Topline
Online groups and a number of social media influencers have started a trend claiming that sunscreen is harmful to the skin and does not protect against skin cancer, even though years of evidence-based research report the opposite.
A man applies sunscreen to a woman as they visit the beach.
Main facts
welfare subgroups Push the belief that sunscreen and other products that prevent skin cancer are only being distributed by “pharmaceutical companies and the healthcare industry” in an effort to sell products and to villainize the sun.
A prominent figure in the movement is micro-influencer “Tan Man”, who encourages tanning without sunscreen because he believes the product is “bad for the skin” and the environment. to claim the skin is meant to “absorb the full unadulterated power of the sun’s rays.”
On Twitter, another popular anti-sunscreen influencer insisted his followers to forego sunscreen in favor of maintaining high levels of vitamin D, as the vitamin “makes it nearly impossible to develop an autoimmune disease.”
According to according to Harvard Health Publishing, vitamin D is not very effective in preventing autoimmune diseases, with only 9.5 out of 1,000 people seeing a decrease in risk after taking vitamin D supplements.
Melanoma, an aggressive form of skin cancer, is one of the most prominent cancers in the US. according to to the Comprehensive Cancer Centers – more than one million Americans have been diagnosed.
According to according to the American Academy of Dermatology Association, sunscreen should be applied every day, regardless of race or age, and reapplied every two hours if you’re outside, swimming, or sweating.
Using sunscreen every day as directed reduces the risk of developing melanoma by 50% and reduces the risk of developing squamous cell carcinoma – a type of skin cancer that develops in the middle and outer layers of the skin – by 40%, the Skin Cancer Foundation reports.
Large number
9,500. That’s the number of people diagnosed with skin cancer every day in the US. according to from the American Academy of Dermatology Association. It is estimated that one in five Americans will develop skin cancer in their lifetime.
Crucial quote
“We need to understand that there are carcinogens in nature, and too much UV radiation from the sun is one example of that,” says Saira George, a dermatologist at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, said. “Our bodies have amazing protective mechanisms to deal with sun damage, but they haven’t evolved to overcome the damage caused by the overexposure to the sun that many of us get in our lifetime.”
Key background
a study published in the Journal of the Canadian Medical Association reports that 80% to 90% of all skin cancer diagnoses are related to UV radiation. Sunscreen protects the skin by preventing the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays from being absorbed into the skin. According to according to the University of Rochester Medical Center, the sun protection factor (SPF) on the label of a bottle of sunscreen indicates how well the product protects against ultraviolet B rays (UVB), which are responsible for sunburn. The higher the number, the longer a consumer can stay out in the sun without burning. However, no sunscreen is 100% fire resistant, as sunscreens with SPF 30 are 97% effective and sunscreens with SPF 50 are 98% effective. Sunscreen also protects the skin against photoaging: wrinkles, sagging skin and aging caused by the sun’s rays. According to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, regular use of sunscreen slows photoaging. The group of participants who used sunscreen daily no longer saw any visible signs of skin after 4.5 years and skin aging was 24% less in this group than in the control group.
tangent
According to according to the American Academy of Dermatology, there are three common types of skin cancer. The most common is basal cell carcinoma (BCC), which mainly affects people with fair skin, and BCCs grow slowly and are not typically life-threatening, the University of California, Davis, reports. Squamous cell carcinoma, which is also more common in people with lighter skin, can look like a scaly patch, red bump, or sore that is constantly healing and reopening, and if left untreated can scatter to healthy tissue and other organs and can potentially lead to death. Although not as common, melanoma is considered the “most serious skin cancer” due to its ability to spread throughout the body. Melanoma can appear as a dark spot on the skin or in a pre-existing mole. Since it is difficult to control once it spreads, it is critical that melanoma is caught early. If caught early, there is a 99% five-year survival rate, but if it spreads to the lymph nodes, that rate drops to 68% and even lower to 30% if it spreads to the organs.
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