Weekly Health Tips for the month of June
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June 3, 2007- Road Rules: Slather on SunscreenHitting the road this weekend? Slap on some sunscreen before you get behind the wheel.

Long road trips, be they for business or pleasure, may boost your risk of skin cancer, especially on the left side of your body.

Drivers get lots of sun exposure on the left side of their bodies while they're motoring about, and car windows will screen only a portion of the harmful rays. So in a recent study, researchers weren't surprised to find that the people who had skin cancer on the left side of their bodies tended to spend more time driving than the other people in the study.

Here are three options for sun-safe driving:

* Tint or filter car glass. Tinting windows or using UV filters significantly reduces the amount of deep-penetrating UVA rays that pass through the glass.
* Turn on the air. In the study, drivers who occasionally had the windows open had more left-side skin cancers.
* Smooth on sunscreen. Use a broad-spectrum sunscreen with an SPF of 15 or higher on sun-exposed areas, and wear protective clothing.
Source: American Academy of Dermatology, ©2007

June 10, 2007- D for a Better Colon Report
Dread colonoscopy time? Vitamin D may be your hero.

Although everyone needs a colon cancer check after a certain age, vitamin D may help take the "ouch" out of your report. In a study, women who got enough D were less likely to develop certain kinds of precancerous colon polyps.

Vitamin D does good things for both women's and men's bodies. It helps build healthy bones, regulate calcium levels, and support immune system functions. And now it might help your colon, too. (This study showed the benefit in women, but other studies have shown colon benefits for men, too.)

Still, there is a catch.

Don't Overdose on A
Seems the benefits of D may occur only so long as you don't overdo it with vitamin A; women whose intake exceeded 4,800 IU (international units) per day had twice the risk of colon polyps compared to the women who got much less vitamin A. So go easy on the stuff. Better yet, get your share from beta carotene, which your body converts to A as needed.

Source: American Journal of Epidemiology, ©2007

June 17, 2007- Don't Skimp on Sunscreen

When it comes to sun protection, a little dab of sunscreen won't do ya.

To get the full sun protection factor (SPF) that's printed on the bottle, you have to use the amount that scientists use in testing. For most
sunscreens, that's about 2 mg/cm2. Here's how much that is in plain English.

Most of us use only about a quarter of the sunscreen quantity needed to get the full SPF protection advertised on a label. To get the full
benefit, you need to slather on a lot of the stuff -- about 2 milligrams of product per square centimeter of skin.  That translates roughly into
about two finger-length squirts of the sunscreen applied to every major body area (head/neck/face, left arm, right arm, upper back, lower back,
upper front torso, lower front torso, left thigh/knee, right thigh/knee, left lower leg/foot, right lower leg/foot).

Feel like you're swimming in sunscreen? Good. You're on the right track.

Source:  British Journal of Dermatology, ©2007


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