Picture this: you’ve had a super busy work season, and you’re finally on vacation. You arrive at your favorite beach destination for 10 days off from the grind at work to spend it with your most dear friends and family. You finally get there. You step onto the beach, let your kids to dip their toes in the ocean, and finally plop down on your favorite beach chair to get a little R&R in the sun, while cracking your favorite fiction read. Life is good.
You’re so relaxed. Your spouse is watching the kids, your in-laws are entertaining themselves with building sand castles, your buddies are preoccupied with building a beach tent. You’re so comfortable that you pass out. You’re exhausted because you’ve been working so hard and are finally able to let go of all of your worries. 2 hours later, you wake up, realizing that your skin is on FIRE.
In the busy-ness of all of the prep work getting to the beach, you simply forgot to pack and put on some sunscreen. You know you messed up. The rest of your awesome vacation is going to be hampered by your lobster red, painful skin. You pop a couple of ibuprofens and wish that you had a little more foresight.
Okay. This blog post is NOT about sunscreen. We’ve already inundated you on that topic so that you really shouldn’t ever find yourself in the picture that I just painted for you.
But, what if it did happen? Are there ways that you could have prevented that very situation? What if you didn’t have access to sunscreen because you went to some remote Caribbean island that didn’t have sunscreen? Here’s the good news—you can prep for a lot of sun exposure and not have to worry as much about sunscreen if you consume certain foods.
That’s what we’re going to talk about.
Okay, so what do I mean by certain foods? I’m going to share with you a study that showed that tomato paste, when even just a little was consumed every day for 10 weeks, can reduce your risk of sunburn. The reference is linked in your shownotes.
Here’s are the details. You’ve heard me use the term carotenoid before. Basically, these are micronutrients that have antioxidant properties, and they’re found in fruits, vegetables, and some dairy products. Carotenoids are fat-soluble, meaning you have to have some fat in your meal in order for your body to absorb them. Once absorbed, they can get into various tissues inside your body, including your eyes and your skin.
There are correlations between a high intake of foods rich in carotenoids and lower rate of degenerative diseases. The protective effects of carotenoids are thought to be due to their antioxidant properties. Of the carotenoids, lycopene may be the most efficient antioxidant. Tomatoes and tomato products are a major dietary source of lycopene for humans. Tomato paste in particular has some of the highest concentrations of lycopene, even when compared to tomato juice or fresh tomatoes.
Because sun exposure leads to damage to your skin (specifically, when you get UV light from the sun, your skin reacts with redness and swelling, which is a reparative inflammatory response), and carotenoids have anti-inflammatory properties, there’s some science that shows that over consuming carotenoids including lycopene may protect your skin from sun damage.
On the basis of this information, some scientists performed a study that looked at consumption of tomato paste and sunburn response in healthy volunteers.
Here’s the study design. 22 healthy adults aged 26 to 67 took part in the study. They had to have inherent sun sensitivity at baseline. What that means is they had light skin, blonde or light-brown hair, and had blue eyes, the type of skin that you’d expect to burn after sun exposure. These volunteers were divided into two groups: one group received 40 grams of tomato paste per day. 40 grams is around 1.5 oz by the way, so we’re not talking a lot of tomato paste. They also received 10 grams of olive oil with their tomato paste. This was to ensure they were absorbing the carotenoids because remember carotenoids need fat in order to be absorbed. The other group received olive oil alone. They received the same amount of olive oil as the people in the tomato paste treatment group.
The two groups had blood work performed at the beginning of the study, after 4 weeks, and then at the 10 week mark. The reason for the blood work was to determine their blood levels of carotenoids and to see if there were differences between those who were eating the tomato paste versus those who got only olive oil. That was one end point that was being studied.
The second end point was skin levels of carotenoids. In theory, these would increase or remain high in people who were eating tomato paste as the lycopene in the tomato paste would provide a source for carotenoids for the skin. Again remember when absorbed from the gut, carotenoids get shuffled around in your body, including in your skin.
The third end point was the crux of the research—how did the volunteers fare when exposed to ultraviolet light (which simulates sunlight)? They had skin on their backs exposed to ultraviolet light at three different time intervals—at the beginning, after 4 weeks, and at the 10 week mark. Then, they looked at how badly they burned.
Here’s what they found.
First, they found that the people who ate the tomato paste had much higher levels of blood carotenoids. They found elevations of blood lycopene at week 4 and at week 10, and it was slightly higher at the 10 week mark, which means that lycopene continued to accumulate in the people who were eating tomato paste.
Second, they found that skin carotenoid levels remained normal in the tomato paste eating group. By contrast, skin carotenoids decreased in the olive oil eating group. It’s likely because these volunteers weren’t replenishing their carotenoids enough because they weren’t eating the tomato paste which is a rich dietary source of carotenoids.
Lastly, the scientists found that the tomato paste eaters, after 10 weeks of eating tomato paste, were able to withstand simulated sunlight much better than the olive oil only group. In other words, the intervention group didn’t show signs of sunburn. What that means is that regularly eating tomato paste is able to increase your ability to withstand sun exposure and not cause sunburn as easily.
Cool, right? I’ll point out that at 4 weeks, the differences in sunburn response was the same between both groups, so the benefit takes awhile to kick in. If this study were generalizable to us all, then I would recommend that you eat tomato paste, at least 1.5 oz, every day for 10 weeks before you plan your sunny beach trip.
I’d also recommend you wear a mineral sunscreen.
Reference: J. Nutr. 131: 1449–1451, 2001