BEAUTY COUNTER HAS A NEW SUNSCREEN PRODUCT.... SO THIS POST IS A MUST READ IF YOU HAVE CHILDREN..... Do you depend on sunscreen for skin protection? Millions of Americans do, but they shouldn’t. Melanoma rates are increasing. The consensus among scientists is that sunscreens alone cannot reverse this trend. Yet a good sunscreen can play role in preventing sunburns that are a major risk factor for melanoma – provided you use it correctly. 1. FDA’s sunscreen rules have changed but products haven’t improved. The federal Food and Drug Administration put new sunscreen rules into effect last December, but they have had little impact on the sunscreen market and could actually make things worse for consumers. FDA’s rules allow most sunscreens to claim they offer “broad spectrum” skin protection and also that they can reduce skin cancer risk. However, EWG’s assessment of 750 beach and sport sunscreens on the market this year spotted significant problems. Read more. 2. There’s no proof that sunscreens prevent most skin cancer. Rates of melanoma – the most deadly form of skin cancer – have tripled over the past 35 years. Most scientists and public health agencies – including the FDA itself – have found very little evidence that sunscreen prevents most types of skin cancer. Read more. 3. Don’t be fooled by high SPF High-SPF products tempt people to apply too little sunscreen and stay in the sun too long. The FDA has proposed prohibiting the sale of sunscreens with SPF values greater than 50+, calling higher SPF values “inherently misleading,” but it has not issued a regulation that carries the force of law. One in seven sunscreens advertises SPF values greater than 50+, so get the most bang for your hard-earned buck. Use EWG’s Sunscreen Guide to zero in on better products. Read more. 4. The common sunscreen additive vitamin A may speed development of skin cancer. The sunscreen industry adds a form of vitamin A to nearly one-quarter of all sunscreens. Retinyl palmitate is an anti-oxidant that slows skin aging. But federal studies indicate that it may speed the development of skin tumors and lesions when applied to skin in the presence of sunlight. EWG recommends that consumers avoid sunscreens, lip products and skin lotions containing vitamin A, often labeled “retinyl palmitate” or “retinol.” Read More 5. European consumers can get better sunscreens. European sunscreens offer superior protection from skin-damaging UVA rays. In Europe, sunscreen makers can formulate their products with any of seven chemicals that filter UVA rays. American manufacturers can use only three UVA-filtering ingredients. They have been waiting seven years for FDA approval to use Europe’s better filters. Until the FDA approves these ingredients and lifts restrictions on combining certain active ingredients, American consumers will be hard-pressed to find sunscreens with the strongest level of UVA protection. Read more. 6. Sunscreen does not protect skin from all types of sun damage. The sun’s ultraviolet radiation generates free radicals that damage DNA and skin cells, accelerate skin aging and may cause skin cancer. American sunscreens can reduce these damages, but not as effectively as they prevent sunburn. Consumers can run into problems if they pick a sunscreen with poor UVA protection, apply too little or reapply it infrequently. The FDA should strengthen its regulations to ensure that sunscreens offer better protection from skin damage. Read more. 7. Some sunscreen ingredients disrupt hormones and cause skin allergies. The ideal sunscreen would completely block UV rays that cause sunburn, immune suppression and damaging free radicals. It would remain effective on the skin for several hours. It would not form harmful ingredients when degraded by sunlight. It would smell and feel pleasant so that people would use more of it. No sunscreen meets these goals. Americans must choose between “chemical” sunscreens, which have inferior stability, penetrate the skin and may disrupt the body’s hormone system, and “mineral” sunscreens, made with zinc and titanium, often “micronized” or containing nano-particles. Read more. 8. Mineral sunscreens contain nano-particles. Most zinc oxide and titanium dioxide-based sunscreens contain nano-particles a twentieth the width of a human hair. These help reduce or eliminate the chalky white tint that these minerals used to leave on the skin. Based on the available information, EWG gives a favorable rating to mineral sunscreens, but the FDA should restrict the use of unstable or UV-reactive forms of minerals that would lessen skin protection. Read more. 9. If you avoid sun, check your vitamin D levels. Sunshine serves a critical function in the body that sunscreen appears to inhibit — producing vitamin D. The hormone is enormously important. It strengthens bones and the immune system and reduces the risk of breast, colon, kidney and ovarian cancers, and perhaps other disorders. About one-fourth of Americans have borderline low levels of vitamin D, and 8 percent have a serious deficiency. Breast-fed infants, people with darker skin and people who have limited sun exposure are at greatest risk. Many people can’t or shouldn’t rely on the sun for vitamin D. Check with your doctor to