From the Desk of Carolyn Dean MD ND
Why Healthy Summer Skin Depends on More Than What You Put on It
Summer has a way of drawing us outdoors. Longer days, warm sunshine, time at the beach, gardening, hiking, and family vacations all invite us to spend more time in the fresh air. Naturally, that also brings renewed conversations whether the sun is our friend or our enemy.
Social media is filled with debates about sunscreen. One group insists we should avoid the sun altogether, while another promotes “natural sunscreen” or even claims that certain foods can replace it. As with many health trends, the truth is more nuanced.
I’ve always encouraged a balanced approach. Applying a chemical-free mineral sunscreen formulated with zinc oxide creates a physical barrier between your skin and ultraviolet (UV) rays. This matters most when you’re spending extended time outdoors.
Now, there are two mineral ingredients generally recognized as safe by the FDA. The other one is titanium dioxide – but I stick with zinc oxide. Of course there are many chemical formulas on the market, which I avoid. Besides possible negative effects on humans, these chemicals are destroying coral reefs all over the world.
Why Topical Protection Isn’t the Whole Story
However, topical protection is only one layer of the story.
What often gets overlooked is the remarkable work your body is doing beneath the surface every time you’re exposed to sunlight. Your skin isn’t simply sitting there waiting for sunscreen to protect it. It is constantly repairing itself, neutralizing free radicals, producing collagen, calming inflammation, and replacing damaged cells. Those remarkable processes depend on something many people never think about: internal minerals.
The question isn’t only, What are you putting on your skin? It’s also, What are you giving your cells to work with?
As I often remind my patients and customers, the body knows how to heal and protect itself when it has the proper raw materials. Summer is no exception.
Your Skin Has Two Lines of Defense
When sunlight reaches your skin, it does more than warm the surface. Ultraviolet radiation stimulates the production of unstable molecules called reactive oxygen species—better known as free radicals.
Yet your body is well equipped to handle them…up to a point.
Notably, healthy cells produce sophisticated antioxidant enzymes that neutralize these free radicals before they can damage tissues. But during prolonged sun exposure, especially in the heat of summer, free radicals can form faster than your body’s natural antioxidant systems can keep pace. Simply, this imbalance is known as oxidative stress.
I like to think of summer skin protection as having two complementary layers.
The first layer is external. A chemical-free mineral sunscreen helps block or reflect many UV rays before they penetrate the skin.
Layer two is internal. This is your body’s own repair and defense system, which depends heavily on nutrition—particularly minerals and antioxidant nutrients.
One layer doesn’t replace the other. Instead, they work together.
The Minerals Your Skin Depends On
Healthy skin isn’t created by a single “miracle” nutrient. It’s the result of many minerals and vitamins working together, each contributing to a different aspect of cellular repair and resilience.
Zinc: More Than a Mineral Sunscreen
Most people recognize zinc from mineral sunscreens, but zinc also performs essential work inside the body.
Internally, zinc supports the body’s own antioxidant enzyme systems and helps maintain the integrity of the skin barrier. It also participates in tissue repair and healthy inflammatory responses—important functions when skin is under the additional stress of summer sun exposure.
Indeed, topical zinc oxide and dietary zinc aren’t doing the same job. One helps form a physical barrier on the skin’s surface, while the other supports the cells responsible for maintaining healthy skin from within. I also think that the zinc oxide sunscreen I use on my face every morning when I walk helps keep my skin hydrated, healthy, and youthful.
Copper: The Forgotten Collagen Mineral
Today, collagen has become one of the biggest conversations in the beauty and wellness industry, with powders and drinks promising youthful skin. Yet collagen production depends on much more than taking collagen itself.
I’ve talked nonstop about vitamin C being necessary for collagen production, and I’ll go into more detail below. But most people don’t know that copper is a cofactor for an enzyme called lysyl oxidase. As a result, this enzyme helps cross-link collagen and elastin fibers, giving skin its strength and elasticity. Without adequate copper, the body cannot properly organize these structural proteins, regardless of how much collagen you consume. Also, magnesium is a necessary cofactor in the production of elastin. One big happy family.
Selenium: Cellular Protection from Within
Selenium rarely receives the attention it deserves, yet it plays a central role in one of the body’s most important antioxidant enzymes, glutathione peroxidase.
In turn, this enzyme helps neutralize oxidative stress throughout the body, including within skin cells.
Selenium also supports healthy thyroid function. Because thyroid hormones influence skin turnover, texture, and repair, maintaining healthy selenium levels matters. These benefits extend well beyond one organ system.
Clearly, this is one reason selenium has remained an important part of my nutritional protocols for many years.
Magnesium: The Stress Mineral
When people think about magnesium, they often associate it with muscle cramps or better sleep.
But magnesium is involved in up to 800 enzymatic reactions throughout the body. Namely, these reactions help regulate inflammation, energy production, and the body’s response to physical stress.
Indeed, the summer season places unique demands on magnesium stores. Heat, sweating, travel, disrupted routines, exercise, and increased sun exposure all require the body to work harder. If magnesium reserves are already running low—as they are for so many people—those additional demands become even more significant.
So, healthy skin begins with healthy cells, and healthy cells require adequate magnesium.
Vitamin C: The Collagen Connection
No discussion of skin health would be complete without Vitamin C.
