Chemical Sunscreens, good or bad? Important information! in English!

 Summer is almost here!  

(I first wrote this article, in my blog, in June of last year, in Swedish)

Chemical Sunscreens

Sunscreens have been around for almost 100 years. The purpose was to protect the skin against UV radiation, the harmful rays . "Sunscreen Cream" began with thick, sticky and white zinc oxide, which few  people were willing to use.

Therefore, sunscreen with transparent chemicals that could absorb UV radiation, were created. In 1944  Coppertone  made the first mass marketed sunscreen.

Briskly forward in time, today we spend about a billion dollars on sunscreens in the US alone. 

UV radiation causes skin cancer and premature skin aging . therefore it is important to protect your skin .

However, one should not block the sun's rays completely - about 15 - 20minutes per day is healthy - it increases the very important D vitamin (a hormone ) in the skin /body.

It has been shown that the cancer melanoma often affect parts of the body that almost never gets sunlight, such as the buttocks and soles of the feet(!) .

However,exposure to sunlight for longer periods of time, without protection, affect our immune system negatively.

In the U.S. there are presently 17 individual sunscreen ingredients that have been approved by the FDA ,15 of these consists of transparent chemicals that absorb UV radiation. Of these 15, nine are known as endocrine disruptors.

Chemical sunscreen must be rubbed /massaged into the skin 20-30 minutes before sun exposure, in order to be effective. 

They work well to protect against UV rays, but they are consumed as the sun shines on them. 

The fact is that chemical sunscreen loses up to 90% of its effectiveness after just one hour, they have to be re-applied often. 

This is not the case with zinc oxide and titanium oxide, the two so-called mineral or physical sunblocks.

The action of them is very different, they sit on top of the skin and blocks / reflects away radiation, rather than being absorbed.

Chemical sunscreen quickly penetrate deep into the skin and into the bloodstream. They spread throughout the body, without being detoxified by the liver.

They can be found in the blood, urine and breast milk up to 2 days after a single application ! 

This could of course be alright, if they were harmless - but they are not!

As I mentioned earlier, 9 out of the 15 chemical sunscreen ingredients are considered to be endocrine disruptors . 

This means that they are chemicals that interfere with the normal functioning of hormones in the body. 

The hormones that are most affected are estrogen, progesterone, testosterone and thyroid hormone.

Endocrine "disrupters" (we can call them "ESA" for simplicity), are certain chemical ingredients in sunscreens, they can cause abnormal development of fetuses and growing children.  They also cause early puberty, premature breast development in girls and underdeveloped testes in boys. 

Furthermore, they cause low sperm counts and infertility.

"ESA" that mimic estrogen, so called xenoestrogens , can be a contributing factor in  breast and ovary cancer in women.  Some other "ESA" may increase the chances of developing prostate cancer.

Unfortunately, it does not stop there .........

 As already mentioned, the chemical sunscreens works by absorbing UV radiation, in this process some chemicals are consumed and mutates. Some generate substances that damage DNA, so-called “free radicals”, which can lead to cancer ....

If you use Mineral /physical sunblocks, look for a product that also contain antioxidants, such as GreenTea extracts, Sea Algae, Ascorbic acid etc. to help neutralize these oxidants/ free radicals, (also generated by the sun’s own radiation!), before they can do damage.

I'm pretty negative when it comes to chemical sunscreen, but I must say that it has not been absolutely proven ( lack of costly scientific research ) that they cause cancer .... 

But ...,"if it smokes there  must be a fire" ! 

Poisoning that occurs over decades is difficult to study. Research of chemicals such as arsenic was easier to figure out, since you get sick very quickly we were able to establish that it is a poison....

Lead is a poison that will take longer before the symptoms of toxicity and disease manifest themselves. It took many years before the government listened to the science and limited its use.

Chemical sunscreen is even more difficult to study because of their negative effect is vague and takes longer to show up.

 I have based this article on my 25 years of experience as a skin care therapist, and also my studies for my "Bachelor of Science in Natural health" degree (US).

This information is of course also an interpretation of the studies that do exist , and most experts agree.

R. Thomas Zoeller MS , PhD, is a proffessor in Biology at the University of Massachusetts USA . He is the author of an article in Endocrine Society 's scientific statement on endocrine disrupters, he is their official spokesperson.

He says, "Sunscreen is applied to the skin in a formulation that workmuch in the same way as drug delivery system through the skin does. Some sunscreen ingredients are known to disrupt hormone activity in the body. The manner in which these chemicals affect  the body can reasonably increase the risk of various cancers and even endocrine diseases”.

If there were no good options, we would be in trouble - we would be forced to choose whether to use or not use chemical sunscreens to get solar protection.

Fortunately , there are very good options.

Zinc and titanium oxide come from rock that has been ground down to a very fine consistency .

They do an excellent job of blocking both UVA and UVB light. Zinc is less whitish on the skin and prevents almost all harmful UV radiation.

Cheap versions of these has a sticky texture and a lot of people do not like to use them for this reason . 

Newer zinc oxide -based sunblocks contain particles that are so small that they are translucent , - "micronized" .

Newer sunblock products are made of stones which are ground into very small particles - nanoparticles.

These have some other problems, and are considered by many, including myself, not to be completely safe to use on the body. 

I believe, and so do many other proffesionals, that people are really poisoning themselves and their children when they use the chemical sunscreens on their bodies.

Happy Safe Summer!

Barbro Kravetz

Leg.Hudvårdsterapeut , Bsc Natural Health