Valentines Day - Chocolate - Ooey, Gooey, Good

Valentine's Day is around the corner offering us all a perfect excuse to immerse ourselves in chocolate. Literally. Eat it, smell it, bathe in it. Ooey, gooey, chocolate. A decadent menu of luxurious chocolate skin care treatments are popping up in spas across the nation. Beauty experts claim the fatty cocoa butter hydrates and softens the skin, the cocoa bean husk acts as a gentle exfoliant to break down harmful free radicals, and the caffeine stimulates the circulatory system and firms the skin. Oh, and get this, . . . there is an anti-cellulite treatment using chocolate. Just sounds wrong, doesn't it?

Spas offer whipped cocoa baths (mmm), chocolate facials, body scrubs, massages, and pedicures. During your spa visit, chocolate treats are served alongside the treatments. Go ahead, indulge. Here are a few facts to ease your conscience. High quality chocolate has twice as many anti-oxidants as green tea and has more flavonoids (anti-viral, anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant) than any other anti-oxidant rich food, including wine or blueberries. Wow, who knew? And, (brace yourself), Vitamin A, B1, C, D, & E, Iron, calcium, potassium, and magnesium. Phew! I mean, really, who cares whether it is one of the best kept beauty secrets around or not? Soon it will be Valentine's Day and complete euphoria is just a bonbon away. Now you can truly have your cake . . . and eat it too.

IN THE NEWS: VITAMIN D

New research published in the August 15th issue of the Archives of Dermatology stated the higher a person's vitamin D levels, the higher the risk of non-melanoma skin cancer, such as basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma. Since ultraviolet (UV) radiation exposure is necessary for vitamin D production in the body, it may suggest that people with more sun exposure tend to develop more non-melanoma skin cancers. It's unclear whether it's the damage from UV rays that accounts for the risk, or rising vitamin D levels that accompany exposure to the rays.

This information rivals another more recognized study suggesting that higher vitamin D levels might actually protect against skin cancer. This could be because vitamin D may inhibit a pathway involved in cancer, said Dr. Melody Eide, a dermatologist with Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and lead author of the current study.

Eide and colleagues based their findings on 3,223 mostly female, white patients in a Detroit health maintenance organization who had visited a doctor either because they had osteoporosis or low bone density. Many more patients (2,257) had too-low levels of vitamin D than had adequate levels (966). Over a follow-up period of almost 10 years, 163 participants developed basal cell carcinoma, 49 developed squamous cell carcinoma, and 28 developed both.

It's a triangular relationship between UV light with the production of Vitamin D and the induction of skin cancer," Eide said. "That makes it difficult to know." The study didn't take into account lifetime sun exposure, family history of skin cancer, vitamin Dsupplementation, exercise, smoking or several other factors that might have influenced the outcome of the study. In addition, the study authors noted that it was "highly likely" that the participants' exposure to sunlight might have skewed the results. "We need some measure of lifetime cumulative UV exposure, which is very difficult to measure," Eide said. "We tend to move around a lot; people go on vacations. There could be critical windows during our life."