The Biology for Skin Aging, Part Two: The Four Pillars of Sensible Skin Care: Prevent, Protect, Repair and Reverse
Chapter One, First Pillar, Prevention, Part Two: Lifestyle Changes to prevent premature skin aging
Lifestyle Change Number 1: Daily Sunscreen to Prevent Elastosis
The best way to prevent solar damage contributing to the aging marker elastosis is with our first lifestyle change. I’ve been asked if the farmer’s skin portrayed in the picture in Chapter One, part one, isn’t nature’s way of providing sun protection, and might it be considered an alternative to using sunscreen? There was maybe an argument for this back in the day when the only sunscreens on the market contained benzophenone-3 (oxybenzone), a potential endocrine disruptor with a negative impact on marine wildlife, but recent advances in mineral sunscreen technology have changed all that. There are so many safe non-nano zinc oxide-only options on the market nowadays it makes the risk-benefit analysis pretty simple.
Daily Sunscreen Usage: a simple benefit/risk analysis
Benefits
1) reduce skin cancer risk, both basal cell carcinoma and melanoma
2) delay or prevent the appearance of wrinkles, hyperpigmentation, elastosis
Risks
1) endocrine disruption—minimal to none with zinc-oxide sunscreen, possible with sunscreens containing benzophenones, particularly benzophenone-3 (oxybenzone)
2) erythema or inflammation from an allergic reaction. Minimal with zinc oxide; ZnO is anti-inflammatory. Reports cite over 65% of photoallergic contact dermatitis with chemical absorbers (oxybenzone in particular) being the culprit. Please note it’s not just the sunscreen agents that present a risk; fragrances, essential oils and certain preservatives can also be the cause.
3) harm to marine wildlife, coral reefs: high risk with chemical sunscreens, but non-nano ZnO (particles ³ 100 nm) does not affect marine wildlife or cause coral reef bleaching.
Conclusions: Using a non-nano zinc oxide only sunscreen, fragrance and essential oil free, using safe preservatives is your best option to protect your skin, as well as marine life.
Preservatives to avoid: parabens, phthalates, methtlisothiazolinone, diazolidinyl urea, phenoxyethanol. A very complete list can be found at the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics website. (1) Preservative alternatives: Radish root ferment filtrate, provides broad-spectrum antimicrobial protection.
Farmer’s skin can be an option, but the risks are consequential in terms of increased risk of developing basal carcinomas, as well as the cosmetic deterioration that shows up very early on in life.
Recommendation: Limit solar damage with daily use of a non-nano zinc-oxide only sunscreen, SPF 20-30. Make sure it is fragrance free, essential oil free and uses natural broad spectrum antimicrobial preservatives. Daily use is the key lifestyle change-- sunscreen use is no longer a summertime, beach activity affair. It should be used winter and summer, indoors and out, rain or shine because the UVA rays, the aging rays, come through glass and clouds, and are present as long as the sun is.
Lifestyle Change Number 2. Precautions against heat are the new normal in the age of global warming
Sunbathing as a sport is about as extinct as hunting the dodo bird, and for the same reason—man-made changes to the plant. But there are other manmade sources of heat you can avoid—one of them is easy.
1) Sources you can control--IR
1) Saunas. There are many sauna-type devices using IR as their source of energy. They claim that infrared radiation contributes to wellness by boosting the immune system and inducing relaxation, however raising skin temperature via IR is an iffy proposition. If you enjoy relaxing in a sauna, choose one that uses heat generated by steam.
2) Facials. Red light facials using long wave lengths in the 650 to 720 nm range stimulate collagen, and do not have unfortunate side effects. IR therapy uses wavelengths from 760 nm to 1 mm, which penetrate deeply into the skin and generate heat. The difference between the two: red light does not generate heat, promotes collagen production and addresses surface-level skin conditions related to inflammation, IR generates heat and ROS which may deteriorate ECM integrity by weakening elastin and collagen fibers. Red light? I’m a big fan. IR? I suggest avoiding IR treatments, especially if they’re included in a facial.
2) Sources outside our control—Heat waves
These days we are subject to more and more heat events over which we have no control. As I write, France is coming off a record-breaking “canicule”—I have a friend in Paris who said the temperature was 110 degrees outside, and several degrees hotter inside her apartment. (AC is not a common feature of French dwellings).
