In recent years, we've seen many scientists protesting against actions and policies threatening damage to the wider community, including campaigning heatedly for the removal of chemical toxins from foods, clothes, building materials and the wider environment. Concerns over global warming, species extinction, and global poverty have all been successfully addressed by such members of the academic community which has successfully resulted in huge public awareness, support and a sharp decline in the usual "middle of the road" apathy.
However, questions as to why no member of the academic dermatology community, over the past 30 years, has raised warnings about the dangers of chemical sunscreens remains. Could the answer lie in the fact that the cosmetic industry has effectively silenced leading academic dermatologists by a widespread pattern of payments in the form of consulting fees, grants, retainers, holiday leisure arrangements, and so on? In essence, industry has bought their silence on issues and products that might be embarrassing. Most academic dermatologists focus their attention on innocuous, safe, non-controversial topics that will not offend their corporate sponsors, obviously first honouring their agreements with their benefactors - the cosmetic giants.
Shooting straight from the hip let's consider the following facts about the active ingredients contained within the chemical sunscreen you might be putting on your and your children's skins:
Fact 1. The very chemicals providing "sun protection" in your sunscreen also happen to generate a serious amount of free radical activity within the body when actually exposed to sunlight. In other words, the UVA and UVB protectors actually become unstable when exposed to radiation, exposing you to a "Russian Roulette" type situation, forcing you to choose - the sun's radiation rays in one hand or the chemicals in the sunscreen in the other? You should start to get worried about now...
In March 1998, Dr. John Knowland of the University of Oxford reported studies showing that certain sunscreens containing PABA and its derivatives can damage DNA, at least in the test tube experiments. When a chemical sunscreen, Padimate-O, was added to DNA and the mixture exposed to the ultraviolet rays of sunlight, it was found that the sunscreen broke down in sunlight, releasing highly active agents that could damage DNA. It did not block out the UV, but instead absorbed energy. “It became excited and set off a chemical reaction that resulted in the generation of the dangerous free radicals and broken DNA strands that can lead to cancer,” he said and further commented that, whilst it's too early to make blanket recommendations, “I would not use a product containing PABA, Padimate-O or other PABA derivatives.” Dr. Martin Rieger reported that PABA may play a role in DNA-dimer formation, a type of DNA damage that can induce carcinogenic changes.
In 1997, Europe, Canada, and Australia changed sunscreens to use three specific active sunscreen ingredients - avobenzone (also known as Parsol 1789), titanium dioxide, and zinc oxide - as the basis of sunscreens. In the USA, the cosmetic companies have held off this policy as they try to sell off their stockpiles of cosmetics containing toxic sunscreens banned in other countries.
However, avobenzone is a powerful free radical generator and also should have been banned. Avobenzone is easily absorbed through the epidermis and is still a chemical that absorbs ultraviolet radiation energy. Since it cannot destroy this energy, it has to convert the light energy into chemical energy, which is normally released as free radicals. While it blocks long-wave UVA, it does not effectively UVB or short-wave UVA radiation, and is usually combined with other sunscreen chemicals to produce a "broad-spectrum" product. In sunlight, avobenzone degrades and becomes ineffective within about 1 hour.
Such effects can increase cancers, cause birth defects in children, lower sperm counts and penis size in men, plus a plethora of other medical problems. These effects are similar to many banned chemicals such as DDT, Dioxin, PCBs, by having the ability to enter the blood stream and disrupt the endocrine system. Hormones are released by your endocrine glands, and hormones are lipid (fat) based molecules. Many of these sunscreen ingredients are also fat based, and have the ability to "confuse" your body's reception to it's own hormones. Sunscreen chemicals that mimic hormones often mimic estrogen, and are called xenoestrogen.
Estrogenic chemicals can mimic hormonal (or real) estrogen, the key female sex hormone. When the body's hormone receptors recognise the estrogenic chemical as estrogen, the result is feminization of the tissue.
Some of these effects may be more subtle than physical abnormalities and may manifest themselves as behavioral changes (Fox et al. 1978), such as aberrant behavior of birds during nesting, which can have significant effects on their nesting success.
Also, the greatest increases in human cancers over the last 30 years have been those of the breast, ovaries, testes, and prostate, all tissues that are sensitive to sex hormones.
Margaret Schlumpf and her colleagues (Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Zurich, Switzerland) found that many widely-used sunscreen chemicals mimic the effects of estrogen and trigger developmental abnormalities in rats. (Schlumpf , Margaret; Beata Cotton, Marianne Conscience, Vreni Haller, Beate Steinmann, Walter Lichtensteiger. In vitro and in vivo estrogenicity of UV screens. Environmental Health Perspectives Vol. 109 (March 2001) pp 239-244)
Her group tested six common chemicals that are used in sunscreens, lipsticks and facial cosmetics. Five of the six tested chemicals (benzophenone-3, homosalate, 4-methyl-benzylidene camphor (4-MBC), octyl-methoxycinnamate and octyl-dimethyl-PABA) behaved like strong estrogen in lab tests and caused cancer cells to grow more rapidly.
