FAKE TAN – Is the summer glow worth it?
If there’s one thing people associate with summer in Australia, it has to be bronzed bodies spending long days sun baking on the beach. But with movements such as the Cancer Council’s ‘No tan is worth dying for’ campaign, which resulted in the banning of commercial solariums in Australia in 2015, the tide is beginning to turn on this trend. And in a well meaning attempt to heed the sunsmart warning but still achieve that perfect summer glow, many women have turned to fake tan. On the surface, it sounds like the perfect solution – look like a bronzed goddess for that party or wedding in 15 minutes flat, and when you’ve had enough, just wash it off. No sunburn, no worries.
But unfortunately, it’s not the perfect solution. Fake tans contain endocrine disruptors called ‘xenoestrogens’, and these little guys can cause you a world of trouble by impacting your periods and fertility, whole hormonal system and they’ve even been linked to some cancers.
What are xenoestrogens? According to an article by the Women in Balance Institute, xenoestrogens are a type of chemical that alter the normal function of hormones. And when these chemicals make their way in to our bodies, “they have the ability to mimic our natural hormones; blocking or binding hormone receptors”, which can have a big impact on hormonesensitive organs like the “uterus and the breast, the immune and neurological systems, as well as human development”.
What are they doing to your body? Essentially, these xenoestrogens can enter the body in a number of ways, including being absorbed through the skin in products like fake tan. From there, “they increase the total amount of oestrogen resulting in a phenomenon called, oestrogen dominance”. This should sound familiar to all of our ‘SD Protocol’ devotees, who will know that oestrogen dominance occurs when there is too much oestrogen in relation to progesterone, which along with xenoestrogens can be caused by prolonged activation of the stress response. It is also a key marker for Sympathetic Dominance, which leads to suppression of the reproductive system (thus impacting your period). According to the Institute, a build up of
xenoestrogens has been linked to many conditions including “breast, prostate and testicular cancer[s], obesity, infertility, endometriosis, early onset puberty, miscarriages and diabetes”. This sounds all too familiar, removing environmental xenoestrogens and getting to the root cause of your health issues is exactly what the SD Protocol does.
So what can you do? The best thing to do is to stay away from fake tans (and other products) that include xenoestrogens, and to educate yourself on how best to avoid them in all aspects of your everyday life. If you suspect that you’re already beginning to suffer from oestrogen dominance, make sure you visit the SD Protocol page of our website to find out what you can do. I’d recommend reading the SD Protocol Book or Watching the video series if you’re short on time.
Key point: We all love a healthy glow over summer, but it’s not just too much sun that can lead to health problems. Educate yourself on how to avoid xenoestrogens in fake tan, beauty products and common female lifestyle products, to prevent long-term impacts to your health!