Tips for staying cool.
1) Wear light-colored clothing (reflects the light) with natural fibers such as linen and cotton. Avoid tight jeans and synthetics; there’s no room for your sweat to evaporate, instead it pools up to create discomfort and chaffing
2) Use tepid or cool water to shower, not too hot or cold, both raise temperature. Air dry if possible, to let evaporation continue the cooling process
3) Keep hydrated. It isn’t just about guzzling plain water either. Consider the fruits and veggies that are 90 to 100% water such as asparagus, baby carrots, broccoli, cabbage, celery, cucumbers, iceberg or romaine lettuce, peppers, spinach, strawberries, watermelon, zucchini. Fruit that also delivers other benefits are a good idea; strawberries are high in the senolytic fisetin, and watermelon contains polysaccharides to help attract and retain moisture in the skin, as well as lycopene which helps mitigate sun damage.
4) Moisturize before and after hiking, sunbathing, swimming—anticipate activities that will dry the skin and take preventive measures to forestall it by pre-moisturizing before you go out, and post-moisturizing when you get back inside, using humectants like hyaluronic acid.
3) Choose Alternative Sources of Vitamin D3
It used to be we could recommend sun as an excellent way to get your daily Vitamin D3. Back in the 1960’s Adelle Davis in Let’s Get Well told us about Italian kids who didn’t get rickets, while English kids did, and the difference was? The sunshine vitamin. When the skin is exposed to UVB rays 7- dehydrocholesterol (pro-Vitamin D3) is converted into pre-Vitamin D 3 and then into D3 (cholecalciferol) where it enters the bloodstream. This Vitamin D3 is converted to the active form calcitriol in the liver and kidneys, where it plays a crucial role in bone health and immune system support.
It appears that rickets, characterized by soft and weakened bones in children, is making a comeback, particularly in the UK. Lifestyle changes, more time spent indoors and lack of Vitamin D rich foods, are cited as the main culprits.
So, we need lifestyle changes, but getting sufficient Vitamin D from the sun has gotten a lot trickier, as we will discover. Probably a combination of supplementation and some sun exposure following safe guidelines is the most sensible approach.
Acquiring Vitamin D3 the old-fashioned way comes with some recommendations that I would modify.
Medical experts recommend the following guidelines to safely acquire the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin D3—400 IU for children up to 12 months, 600 IU for ages 1 to 70 and 800 IU for 70+.
1) Sun exposure: Eight to ten minutes daily around noon (when UVB rays are most prevalent) during spring and summer with 25% of body exposed is considered sufficient. Modification: This means you do not have to expose face, neck or decolletage, exposure of arms and legs will be enough.
2) Skin sensitivity—you know your skin and how much time you can spend in the sun without burning. Modification: You never, ever want to burn, so always go by the signals your skin sends, not by the clock. At the first sign of redness, you have had enough. Remember when it comes to UVB rays, B=burning.
3) Maximizing absorption—Vitamin D3 needs time to be absorbed into the bloodstream, so delay a hot shower with soap by at least three hours, though you can take a rinse off- shower with no soap in tepid water if you can’t tolerate the sand on your skin. Modification: Remember the Italian street kids who saw very little in the way of soap and water? underneath all the grime was gorgeous bone structure. If you keep the dirt in place, it’s another layer of UV protection—provided free, courtesy of Mother Nature.
Now, let’s get to those people for whom sun exposure is not an option. Because Vitamin D3 has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties it is crucial to have sufficient amounts in an age delay program, however, even if you’d prefer to get your Vitamin D3 from the sun, factors that militate against it being an option include:
1) Age—the body’s ability to convert sunlight into D3 decreases with age, due to declines in 7-dehydroxycholesterol (7-DHC) in the epidermis. People 40 and above should take oral supplements even if they think they are getting enough from the sun. Though the recommended dosage for people 19-70 years old is 600 IU daily, with 800 IU for 70 and older, no ill effects were shown where amounts were in the 5,000 to 10,000 IUs daily (1). Rather that less is more, more is more seems to be the rule of thumb in the age-delay world at least. This study states: “Vitamin D may reduce telomere shortening through anti-inflammatory and anti-cell proliferation mechanisms.” (2) I heartly endorse anything that is going to reduce telomere shortening, a major aging hallmark.