Uterine growth and endometriosis
One very common sunscreen chemical, 4-MBC, was mixed with olive oil and applied to rat skin. This caused a doubling of the rate of uterine growth well before puberty. "That was scary, because we used concentrations that are in the range allowed in sunscreens," said Schlumpf. Three of the six caused developmental abnormalities in animals. The major cause of sterility in women in the USA is endometriosis, a condition afflicting 5.5% of American women. Exposure to excessive estrogen, that may have come from such sunscreens, is felt to be the primary cause of endometriosis.
US Government regulations require that new chemicals pass screening tests to determine that they do not cause cancer, but no rules yet require similar testing of chemicals for effects on reproductive hormones.Fact 3. Large amounts of applied sunscreens can enter the bloodstream though your skin.
In the 1970s, Prof. Howard Maibach warned that up to 35 percent of sunscreen applied topically to the skin can pass through the skin and enter the bloodstream, but this had little effect on sunscreen promotion or safety testing. (Maibach, H. "NDELA-Percutaneous Penetration." FDA Contract 223-75-2340, May 19, 1978). The longer that sunscreen chemicals are left on the skin, the greater the absorption into the body. (Bronaugh, R.L., et al. "The effect of cosmetic vehicles on the penetration of N-nitrosodiethanolamine through excised human skin, J Invest Dermatol; 1981; 76(2): 94-96.)
Consider this - "this may be a factor in the large increases in cancer (breast, uterine, colon, prostate) observed in regions, such as Northern Australia, where the use of sunscreen chemicals has been heavily promoted by medical groups and the local governments.
Many sunscreens also contain triethanolamine, a compound that can cause the formation of cancer causing nitrosamines in products by combining with nitrite used as preservative and often not disclosed on sunscreen labels.
Fact 4. These chemicals are linked to damaging the coral reefs.The sunscreen that you dutifully slather on before a swim on the beach may be protecting your body (questionable, emphasis mine) but a new study finds that the chemicals are also killing coral reefs worldwide.
Four commonly found sunscreen ingredients can awaken dormant viruses in the symbiotic algae called zooxanthellae that live inside reef-building coral species.
The chemicals cause the viruses to replicate until their algae hosts explode, spilling viruses into the surrounding seawater, where they can infect neighboring coral communities.
Zooxanthellae provide coral with food energy through photosynthesis and contribute to the organisms' vibrant color. Without them, the coral "bleaches"—turns white—and dies.
"The algae that live in the coral tissue and feed these animals explode or are just released by the tissue, thus leaving naked the skeleton of the coral," said study leader Roberto Danovaro of the Polytechnic University of Marche in Italy.
The researchers estimate that 4,000 to 6,000 metric tons of sunscreen wash off swimmers annually in oceans worldwide, and that up to 10 percent of coral reefs are threatened by sunscreen-induced bleaching.
The study appeared online in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
Activated Viruses
Danovaro and his team studied the effects of sunscreen exposure on coral samples from reefs in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans.
Even low levels of sunscreen, at or below the typical amount used by swimmers, could activate the algae viruses and completely bleach coral in just four days, the results showed.
Seawater surrounding coral exposed to sunscreen contained up to 15 times more viruses than unexposed samples.
Several brands of popular sunscreens were tested and all had four ingredients in common: paraben, cinnamate, benzophenone, and a camphor derivative.
Oh, My! Stop for a moment and read your current sunscreen's ingredients label and weep! I just did! Or, you can change...to EU, Japanese and SA-compliant MelanSol® which gives you the sun protection you need, as well as providing powerful anti-oxidant moisturising, ensuring that your skin is not only protected but simultaneously nourished and repaired as well.
If you are serious about protecting our planet's sensitive Eco-systems, using a chemical-free sunscreen is an easy transition. One environmentally friendly sunscreen that can make it easy for you is MelanSol® as it contributes to a healthy body and a healthy planet.
MelanSol® is a biodegradable sunscreen invented by Peter Zahner, a basal cell skin cancer survivor. Zahner designed his chemical-free sunscreen to be safe for all ages, while being in complete harmony with our environment. "MelanSol® is a great fit for parents who want to make healthy choices for their family and practice environmental conservation at the same time." says Michael Russ, US distributor for MelanSol®.
What sets MelanSol® apart from other sunscreens is that it gives your skin the all important topical anti-oxidant protection traditional sunscreens rarely provide. "Topical anti-oxidants are important because they help prevent the oxidative stress that occurs when free radicals outnumber your body's natural anti-oxidants on the skin," says Zahner. Free radicals (oxidants), caused by UV rays, are the culprits responsible for long-term skin damage that can lead to leathery skin, wrinkles, sagging skin, sun spots and possibly even skin cancer later in life. MelanSol® has been a favorite all natural sunscreen among Swiss Dermatologists for several years.
MelanSol® is the first all natural biodegradable sunscreen to meet the rigorous environmental criterion of the fast growing Green Hotels Association (http://www.greenhotels.com). "Hotels can now proudly offer their guests an all natural sunscreen that fits their image and environmental commitment." said Russ. "Companies can benefit when they provide or recommend a green sunscreen to their employees as part of their green policy."
Cosmetics industry bodies in Europe, the USA, Japan and South Africa have signed an agreement to unify sunscreen product testing - a move that takes the industry one step closer to having internationally recognised sunscreen labeling codes.
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