![]() Hill Creek Pictures // Getty Images So is “wear sunscreen” still smart? Plus, a paper published in the Archives of Dermatology in 2011 calculated that it would take 277 years of daily sunscreen use to get to the levels of oxybenzone found to have negative effects in certain rat studies. In fact, the FDA’s proposed regulations state that 12 of those chemical ingredients have “insufficient data” to determine if they’re Generally Recognized as Safe and Effective (GRASE), so it’s calling for additional data. But there’s not enough evidence to say that there is a danger. “I can see that people would infer that it gets into your blood and there’s a danger there,” he says. “They did find an increase in serum blood levels, but they created an arbitrary cutoff point that was exceedingly low-it was a billionth of a gram per milliliter of blood.” While the study shows it does get in the blood when used optimally, “we need to understand what that means.”Īnd maybe it doesn’t mean a lot. And people applied the chemicals “optimally,” meaning, applied them like you’re supposed to, which is 2 milligrams per square centimeter of skin-“which never happens in real life,” says Dr. But take a closer look at the study, and you’ll see that each group in the study had only six participants, he says. “How it was interpreted was, ‘OMG, it gets in the blood and it’s going to kill us all!’” says Adam Friedman, M.D., professor and interim chair of dermatology at George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences, who says he gets questions about it all the time. And they point out that the JAMA study published in May-the one that found sunscreen chemicals in the blood of people who applied chemical sunscreens four times a day for four days-likely created more panic than scientific advancement. But right now, not a lot of testing has been done on particle size, so the EWG recommends avoiding the sprays until the results of further testing are in.īut some dermatologists think the chemical sunscreen concerns are overblown. That spray and powder sunscreens could enter the lungs if the particles are small enough.That SPF products higher than 50+ give people a false sense of security, leading you to apply them less or stay out longer and get more skin damage.The group recommends staying away from products containing oxybenzone and points out that mineral sunscreens-those containing titanium dioxide or zinc oxide-are generally recognized as safe, and there are plenty of them on the market. The group points to it as a potential hormone disruptor, and cites negative studies on the chemical, including research linking higher levels of oxybenzone in the blood of adolescent boys to lower levels of testosterone. Many products contain “worrisome” ingredients, like oxybenzone, a chemical that was featured in a study earlier this year that found that people had it in their bloodstreams after just four days of applying it.“The fact that 12 of the active ingredients we use almost every day don’t have enough toxicology data is appalling.” Among the EWG's concerns: ![]() “If they went through as written, they would absolutely move our sunscreen market into where it should be,” she says. “Their recommendations strongly align with what we’ve been recommending for 13 years,” Lieba says. The FDA created a proposal for new sunscreen regulations in February of this year. “Just under 60 percent of the products we assessed contain ingredients that the FDA says they don’t have enough toxicology data to state if they’re safe and/or effective,” says Nneka Leiba, director of EWG’s Healthy Living Science program. The report rates the safety and efficacy of more than 1300 sun-protection products, including sunscreens, moisturizers, and lip balms. The Environmental Working Group released its 2019 Guide to Sunscreens today-the 13 th annual report of its kind-and it finds that two-thirds of sunscreen products on the market “offer inferior protection or contain worrisome ingredients.” But not everyone agrees you should be scared. ![]() Summer’s hot, and the debate over how to protect yourself from the sun is even hotter.
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