2) Heat waves—it’s no longer a matter of winter months not delivering enough sunlight, in the age of global warming, it’s more a question of when and if, it’s safe to go outside in the midday sun, even for ten minutes. Exposure to full sunlight can increase the index value by up to 15 degrees. On very warm/hot days consult the heat index—and if you’re planning to do a midday sun exposure don’t forget to add 15 degrees.
Recommendations
1) Avoid infrared saunas and light treatments using infrared, especially facial treatments. Choose red light facials instead.
2) Cool it on the hot showers, even cold showers—they both raise skin temperature. Tepid water is best.
3) Take it easy on the soap. Soap removes all the oils that are helping to synthesize Vitamin D3 on the skin’s surface so it can be absorbed by the bloodstream. If you must use soap, make it an oil-based cleanser as opposed to a highly alkaline hard soap that will strip your skin.
4) Beat the heat—even aside from health risks like heat stroke, heat increases ROS generation. Stay cool, hydrated, drink green tea for the polyphenols that add UV protection, eat strawberries and watermelon, use moisturizers containing humectants like hyaluronic acid frequently.
5) Spays and mists--You can also make a cooling spray with green tea, high in polyphenols that deliver sun protective benefits. Make a teapot full of green tea that you can pour into a spray bottle. Take it with you when you go out, and whenever you feel your skin temperature rise give yourself a spritz.
6) Oral supplements of Vitamin D3 as an alternative to sun exposure. For most fair-skinned people this is just a fact of life these days. UVB does provide benefits sure, but people in the past paid the price with wrinkled, leathery skin. We are lucky we have options. If you want to get extra D3 from the sun, check your heat indexes before exposure, know your skin’s limitations, take precautions, and remember, you do not need to expose your face and neck to get the D3 synthesis advantage from the sun.
7) Supplementing with oral D3. Recommended amounts:
Age 20-45, Supplement with 5,000 IUs daily, Age 45+, 10,000 IUs daily
Lifestyle Change Number Three: Know Your Sunscreen ABCs: Avoid, Beware, Choose
Let’s review.
A=Avoid, Abjure
Chemical sunscreens containing ingredients like benzophenone-3, avobenzone, octyl methoxycinnamate and octocrylene. In fact, avoid chemical sunscreens if at all possible.
Mineral sunscreens with titanium dioxide. In the presence of H2O and UV it forms the hydroxyl free radical.
B=Beware, Besmirch
High SPF sunscreens
SPF > 30 can be counterproductive. You actually don’t want an SPF higher than 30 because it will interfere with your natural protection against the potentially more harmful UVA rays. This is because as the higher UVB protection prevents burning you tend to stay out longer than you should, which occasions greater absorption of the more dangerous UVA rays.
We say the A in UVA stands for aging because UVA suppresses the immune system and does three things directly linked to aging: 1) it induces release of immunosuppressive cytokines which cause inflammation 2) damages cellular DNA and 3) generates ROS.
New studies show found that the immune protection factor did not correlate with the SPF in a sunscreen, however it significantly correlated with UVA protective capability. (3) Zinc oxide is your best protection against longer wavelength UVA rays. Even if your SPF is 15, if you’re using zinc oxide that’s a better bet than an SPF 50 chemical sunscreen with lousy UVA, aka broad spectrum, protection.
*Please see footnotes for a review of SPF.
C=Choose, Cull
Non-Nano Zinc Oxide
Choose a sunscreen containing non-nano zinc oxide. Here’s why:
1) it is photostable because it works by reflecting UV rays rather than absorbing them. This means ROS production is very minimal.
2) It works best in protection in the longer wavelength spectrum including UVA rays and >400 nm. We just learned that immune protection factor is a better metric for aging protection than SPF, because “high ultraviolet A protection is required to protect against ultraviolet-induced damage to cutaneous immunity.” (4) Which is another way of saying that when it comes to UVA rays, A=Aging. High SPF ratings may obscure the UVA protection, but, when it comes to aging, UVA protection is more important than UVB protection.
