Thursday, February 23, 2012

What you Should to Know About Summer Season Sun Precautions

By Melanie DesChatelets


What we know about sunscreen

- It is truly good at preventing the scary sunburn when applied adequately.
- Can decrease the appearance of sun spots also known as solar keratosis.

What we believe we know

- Seems to reduce the occurrence of squamous cell carcinoma, which is a slow growing and treatable skin cancer.
- Doe not appear to impact basal cell carcinoma.
- Sunscreen appears to lessen our capability to produce vitamin D. We presently have a Vitamin D deficiency epidemic.

What confuses the heck out of us

- Some studies report higher frequency while other studies report lower incidence of the most dangerous form of skin cancer, malignant melanoma, among frequent users of sunscreen. This is most likely due to increase exposure to UVA regardless of acceptable UVB sunscreen protection.
- It's easy to be disillusioned when the medical specialties advise contradict each other.

The American Medical Association recommends 10 minutes of unguarded daily sun exposure for vitamin D production.

The American Academy of Dermatology states there is no scientifically certified, safe level of UV exposure from the sun that allows for adequate vitamin D creation without augmenting dermatological cancer risk.

What you can do about it

The best protection is physical protection such as protective clothing, hats and sunglasses which shield you from the dangerous impact of ultraviolet-A rays on your skin without any dangerous chemicals. Staying out of the sun during top times and searching for a shady environment is also key to your safest defense. Sunscreen should be considered when doing the prior recommendations is inescapable. The environmental working group advocates mineral cream based sunscreens containing zinc or titanium dioxide as they have little skin penetration. If mineral based sunscreen cannot be used avobenzone or mexoryl Sx appear like the next best bet.

Sunscreens to avoid

- Oxybenzone: Found in sixty percent of sunscreens. It's understood to penetrate the skin, it is really absorbent and a potential hormone disruptor.
- Vitamin A (retinyl palmitate) : Preliminary but replicable studies have proved it to be photocarcinogenic- carcinogenic once exposed to ultraviolet light. Vitamin A is present in over 41% of all sunscreens on the market despite these discoveries.
- Sprays and powders should be avoided due to concern of lung inflammation when inhaled.

Check out how safe the sunscreen you currently use is at the environmental working group sunscreen database. An iphone application isavailable too.


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