Vitamin C is one of the most abundant antioxidants found in healthy skin. It helps neutralize free radicals generated by UV exposure and regenerates Vitamin E for continued antioxidant support. Also, it is absolutely essential for collagen synthesis.
In fact, collagen simply cannot be formed properly without Vitamin C.
This fascinating relationship is one of the reasons I’ve devoted so much attention to my upcoming book on Vitamin C. In it, I explore its remarkable role in cellular health, immune resilience, and tissue repair.
Collagen Is Built, Not Bottled
Collagen supplements continue to dominate wellness trends, but they often leave out an important part of the story.
Additionally, collagen is not simply something we consume. Rather, it’s something the body continually builds, repairs, and remodels. It uses the right amino acids from any good source of protein.
Vitamin C helps form collagen. Copper strengthens it.
Likewise, zinc helps regulate the natural remodeling process that removes damaged collagen and replaces it with new tissue.
Meanwhile, summer sun accelerates collagen breakdown through oxidative stress.
That’s why I encourage people to think less about chasing the newest collagen product and more about supplying the nutritional building blocks the body requires every day. When those foundations are in place, the body’s own repair systems can work far more efficiently.
Why So Many People Begin Summer Already Depleted
One of the greatest challenges facing modern health is that many people enter summer with mineral reserves that are already running low.
Sadly, our food simply isn’t as mineral-rich as it once was. Decades of soil depletion have reduced the mineral content of many crops, making it more difficult to obtain optimal amounts from food alone.
At the same time, chronic stress steadily consumes magnesium. Busy schedules, poor sleep, medications, processed foods, and everyday pressures all increase the body’s need for minerals.
Then summer arrives.
We sweat more, spend more time outdoors, and exercise more frequently. As a result, we lose measurable amounts of magnesium, zinc, sodium, and other electrolytes through perspiration. Meanwhile, the body’s repair systems are working harder to cope with heat and UV exposure.
It’s not surprising that many people notice they feel more fatigued, dehydrated, or depleted during the hottest months of the year.
Still, the solution isn’t simply to drink more water.
Instead, it’s to replenish what the body is losing.
My Internal Summer Skin Protocol
People often ask me if there’s a supplement that can replace sunscreen.
The answer is no. But, I have heard from customers who say that on my formulas, their skin does not tend to burn. I guess I’m not willing to lie out in the midday sun and test that theory!
Of course, nothing replaces sensible sun habits or a quality chemical-free mineral sunscreen when appropriate.
What nutritional support can do is help provide the raw materials your skin cells use every day. These materials support repair, renewal, and a normal response to environmental stress.
That’s why my own approach focuses on building the body’s internal foundation rather than searching for shortcuts.
I recommend maintaining healthy mineral intake throughout the summer with a broad spectrum of highly absorbable minerals, including magnesium and important trace minerals. Notably, Pico Selenite provides highly absorbable selenium to support antioxidant enzyme systems and healthy thyroid function. Meanwhile, ReMag and ReMyte supply picometer-sized minerals designed to help replenish many of the nutrients modern diets often lack.
These products are not intended to replace sunscreen or prevent sun damage. Rather, they support the normal cellular processes that healthy skin depends upon every day.
Simple Summer Habits That Nourish Your Skin
The most effective skin-supportive habits are often the simplest.
Stay well hydrated and remember that hydration involves minerals as well as water. Drinking mineral-rich water throughout the day can help replace nutrients lost through perspiration. To that end, I recommend ¼ tsp of a colorful sea salt in each liter of drinking water.
Choose foods naturally rich in minerals, including pumpkin seeds for zinc, leafy green vegetables for magnesium, and Brazil nuts as one of nature’s richest sources of selenium.
Fill your plate with colorful fruits and vegetables. Tomatoes, berries, watermelon, leafy greens, herbs, and other deeply coloured produce provide polyphenols, carotenoids, and antioxidant compounds that support the body’s healthy response to oxidative stress. These foods have become part of the popular “food as SPF” conversation online, but I see them differently. They’re not replacements for sunscreen. Rather, they’re part of an overall dietary pattern that helps nourish healthy skin from within.
At the same time, reducing ultra-processed foods, refined sugars, and inflammatory seed oils helps lessen the nutritional burden placed on your cells.
Additionally, don’t overlook gut health. A healthy digestive system improves your ability to absorb the minerals and nutrients your skin relies upon every day.
Healthy Skin Begins Long Before You Step Into the Sun
When we think about protecting our skin, it’s natural to focus on what we apply externally. Yet some of the most important work happens where we can’t see it.
Every day your body is producing collagen, repairing cells, calming inflammation, neutralizing free radicals, and replacing tissues that have been exposed to the environment. These remarkable processes depend on minerals, vitamins, and whole-food nourishment working together at the cellular level.
That’s why I’ve spent decades teaching that lasting health begins from the inside out.
Chemical-free mineral sunscreen is an important part of a sensible summer routine. But it’s only one layer of protection.
The other layer is the one you build every day. Simply, it comes through mineral-rich nutrition, thoughtful supplementation, adequate hydration, and restorative sleep. It also means giving your body the raw materials it needs to care for itself.
Because a single product doesn’t create healthy summer skin.
It’s built cell by cell, day after day, by a body that knows exactly what to do when we give it the nourishment it deserves.
This content is for educational purposes only and discusses nutritional and lifestyle support for normal structure and function of the body. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure disease. Consult a qualified healthcare professional for personal medical guidance.
