We’ve all got the message; wear sunscreen or your skin will wrinkle like an Aztec mummy and that cute mole on your shin will turn cancerous. Slathering on the white stuff means salvation from the radiation of our closest star. But most commercial sunscreens have chemicals in them and some researchers have suggested that they might be doing us more harm than good.
Active for good or evil?
The active ingredients that protect your skin from the sun are usually chemicals such as oxybenzone or benzophenones. Retinyl palmitate, a form of vitamin A, might also be added.
Studies have shown that oxybenzone can be absorbed by the skin. In rats, large amounts of the chemical affected the way they processed estrogen but humans do not seem to be affected at lower doses. Some countries have suggested it should be banned in children under two. The effect of benzophenone has not been established, although it may cause similar alternations to hormone levels. One study suggested that retinyl palmitate causes skin cancer in mice.
Mineral sunscreens offer an alternative to chemicals. They rely on zinc oxide and titanium dioxide to protect us from the sun. Unfortunately, the resulting cream is thick and sticky (zinc oxide is also used in nappy creams), not quite what you want to have to deal with at the beach.
So, to make the cream slide over the skin, scientists reduced the particles to nano size. This solves the consistency issues but it has been reported that tiny particles have been found in the liver and bloodstream of users. The effect of having tiny particles of zinc oxide wandering around our bodies has not yet been fully established.
Skin Cancer Foundation hits back
The US Skin Cancer Foundation (SCF) is scathing about these reports. They say: “Claims that these ingredients are unsafe, are based on questionable science that is not properly reviewed by experts in the field of photomedicine.” Their view is that the studies involved tend to be one-offs with insufficient large-scale corroboration.
Darrell Rigel, a dermatology professor at New York University, agrees. He says: “”If you covered your entire body with oxybenzone in the concentrations that are in sunscreens and used it every day, it would take over 30 years to get to the point of what these rats were fed in these studies.”
What the SCF knows for sure is that sunscreen cuts cancer rates; 90% of non-melanoma skin cancers and 65% of melanomas come from spending too much time in the sun without protection. They conducted a study on more than 1,600 adults for a decade and found that, “applying sunscreen with an SPF of 16 daily reduced their risk of melanoma by 50 per cent”.
The SCF also points out that it’s critical to block not only UVB radiation (which burns us) but also UVA, which has no immediate effect but causes skin cancers and ages the skin. UVA rays are less intensive than UVB but are present all year round, can penetrate glass (like car windows) or clouds and go deeper into the skin. UVA sunscreen should include an ingredient such as avobenzone or zinc oxide.
Skin cancer 101
It’s worth remembering what the stakes are. There are several types of skin cancer, but the biggest killer is melanoma. It’s a cancer that affects cells called the melanocytes that produce skin colour (melatonin). Melanoma is usually curable when it’s found early. However, it is an aggressive cancer and can spread.
Non-melanomas are usually basal and squamous cell skin cancers. That means that they start in the base of the outer layer of the skin. They appear on areas of skin regularly exposed to the sun, such as the face, ear, neck, lips and back of the hands. They tend not to spread and can therefore be treated more easily, although they can be very disfiguring.
The reality is that there is little credible evidence of large numbers of people dying from using sunscreen
The SCF says that the death rate from non-melanoma skin cancers if fairly low, but melanoma is a different matter: one person dies of melanoma an hour in the United States and of those, 86 per cent will have been caused by the sun.
And if you have children, it’s important to know that melanoma is the most common form of cancer for young adults 25-29 years old and the second most common form of cancer for young people 15-29 years old.
It’s no coincidence that across the EU, the generally fairer skinned Nordic countries like Sweden and Denmark have the highest rates of skin cancer while the darker Spaniards, Portuguese and Greeks have the lowest. Malta has lower rates of skin cancer than the EU average, but still, nearly 7.7 men and 9 women out of 100,000 will get the disease.
Aging gracelessly
There’s something else to think about before you toss out the sunscreen, and that’s aging. It’s a fact that more than 90% percent of the visible changes commonly attributed to skin aging are caused by the sun.
Some beauty magazines would have you believe that you’ll accrue almost a lifetime of sun damage before you are 18, which makes it tempting to think that the damage is done and it’s all too late once you hit middle age, so you may as well avoid any sunscreen toxins.
However, the SCF says that’s simply not true. In fact, by 40, you’ll only have an average of about 47% of your possible exposure. So it’s worth keeping up with the protection to hold wrinkles at bay.
The return of rickets
One unexpected effect of the rise in sunscreen use has been a return of rickets, a condition not seen in large numbers in the Western world since the 19th century. The condition causes brittle bones and deformities and was once associated with Victorian poverty. It is caused by a lack of Vitamin D and had largely disappeared due to high-quality diets.
And what has that got to do with sunscreen? Well, vitamin D is produced by the skin when exposed to sunlight. But an SPF of just 8 has been found to block 95% of vitamin D production. As well as rickets, a deficiency in the vitamin can, ironically, also cause skin cancer. It takes little more than ten minutes twice a week of sun exposure to make enough vitamin D for white people in summer. Black people will need up to six times longer.
Sunburn is particularly bad for children, so keep the sunscreen coming.Alternative sun-style
If you’d still like to limit your exposure to sunscreen without risking skin cancer, there are some alternatives.
Wear long-sleeved clothing of tightly -woven fabric
The most obvious is to keep out of the sun, particularly between 10am and 4pm. If your shadow is shorter than you, the sun’s rays are at their peak. Wearing long-sleeved clothing of tightly woven fabric is effective (some shirts have UV protection factors marked on them). You also need a wide-brimmed hat that protects the face, ears and sunglasses with 100% UVA and UVB protection. This advice also goes for cloudy days, when you can still get burnt.
To play it safe with mineral sunscreens, check under the active ingredients for creams marked ‘non nano’. Homemade sunscreens usually contain zinc oxide powder as their active ingredient, often with coconut oil, which offers some SPF in itself (around factor six).
Between a hot sun and a bad burn
If these alternatives aren’t possible, then the advice of the SCF is clear; wear sunscreen.
The reality is that there is little credible evidence of large numbers of people dying from using sunscreen. Skin cancer, however, is on the rise and it can be deadly. The SCF says: “Regular daily use of an SPF 15 or higher sunscreen reduces the risk of developing squamous cell carcinoma by 40 per cent and the risk of developing melanoma by 50 per cent.”
It’s hard to argue with those statistics.