Just when it seems the message about sunscreen’s importance as part of a person’s daily routine has been widely accepted, along comes more scary information that has consumers wondering whether their sunscreens are as bad for skin as the sun itself. An article questioning sunscreens appeared in an issue of the fashion magazine Allure. To Allure’s credit, the article was balanced. Its summation was that you shouldn’t skip sunscreen: it does far more good than harm, and the harm doesn’t equate to the fear lots of people feel when they don’t know the whole story. Funny, that’s a lot like many things in life isn’t it? Our fears and reactions come from a one-sided piece of information.
The article in Allure centered on a study published in the October 2006 issue of Free Radical Biology & Medicine. The study found that while sunscreens can protect skin from the free-radical damage sunlight causes, in a short amount of time it causes free-radical damage on its own. Of course, the big question is: are we trading free-radical protection for free-radical damage, thus canceling out the importance of applying sunscreen?
Lots of doctors and researchers took issue with the results of the study for several reasons: it wasn’t done double-blind, it wasn’t conducted on people, the results haven’t been duplicated by other studies, and the study didn’t use commercial sunscreen products, just individual active sunscreen ingredients. That last point is important because as any cosmetics chemist will tell you, how a sunscreen is formulated has a significant impact on how the active ingredients function on skin (from spreading and adhering properly to their stability). Testing individual sunscreen ingredients and extrapolating the results to apply to regular sunscreen formulas is like tasting individual ingredients used to make a cake instead of the finished product and then being surprised that the flour doesn’t taste sweet.
On the flipside, other studies have shown the protective effect of certain sunscreen actives against free-radical formation—and a growing body of research is demonstrating that adding antioxidants to sunscreens offsets the negative effect sunscreen can have on skin, especially if it is not reapplied at regular intervals during long periods of sun exposure.
Well-known dermatologist Dr. Leslie Baumann was quoted in the Allure article as agreeing with the questionable study. She stated, “We’ve actually been talking about this for a couple of years.” Dr. Sheldon Pinnell of Skinceuticals fame also weighed in, stating “It’s known that some sunscreens behave in this manner. They get inside the skin and absorb energy, and that energy becomes free radicals….” Lots of dermatologists would disagree with Pinnell’s assertion, and even Pinnell believes that any free-radical damage sunscreen may cause (including by virtue of how the active ingredients work) is counteracted by antioxidants, whether in your sunscreen or in other skin-care products you apply. So as it turns out, there really isn’t cause for concern.
The only thing that is crystal-clear about the Free Radical Biology & Medicine study is that more research is needed to determine whether sunscreen actives as formulated in consumer sunscreens cause measurable free-radical damage on intact human skin. Until conclusive information is available, it is not a wise decision to stop using sunscreen due to fear of free – radical damage. Even if some sunscreen actives do cause free-radical damage, we know it can be offset by antioxidants. We also know that going without sunscreen exposes skin to a long list of problems, the least of those being free-radical damage!
I’ll close this topic with a quote in the Allure article from Amy Lewis, assistant Clinical Professor of Dermatology at Yale School of Medicine: “Right now we have one small, inconclusive study versus huge amounts of data that show that lack of sun protection causes DNA damage, melanoma, basal-cell and squamous-cell skin cancer, and horrible deformed moles and wrinkles, and there is great evidence for prolonged use of sunscreen to protect against all of those things. If these chemicals cause something, the sun exposure you’re trading it for is going to cause more free radicals.” I couldn’t have said it better myself!