see if you should get a vitamin D test or take seasonal or year-round supplements. FDA Fails Consumers This summer marks the first sunscreen season governed by rules put into effect last December by the federal Food and Drug Administration. These regulations demand truth in sunscreen marketing and, for the first time, require that claims of water resistance and broad spectrum sun protection be validated. Despite the FDA’s actions, an EWG review of the sunscreen market finds only minimal improvements in products on the shelves for the summer of 2013. Many sunscreens available on the U.S. market do not filter skin-damaging rays safely and effectively. Paradoxically, Americans are increasingly aware of the dangers of overexposure to the sun. But at the same time, rates of first-time diagnoses of melanoma — the most deadly skin cancer — have tripled over the past 35 years, increasing 1.9 percent annually since 2000 (NCI 2013, CDC 2013). Why? No one has definitive answers. One factor may be misleading sunscreen marketing: hype that causes people to believe, wrongly, that their products are blocking harmful rays. One quarter of sunscreens we have reviewed for 2013 offer good skin protection and are free of ingredients with serious safety concerns. But many fall short. Broad spectrum protection – Almost every sunscreen meets the FDA’s new rules for “broad spectrum protection,” meaning, protection against both ultraviolet A and B rays. The catch is, the FDA’s criteria are the weakest in the modern world. Half of the U.S. sunscreens that meet the FDA rules would not make it to store shelves in Europe, where, since 2006, sunscreen makers have voluntarily complied with stricter European Union standards (European Commission 2006). High SPF – Sky-high SPF numbers are no measure of product effectiveness. A sunscreen’s sun protection factor, or SPF, measures its ability to screen skin burning UV rays, primarily UVB rays. The SPF value does not reflect the product’s ability to filter out UVA rays that, according to a growing body of evidence, cause skin damage, immune suppression and possibly melanoma. Studies show that high-SPF users are exposed to as many or more ultraviolet rays than those who use lower-SPF products. Experts believe that people get a false sense of security from those big numbers, don’t apply enough sunscreen, wait too long before reapplying and spend too much time in bright sun. About 1 in 7 beach and sport sunscreens is labeled with SPF values greater than 50+. The FDA has proposed to limit SPF claims to 50+ but has not issued a regulation to that end. European manufacturers are bound by a European Union rule that caps SPF claims at 50+. Sprays and powders – In 2011 FDA expressed concern about the safety and UV-filtering ability of sunscreen sprays and is studying them in more depth but has not banned them outright. Consequently, sprays remain popular. About 1 in 4 sunscreens in EWG’s database is a spray. The FDA has made a rule barring sunscreen and makeup with SPF in loose powder form but has exempted small manufacturers until December of this year to remove products from the market. Many powder sunscreens and make-ups with SPF contain zinc or titanium nanoparticles that should not be inhaled. Nor can users know if they are applying a thick, even coating essential for UV protection. Many of the 2013 crop of sunscreen products contain potentially toxic ingredients. Among them: – Vitamin A, also known as retinyl palmitate and retinol – This ingredient is in 25 percent of this season’s beach and sport sunscreens. It is used in regular makeup as an anti-aging ingredient but, perversely, has been shown to hasten the development of skin tumors and lesions on sun-exposed skin. Data on the potential skin cancer risk of retinyl palmitate have been public since 2010, but most sunscreen makers have not removed this chemical from their products. EWG recommends that consumers avoid using sunscreen and cosmetics whose labels disclose the presence of vitamin A, retinyl palmitate or retinol until this chemical’s safety on sun-exposed skin is proven. – Oxybenzone – This common chemical sunscreen filter is used in nearly half of the beach and sport sunscreens. It soaks through skin, triggers allergic skin reactions in sensitive individuals and may be a hormone disruptor. The FDA has yet to review any data on the potential toxicity of oxybenzone and other chemical sunscreen ingredients, despite evidence they can mimic hormones (Krause 2012) and have been detected in urine and breast milk samples (Schlumpf 2010, Calafat 2008). – Moisturizers, lip products and make-up with SPF – Less than 10 percent of all moisturizers, lip products and makeup with SPF earn EWG’s green “recommended” rating, compared to one-quarter of all beach and sport sunscreens. Moisturizers, lip balm and SPF-laced makeup should offer critical, year-round protection from UVA rays, which vary less by season than UVB rays, but most don’t. Under FDA rules. many cannot claim “broad spectrum” protection. * Statistics in this report are based on products in the EWG database as of May 2013.
Posted on: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 14:16:19 +0000
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