Natural Sunburn Prevention

Beta-carotene effective as sunburn protector

From Dr Shaun Holt
The Facts:

• Dietary supplementation with beta-carotene appears to provide a degree of sun protection, according to the pooled results of 7 studies.
• In the studies, the protective effects of beta-carotene increased as the duration of supplementation increased.
• Nutritional protection against sun-induced skin damage is increasingly being recommended to the general public.

Dr Shaun Holt: Often the best way to see if a treatment works is to gather up all the studies that have assessed it and add the results – a meta-analysis. This meta-analysis found a definite beneficial effect from beta-carotene in protecting against sunburn and of particular interest was the finding that the longer the beta-carotene is taken for, the greater the protection, with at least 10 weeks of supplementation needed for an effect. Beta-carotene is a highly coloured precursor of vitamin A.

You can refer to http://www.naturalhealthreview.org/articles.cfm?ID=327