Have fun in the sun but protect your skin
The sun and most sunscreens both cause cancer
By: Sarah Hutchins
Issue date: 6/6/08 Section: Opinion
If beauty is truly only skin deep, we ought to take that as a warning to protect our hides from the sun and tanning beds.
Skin comes in so many beautiful colors: ebony, mocha, cafe au lait, cream, and many more browns and beiges. However, the worst skin colors that inevitably pop up every summer are fiery scarlet and tanorexic burnt orange. It's important for people to learn to love the skin they are born with because, not only do these artificial shades look bad, they are also extremely unhealthy.
According to the National Cancer Institute, women who use tanning beds more than once a month are 55 percent more likely to develop malignant melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer. Skin cancer is the most prevalent cancer in the U.S., with more than one million people annually diagnosed, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation. One out of five Americans will develop skin cancer in the course of their lifetime and more than 90 percent of skin cancers are caused by too much sun exposure.
Sunlight in moderation provides many healthy benefits, such as vitamin D, which reduces the chance of cancer by 50 percent. Obtaining vitamin D from the sun is natural, free and easier for the body to absorb than from supplements. However, at the first sign of the skin becoming pink, it's time to seek shade to prevent further sun damage.
Avoiding tanning beds will allow for a little extra spending money for a natural sunscreen. Most commercial sunscreens like Banana Boat and Neutrogena have several carcinogenic chemicals that cause free radical damage. Any lotion that's applied to your skin is absorbed into your bloodstream and travels throughout your body. Any sunscreen with long, hard to pronounce ingredients like iodopropynyl butylcarbamate (which, by the way, can cause fertility problems and risk to the fetuses of pregnant women) should be avoided. Octyl methoxycinnamate (OMC), a toxic ingredient that increases toxicity when in the sun, is found in 90 percent of sunscreen brands.
Skin comes in so many beautiful colors: ebony, mocha, cafe au lait, cream, and many more browns and beiges. However, the worst skin colors that inevitably pop up every summer are fiery scarlet and tanorexic burnt orange. It's important for people to learn to love the skin they are born with because, not only do these artificial shades look bad, they are also extremely unhealthy.
According to the National Cancer Institute, women who use tanning beds more than once a month are 55 percent more likely to develop malignant melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer. Skin cancer is the most prevalent cancer in the U.S., with more than one million people annually diagnosed, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation. One out of five Americans will develop skin cancer in the course of their lifetime and more than 90 percent of skin cancers are caused by too much sun exposure.
Sunlight in moderation provides many healthy benefits, such as vitamin D, which reduces the chance of cancer by 50 percent. Obtaining vitamin D from the sun is natural, free and easier for the body to absorb than from supplements. However, at the first sign of the skin becoming pink, it's time to seek shade to prevent further sun damage.
Avoiding tanning beds will allow for a little extra spending money for a natural sunscreen. Most commercial sunscreens like Banana Boat and Neutrogena have several carcinogenic chemicals that cause free radical damage. Any lotion that's applied to your skin is absorbed into your bloodstream and travels throughout your body. Any sunscreen with long, hard to pronounce ingredients like iodopropynyl butylcarbamate (which, by the way, can cause fertility problems and risk to the fetuses of pregnant women) should be avoided. Octyl methoxycinnamate (OMC), a toxic ingredient that increases toxicity when in the sun, is found in 90 percent of sunscreen brands.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
clubby
posted 6/06/08 @ 7:29 AM PST
Perhaps it best not to twist those terrible words around in an effort to scare people. You are more than welcome to verify the following at uvtalk.com
90 percent of skin cancers are non-melanoma cancers. (Continued…)
Allen Reed
posted 6/06/08 @ 10:04 AM PST
Wow, I feel like I have gone back in time. That article is a dated sun scare message that totally ignores the benefits of tanning. God gave us a system that has a delicate balance; part of this system is the sun. (Continued…)
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