By James
Recently, there is an entry on Weibo hot search-# Sunscreen or Contains Harmful Ingredients #
If you go in and have a look, the news content is: American researchers have found through experiments that the ingredients of sunscreen will be absorbed into the human body, which may bring health risks.
Many readers can easily understand such news as [sunscreen is poisonous].
So
Can I still apply sunscreen?
Today, we found the original text of the research mentioned in the news and consulted many dermatologists, skin care product research and development experts and other professionals to tell everyone the answer.
Let’s tell you the conclusion first-
- The research mentioned in the news is true. However, sunscreen can continue to be used with confidence and never stop eating because of choking.
Source: jamanetwork.com
Scientific nature of research
The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a highly influential academic journal. The experiment itself was also supported by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Therefore, the authority and authenticity of the research are worthy of recognition.
However, the study itself did not deny the effect of sunscreen, and explicitly mentioned in the [conclusion] part of the literature:
These results do not indicate that individuals should refrain from the use of sunscreen
Inside the red box is
[These results do not suggest that individuals should avoid using sunscreen.]
Original English
▼
One-sided reports and interpretations by some media undoubtedly earn traffic by creating panic.
Let’s look at the experiment itself again.
After carefully reading the literature, in the researchers’ experiments, the amount of sunscreen used by the subjects was actually much more than our daily use-
Participants in the experiment applied sunscreen 4 times a day for 4 consecutive days on 75% of the body surface area, and required 2 milligrams of sunscreen per 1 cm ² skin.
75% means what?
Let’s look at the distribution of skin area on the body surface.
▼
If we wear women’s bathing suits to and from work for 4 consecutive days, we will apply sunscreen to exposed parts, including the back of the head, armpits and other parts, and we will have to apply sunscreen four times a day to achieve this result.
And even a little more cloth for swimsuits is not enough.
The experimental results mean what?
This study is an exploration of the safe concentration of sunscreen in blood.
It is not a terrible thing for the skin to absorb sunscreen ingredients into the body. Regardless of the dosage, talking about toxicity is a hooligan.
The threshold set by FDA for non-clinical toxicological studies is 0.5 ng/mL, but it does not mean that exceeding this threshold is harmful to the body, but requires further evaluation and research.
The significance of this research result is to remind the academic community that if the maximum dose of sunscreen is used, it will exceed the threshold set by FDA.
The results of the study also did not clearly point out that absorption by the human body would cause what hazards, but only said that there was [possibility], not to tell the public that [sunscreen is poisonous and you can’t use it! ]
Source: Pear Video
After reading the research and the literature itself, we would also like to make some comments on this news:
Scientists deserve praise for their serious and responsible attitude towards the health of all mankind.
The process and results of this research are very cautious and responsible, and the purpose of the research can be understood as propaganda.
At present, sunscreen is completely harmless in the eyes of the industry and the public, and is recommended to be used in large quantities and in large areas. The test results remind academic circles and related industries.
If you really use it in large quantities every day, there will still be potential risks. We still need to study it again.
If you do not wear sun protection for this reason, you will stop eating because of choking.
Perhaps many people will be worried about this: [failure to prove harmful does not mean harmless].
However, without sun protection, the harm to us is far greater than expected.
Ultraviolet rays in sunlight irradiate the skin, which will not only form various free radicals with strong oxidation effect and destroy collagen synthesis, but also lead to skin cell death, cell DNA damage, etc., eventually causing premature skin aging, wrinkles and relaxation.
Source: New England Journal of Medicine
This is a photo from a document in the New England Journal of Medicine. The old man is a driver. For more than 20 years, his left face has been exposed to much more sunlight than his right face, eventually causing his left face to age much faster than his right face.
However, the greater risk of not being sun-protected lies in increasing the risk of skin cancer than [getting old and ugly].
Ultraviolet rays in sunlight are an important cause of skin cancer.
Of course, in addition to applying sunscreen, it can also resist the damage of ultraviolet rays through hard sunscreen, such as sunshade umbrellas, sunglasses, sunshade hats and even various sleeves, [facekini] are very useful.
However, hard sun protection alone is not only inappropriate in some occasions, but also difficult to cover every piece of skin in our body.
Therefore, don’t stop using sunscreen because you choke on food and are misled by the wrong interpretation of some media, which may lead to more serious consequences.
The media should not distort the academic discussions to the public and create panic.
This time the news expression is relatively accurate, using [or containing]. However, it is not difficult to find that there are often some reports on the latest research on the Internet to attract people’s attention. In fact, many studies have no final conclusion but have been misinterpreted.
There is a saying called “the media don’t need to lie, just show some facts to create panic”. In this news, the show is clear in a glance.
There is clearly a sentence in the conclusion of the study [these results do not indicate that individuals should avoid using sunscreen.] However, many Chinese media reports have not mentioned this sentence, only mentioning that sunscreen ingredients enter the human body, causing public panic and further generating new rumors [sunscreen is toxic].
For netizens, most of them do not read the original text, and some are too professional to understand it. They can only choose to trust the media.
However, the threshold for medical-related research is very high. It is not possible to interpret documents by understanding English. It requires the professional judgment of authoritative people in relevant fields.
Thanks to the following experts, doctors
Help and review of this article
-References-
[1] Matta, M., Zusterzeel, R., Pilli, N., Patel, V., Volpe, D., Florian, J., Oh, L., Bashaw, E., Zineh, I., Kemp, S., Godfrey, A., Adah, S., Coelho, S., Wang, J., Furlong, L., Ganley, C., Michele, T. and Strauss, D. (2019). Effect of Sunscreen Application Under Maximal Use Conditions on Plasma Concentration of Sunscreen Active Ingredients
[2] Arnold, M., de Vries, E., Whiteman, D., Jemal, A., Bray, F., Parkin, D. and Soerjomataram, I. (2018). Global burden of cutting melanoma attributable to ultraviolet radiation in 2012. International Journal of Cancer, 143 (6), pp. 1305-1314.
Source of cover photo: www.hizy.net Genuine Photo Library
Editor: James