Can you get a ‘natural tan’ every day to eat carrots?

Forget Sprühtan. The new viral way of getting a small color on your skin is to eat a lot of carrots or a pair of carrot juice every day.

Social media user claim that this can create a “natural tan” for your skin. But is the change in your skin tone a safe option? We talked to experts about what to know.

Can carrots change your skin tone?

If you eat a few carrots every day, you can influence your skin tone over time. Carrots are rich in beta-carotene that gives them their characteristic orange color, said Beth Czerwony, MS, RD, LD, a registered nutritionist at the Clinic Center for Human Nutrition.

“For most people, consumption of 10 to 20 milligrams of beta-carotene can cause skin changes, which corresponds to five medium-sized carrots a day,” said Czerwony. But they would have to eat so many for weeks before they could see changes.

The consumption of beta-carotene in excess quantities leads to a generally harmless state, which is referred to as carotenaemia and is defined as a discoloration of yellow orange skin.

After a week it will not simply rub or fade, added Czerwony. “It can take a few months for the original skin tone to return.”

How does beta-carotene affect her skin?

“Part of the beta-carotine that we eat is subject to chemical conversion in retinol in the liver and serves as an important source for vitamin A,” said Eva Rawling Parker, MD, assistant professor for dermatology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

“When beta-carotene is absorbed in high quantities, the carotenoids accumulate in the bloodstream and are then deposited in the skin, which leads to a discoloration of yellow orange,” she said.

Most people who develop orange skin from their diet do not try to do it on purpose, and it mainly affects children and young adults.

“Technically, nutritional carotenaemia is a sign of beta-carotene toxicity, although it is generally seen as a benign state,” said Parker. “In adults, it can be confused with more serious diseases such as jaundice – the skin and eyes due to liver failure.”

Parker warned that when your skin begins to become yellow or orange and you should not dramatically increase your beta-carotene absorption, medical help, as this could be a sign of diabetes, hypothyroidism or high cholesterol.

Can other foods make your skin orange?

Carrots are not the only foods in beta-carotene. Some fruit and vegetables that contain high values ​​are not even orange, said Parker. Yellow and red fruits and vegetables and leafy vegetables are rich in beta-carotene, including:

• Sweet potatoes
• Red pepper
• pumpkin
• Butternusskurbis
• Kantalupe
• mango
• papaya
• Apricots
• Tomato
• Kale
• spinach
• broccoli

With its characteristic yellow color, the spice turmeric also contains natural connections that are referred to as curcuminoids. If the skin is consumed in high quantities, it can develop a yellowish cast. But Parker warns that it can be dangerous to consume large amounts of turmeric.

“High -dose turmeric consumption is associated with important health risks, including liver oxicity, drug interactions, anemia, suppression of white blood cells and kidney injuries,” said Parker.

What is the safest way to brown?

Sunbathing to get a tan can cause serious skin damage and increase the risk of skin cancer. So what is the best option if you want to avoid a pale skin tone?

Whatever you do, avoid the tanning bed, said Parker. “Browning through exposure to natural or artificial sources of the ultraviolet radiation actually represents active damage to the DNA in the skin cells, which leads to signs of photography such as folds and brown spots as well as an increased risk of skin cancer,” she said.

Instead, Parker recommended that it contain a sunless tanner that contains the ingredients dihydroxyacetone (DHA). The Food and Drug Administration approved DHA for use in sunless graves. It reacts with amino acids on the surface of the skin to temporarily darken them.

That means it is not necessary to have browned skin. “As a dermatologist, I enable my patients to use the natural aesthetics of their skin tones and avoid that they do not respond to tanning behavior,” said Parker.