3) Zinc oxide is anti-inflammatory
Choose CPD Protection
A good sunscreen these days will also provide protection from other risks, such as CPD damage. Your non-nano zinc oxide only broad-spectrum SPF 30 sunscreen should contain algae and plankton extracts to arrest CPD damage. These photolyases derived from algae are activated by light, and target and repair CPDs by breaking the CPD bond and restoring the original DNA structure.
Lifestyle Change Number Four. Use These Prevention Tips
Prevention is foundational, you start young and continue with it all your life. But if you start out on the right foot your reward will be wrinkle-free skin for the rest of your life.
Children Under Three: Limit sun exposure, but don’t prohibit it. As long as babies are not getting burned a little exposure to sun is a good thing. In fact, for breastfed babies it’s necessary, as they will be getting their Vitamin D from the sun for the most part. For longer times in the sun cover with shirts and hats and stay in the shade.
Breastfeeding mothers--Breastfed babies are at risk for rickets these days, so if you are breastfeeding make sure your Vitamin D3 levels are adequate.
Toddlers and Kids: zinc oxide sunscreen SPF 15 on faces once a day for daily wear. Zinc oxide sunscreen on vulnerable areas, like faces, shoulders and necks on beach days, at least once a day. If they are swimming apply when they get out of the water. If they are swimming in a chlorinated pool add a Vitamin C serum to the sunscreen. Again, it’s not necessary to overdo it, as some exposure to the sun is necessary so their skin can make Vitamin D. If possible, time play hours in the direct sun so that they fall outside the peak UVB hours between 10 and 2.
Women: because you care about skin aging, wear a non-nano zinc oxide SPF 30 on face and neck every day. At beach etc cover up. Also use a topical serum containing antioxidants like Vitamins C and E.
Men: because even if you don’t care about aging the melanoma statistics for men are alarming, at least to your loved ones, so wear a non-nano zinc oxide sunscreen every day on exposed areas. There are some ZnO sunscreens that don’t show. Wear a hat if you don’t have much hair coverage—after all, grass doesn’t grow on a busy street.
People of color: My company has been working for years on a zinc oxide only sunscreen that can be used by all skin types and colors, because everyone, regardless of melanin content in the epidermis, needs sun protection. Our non-nanozinc oxide-only sunscreen is SPF 32, contains CPD protection, and it is transparent. It can be used by people who have been frustrated by the lack of safe options available to them. (5)
Fair skinned, history of sunburns or family history of cancer, or you live in temperate, arctic zones:
use daily:
non nano zinc oxide sunscreen SPF 30
an anti-oxidant topical containing Vitamins C and E
Supplement with Vitamin D3
For everyone
Look for: Non-nano zinc oxide is the most photostable and provides the best protection at the higher end of end of the UV spectrum. With zinc oxide content ranging from 15%-25% in sunscreens that use zinc oxide, an SPF 30 is sufficient. Remember, a good UVA rating is far more important than a high SPF. Check for enzymes that give CPD protection.
Footnotes
1) https://www.safecosmetics.org/chemicals/preservatives/ Preservatives
2)https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30611908/#:~:text=The%20average%20intact%20parathyroid%20hormone,day%20appears%20to%20be%20safe. Daily Oral Dosing of Vitamin D3 using 5,000 to 50,000 IUs a Day
3) https://link.springer.com/article/10.14283/jfa.2020.33 The relationship between Vitamin D and Telomere/telomerase
4) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022202X15304498 High UVA Protection Affords Greater Immune Protection
5) Marie Veronique Color free Zinc oxide only broad spectrum SPF 32 sunscreen
*SPF—sun protection factor. SPF refers to UVB protection only. It extends the amount of time you can be in the sun without burning. For example: SPF 2 means that if you stay in the sun for 10 minutes without burning you can stay in the sun for 20 minutes with SPF 2 protection. 10 min X SPF 2 = 20 minutes.
The SPF rating refers to the percentage of UV rays filtered, and it is NOT proportional.
SPF 15 filters 93% of UVB rays, some UVA rays
SPF 20 filters 95.5% of UVB rays, some UVA rays
SPF 30 filters 97% of UVB rays, some UVA rays.
SPF>30 at some point past SPF 30 the maximum of 99% of UV rays are filtered, but the numbers become rather meaningless.