Sunscreens

It is essential that you protect your skin as much as possible from the harmful effects of sunlight.  The frequency of sunlight-induced skin ageing, wrinkles and skin cancers has been on the increase in most parts of the world.   In particular, increasing numbers of melanoma skin cancer have been well documented in the last ten years.  I feel that one possible explanation for this is that the older sunscreens we used to use (and in some instances still do!) did not offer adequate protection and that the documented increase in melanoma may therefore be due to past exposure to UVA as a result of inefficient sunscreen creams.

Recent studies, including one carried out by British plastic surgeons, have suggested that using these creams may carry an increased risk of skin cancer.  This is a dangerously misleading message to feed to the media; if there is an increased risk it is because people are being encouraged to stay out of the sun more because they are using sunscreen, rather than there being any inherent risk in the sunscreen s themselves.  The argument should be that if people stayed out of doors for the same amount of time without the sunscreen, they would incur more severe sun damage and be more likely to develop skin cancer than if they used protection.

A recent book published by an academic scientist in the USA suggested that there might be an advantage in exposing the skin to ultraviolet or sunlight because it is needed to form vitamin D, which is important for some diseases.  This suggestion went against all the accepted and well tested theories of the risks of sun exposure causing  skin cancers, wrinkles and skin ageing and led to the scientist being fired from his university.  The chairman of his department stated that ‘that this was similar to suggesting that an excellent way of losing weight is to start smoking cigarettes’.  You only require a very small amount of sun exposure to produce vitamin D (up to 20 minutes per day).  All modern sunscreens, however, filter and do not completely block sunlight, therefore even the most protective sunscreens allow small amounts of ultraviolet through to give you adequate vitamin D synthesis.

What actually is an SPF?

An SPF – or sun protection factor – is a measure of how well a sunscreen protects the skin from sunburn; the higher the SPF, the better the protection. Maximum UVA protection is also important for all skin types as UVA is responsible for skin ageing, pigment spots and mask of pregnancy, as well as having some potential for increasing melanoma risk.