With the summer sun at its highest, now is the time we need to be most careful about protecting our skin from the sun's harmful rays. The standard advice--apply sunscreen on every inch of exposed skin every time you go outdoors--may protect our skin, but it actually isn't the best advice for good health.

Yes, we do need to protect our skin from the harmful rays of the sun, but in our rush to do so we seem to have forgotten that sunlight is essential to life. It used to be that being out in the sun was considered a healthful activity ?-now we seem to fear the sun to the degree that we must shield ourselves from it at every moment.

WHY OUR BODIES NEED SUN

Living things need the light of the sun to grow and flourish ?and our bodies are no exception. Since the beginning of the existence of our species, we have lived with the sun, and we need exposure of sunlight on our skin.

The interaction of sunlight with skin produces Vitamin D, a vital nutrient that is not found in foods that are common in our modern diet. While Vitamin D does occur naturally in some foods--such as egg yolks, liver, shrimp, salmon, and tuna--sunlight is still needed to help the body synthesize vitamin D from these sources. Vitamin D is essential to the optimal function of every cell, tissue, organ, and system in our bodies, so not having enough vitamin D affects the health of our entire bodies.

Sunlight also activates the body's absorption of calcium and other minerals. So simply taking a calcium or mineral supplement or eating foods containing these nutrients isn't enough. Our bodies need sunlight to assimilate them.

So our bodies do need to have at least short periods of unprotected sunlight for good health.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH SUNSCREEN?

First of all, sunscreens are not even effective. The incidence of skin cancer has actually increased since they have been in use.

There also concern that regular use of even natural sunscreen can interfere with your skin's ability to produce vitamin D, a nutrient essential to all body functions. One study showed that scientifically controlled tests of skin untreated with sunscreen versus skin treated with sunscreen (SPF-8) demonstrated a large difference in vitamin D production. The sunscreened skin showed NO change in vitamin D, while the untreated skin had increases of vitamin D of 1600 percent in their blood. Another study showed that sunscreens rated SPF-8 reduce vitamin D production by 97.5 percent and sunscreens rated SPF-15 reduce vitamin D production by 99.9 percent. So if you choose to wear sunscreen, for that period of time you are essentially shutting down your body's vitamin D production, pretty much completely.

And even natural sunscreens contain questionable ingredients. Two ingredients are used in virtually all sunscreens as the active sun block ingredients: titanium dioxide and zinc oxide. Titanium dioxide is suspected to cause cancer in humans, and zinc oxide is known to be an immune system toxin and a respiratory toxicant, and may present risks to human reproduction and development. To make things worse, these particles are now ground into powders so fine that they are measured in nanometers (one billionth of a meter). Particles of that size can easily penetrate the skin, with as yet unknown consequences. In May 2006, eight environmental groups jointly petitioned the FDA to increase regulations on these new sunscreen products.

TRADiTIONAL SUN PROTECTION

Back in the days before we had sunscreens, people did protect their skin from the sun, and had been doing so for thousand of years.

The most essential guideline that has been followed throughout history and is still the number one piece of advice that all experts and agencies give without exception is: the best way to protect your skin from the harmful effects of UV rays is to stay indoors in the middle of the day.

And then, if you need to protect your skin, cover it up with hats and protective clothing.

These two rules are so important that the Centers for Disease Control advises they be followed even if you use sunscreen.

For more details on safe skin protection and sensible sunbathing, see Debra's Guide to Choosing Safe & Natural Sun Protection, available online at http://www.debraslist.com/sun/.