Do You Need To Wear Sunscreen Daily? | Dr. Anthony Youn x Dave Asprey

Now this is something I know that, you know, this can be. And we may be differ on sunscreen, you and I may. And that's okay. I'll just tell you where I'm coming from. You know, I'm a board certified plastic surgeon. I have seen people come into my office, they say, hey, I've got this little dot on my nose and they go to see a dermatologist, they get Mohs surgery, then they come back to see me afterwards and half their nostril is gone or part of their eyelid is gone, their eyelids pull down afterwards. And so yes, you know, I've got dermatology friends of mine who they put on sunscreen and then sit in a basement all day and they still put their sunscreen on. I'm not that type. I do believe that there is a lot of benefit to getting sun, especially early in the morning, you know, circadian rhythms, a lot of stuff that, you know, you have been a big fan of. And I think that there's therapeutic benefits of the sun too. You know, I mean, I live in Michigan and gosh darn it, every February I gotta get out of here and I go down south into the Caribbean and we get some sun. But at the same time we also, you know, I have seen the horrible complications of skin cancer. And I do believe it's important to protect your skin whether you do it physically, whether you do it with a mineral based sunblock, whatever you need to do. In general, I think that there's a happy medium there. You know, I know there's some people. I have a friend of mine who, you know, I did his podcast, he's like, hey, I put lard on my skin. That's all I put on my skin. And I'm like, ah, not a big fan of that. And then I got dermatology friends where, like I said, they'll slather on sunscreen if they're gonna be inside all day. I think that there's a happy medium there where we can protect our skin yet still get the benefits of the sun at the same time.

There's definitely some, some serious biohacking benefits to sunshine without sunscreen. And collagen thickness increases with a small amount of sun exposure, but a large amount damages stuff. So there's probably a healthy dose. But it seems like most of the sunscreens you can buy have a warning label that says, warning, this product can cause cancer. So how do you get around that?

I question some of those. I mean, for me, the way I look at it is there's two. So, you know, when you look at sunscreen, you've got chemical and you've got physical sun sunblocks. So chemical sunscreens are absorbed into your skin. When the sun hits your. The rays hit your skin, there's a chemical reaction that will neutralize basically those effects. And yes, there's a question of whether that may create some free radicals during that, in that process. There are certain chemical sunscreens that I'm not a fan of. Oxybenzone and octinoxate are believed to be hormone disruptors. They're also believed to potentially disrupt the coral reefs. And so I'm. I recommend people avoid those. But there are other sunscreens like Megazoral xl, like Avobenzone, and the physical sun blocks like zinc oxide and titanium dioxide that I do believe in general are safe. And once again, I am completely understanding that, that there is, I think, a therapeutic benefit to the sun. It's trying to once again reach a happy medium there. Because once again, you know, I am afraid for one of my favorite actors, Hugh Jackman. I think he is the most talented person in Hollywood. And he has had multiple skin cancers taken off this face at some point, hopefully not, but at some point, one of those may be on his eyelid or his nose or somewhere that could permanently disfigure him. My favorite singer of all time, Jimmy Buffett, recently died from skin cancer. So I'm very well aware of the dangers of it, and I really believe that we have a happy medium there somewhere where you can get the benefit of it, yet not necessarily get the potential harmful, harmfulness of it, too.

Sunburns are bad, no matter what, that we can all agree on.

And that's free radicals and inflammation, you know, that will damage your skin from both of those.

One of the things I've noticed over the past 12 years, I don't eat any omega 6 fats other than if they're found in beef or something. So nothing canola, nothing soy, nothing safflower, grapeseed, even avocado oil? Nope. Maybe a tablespoon of olive oil on. On some days. And that means my cell membranes, especially in my skin, are saturated. It's really hard for me to get sunburned. It's like I have natural suntan. And this is something that I first noticed actually 15 years ago from cutting Omega 6s. And I just found a study. It popped across my desk this morning. Not in preparation for this, just randomly. And it was showing that consumption of omega 6 fats inhibits melanocytes. Which are the things that give you a tan in response to sun. So it. It feels to me like there's a nutritional component that also makes you more susceptible to the sun and that people who have healthier cells probably handle sunlight and maybe benefit more than people who, you know, eat corn dogs and live indoors all the time and come out for 20 minutes to get sunburned.