Interestingly there’s a pill you can take which has sun protection effects—polypodium leucotomos extract. It reduces UV damage, equivalent to about SPF 4. So not a replacement for sunscreen, but a useful addition to it, as it protects spots you may have missed. Eg my girlfriend goes on long daily runs, for which it’s hard to cover all exposed skin adequately with sunscreen.
It doesn’t seem to be widely available, but I get it from Super Smart (order online from Portugal).
The recommended dosage is 1 x 500 mg first thing in the morning (as it takes 30-120 minutes to take effect). If you’ll be out in the sun all day, maybe take another one mid-morning. And preferably also take one the day before sun exposure—so not a bad idea to take one (or two) daily all summer.
The lowdown on scientific research into it is here: https://examine.com/supplements/polypodium-leucotomos/ This seems somewhat tentative, but in a more detailed (?subscription only) report elsewhere on the site they recommend it quite strongly.
Interestingly there’s a pill you can take which has sun protection effects—polypodium leucotomos extract. It reduces UV damage, equivalent to about SPF 4. So not a replacement for sunscreen, but a useful addition to it, as it protects spots you may have missed. Eg my girlfriend goes on long daily runs, for which it’s hard to cover all exposed skin adequately with sunscreen.
It doesn’t seem to be widely available, but I get it from Super Smart (order online from Portugal).
The recommended dosage is 1 x 500 mg first thing in the morning (as it takes 30-120 minutes to take effect). If you’ll be out in the sun all day, maybe take another one mid-morning. And preferably also take one the day before sun exposure—so not a bad idea to take one (or two) daily all summer.
The lowdown on scientific research into it is here: https://examine.com/supplements/polypodium-leucotomos/ This seems somewhat tentative, but in a more detailed (?subscription only) report elsewhere on the site they recommend it quite strongly.
This is really interesting; I’d never heard of it before… thanks for sharing. I’m excited to research it more.
Sunscreen lengthens the amount of sun exposure needed to synthesize a given amount of Vitamin D; I wonder if this does as well.