Planning a picnic? Bring "sunblocks": tomato, pomegranate, salmon, green tea and dark chocolate. No kidding. Scientific tests show that high-antioxidant foods can bolster resistance to damage from ultraviolet light that promotes sunburn, wrinkles and skin cancer. When you eat certain antioxidants, they help stabilize skin cells, preventing and repairing damage.
Best bets from the lab:
Chocolate. Women who drank a hot cocoa high in "flavanol" antioxidants daily for three months had 25% less reddening after UV irradiation and more moist, less scaly skin than women drinking low-flavanol cocoa, says new German research. Another source of flavanol is dark chocolate. The downside: It can have a lot of calories. (Mars makes a flavanol-rich bar, CocoaVia, with only 100 calories.)
Tomatoes. German research also finds that lycopene (the antioxidant in tomatoes) reduces sensitivity to sunburn. Drinking tomato juice or taking 10mg lycopene daily for three months cut signs of sunburn from a UV lamp 25% to 48%. Processed tomato products are rich in lycopene.
Pomegranate. At the University of Wisconsin, antioxidant-rich pomegranate extract inhibited changes in human cells exposed to UV light.
Fatty fish. EPA, which is an omega-3 fatty acid in fish, reduced signs of UV damage in skin cells, says a recent Korean study. In a British test, taking 4,000mg of omega-3 a day (the amount in about 12 ounces of salmon) for three months cut sunburn damage 30%.
Green tea. Several studies show drinking green tea helps prevent sunburn and precancerous changes. In a small study, drinking about 2 cups of green tea reduced UV skin damage.
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