longer in strong sunshine before starting to turn pink. Holly noticed she could gain 30 to 60 extra minutes, and of course we both got notably more tan with the tyrosine-vitamin B6-copper-vitamin C combination than without it.

To make taking them easier, these nutrients have been combined into one formulation called TanPal. It’s an excellent accompaniment to SunPal (see page x). The ingredients in SunPal have been found to significantly lower skin cancer risk from sunshine exposure in a variety of ways; many more details can be found in the May 2010 Nutrition & Healing. TanPal will not only help you get a better tan and last a bit longer in the sun, but it’s very likely (although not yet proven) that it’ll lower your risk of skin cancer, too, as tanning itself is one of Nature’s ways of protecting skin against damage from the sun.

Like SunPal, TanPal is available from the Tahoma Clinic Dispensary

• www.tahomadispensary.com, (1-888-893-6878)

TanPal may well be in your local natural food store and compounding pharmacy even now. And yes, I am responsible for formulating SunPal, and for copying the TanPal formula from Dr. Myers himself!

    

     

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