I was a bit perturbed at one of my favorite science news feeds recently. Science Daily is a site for which the Beauty Brains have great respect and they recently ran this headline: “Sunscreen ingredient may increase cancer risk.”
Preliminary study shows potential sunscreen danger…
I was just as alarmed by this headline as you probably are – so I clicked the link to learn more. I found that the first paragraph of the article states that people rely on sunscreens for protection but they “may not be so safe after all.” Wow! That’s a pretty serious assertion, especially when you consider that sunscreens provide protection from skin cancer. So if new research has uncovered a serious danger in using sunscreens, or any other cosmetic ingredients for that matter, I’d rather the general public know about it sooner rather than later.
The ingredient of concern is zinc oxide one of the physical sunblocks (as opposed to the chemical sunscreens that usually get the negative press.) The body of the article then explained that this ingredient was found to release free radicals that kills lung cells. The author concluded the article by noting the researcher says clinical studies need to be done and that people should continue to wear sunscreen because it’s “better than no protection at all.”
…but more studies are needed before jumping to conclusions
Wait a minute. All these alarm bells are going off based on a single study that was done on lung cells immersed in a solution of zinc oxide? And there’s no evidence yet that topically applied zinc oxide presents a problem?
I was relieved to find out that there is no imminent danger but I was also annoyed by the seemingly irresponsible manner in which the information was presented. Rather than presenting a balanced perspective from the beginning, the author lead with the danger and then at the end of the article (which many people won’t even bother to read!) discloses that there’s no immediate cause for concern. I can see this article being used for scaremongering when a more moderate approach would probably have been better. Science Daily is usually better than this.
What do you think? Was the information presented in a fair light? Or does this article have an unjustified alarmist tone? Leave a comment and share your thoughts with the rest of the Beauty Brains community.
Image credit: doodlepress.co.uk
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Ugh, I’m really annoyed with these “cleverly titled” articles that mislead people just so people will click them. Pathetic move.
Zinc oxide is very effective. Saved me from sunburn when I go out and surf.
Yeah, what does inhaled water do to lung cells, I wonder?
Yeah it a little extreme but to me not so surprising since for cosmetic sells people use the same tactic to get me to buy sunscreen. If I wasn’t trying to even my skin tone, I honestly would be using sunscreen at all I think not enough factors are looked in most studies because they are trying too hard to be specific. Honestly yes too much sun over time is linked to skin cancer but too oxygen over is linked brain aging. So what are we supposed to stop breathing, of course not just remember with everything in life there is some give and take. Also Note Sun also helps prevent other cancers as well do to the Vitamin D we produce from it. Also sun light improves our overall mood and helps grow the food we depend on.
All I am saying is for sun protection industry scare tactics are nothing new.
After years in the sun with the California lifestyle, members of my family are paying the price of excessive sun exposure with multiple surgeries for tumor removals and reconstructive surgeries. If it takes scaring people to make them have some sense about sun exposure, I’m all for frightening the hell out of them.
However, I wish they (our cultural tastemakers and ‘leaders’) would emphasize more practical and less costly solutions — avoiding the sun in the middle of the day, keeping children (especially babies) under cover, using non-chemical barriers like clothing, hats, gloves or mitts, availability of shade in public places. Stop glorifying the ‘tanned skin’ look in fashion, and emphasizing healthy behaviors in all phases of life.
Articles about sunscreen should carry on the quibbling about the details, but emphasize the practical and what we know as fact about avoiding skin cancer.
People have to know the truth about sun exposure and how to manage it to protect themselves — and this info doesn’t get out to everybody, and it should.
I say it is mostly just yellow journalism. It’s a shame that they have to resort to that kind of reporting.
Issues:
1. irresponsible fearmongering reporting (second-hand reporting of that article seen elsewhere too): gripping headlines and circulation figures at any cost!
2. misreading of the actual research
3. as others online have asked: why lung tissue? rather than skin tissue cultures?
4. there’s zinc oxide and there’s zinc oxide: and a world of difference between particle sizes, and (on both the micro and nano fronts) uncoated vs. coated. Most ZnO used in sunscreen is coated. The ZnO used in the experiment was not.
5. the probability of inhaling ZnO particles from your sunscreen AND anything happening subsequently is dramatically lower than the probability of getting skin cancer. For me, exponential difference in probabilities. I’m a flammable redhead, was burned several times when a child, have had a Thing removed, and doctors’ orders are to use protective measures for the rest of my life
Conclusions: I’m keeping using my sunscreens, which contain micro-to-nano sized coated zinc oxide. Plus sunglasses, hat, covering up, and avoiding exposure in peak hours.
I couldn’t stop facepalming as I read this. There was so much backwards logic used here that I would be ashamed if I were them.
Let me get this straight–they not only used NANO zinc oxide, but they also used living lung CELLS (not even tissue!) suspended in the solution. And, on top of that, it took 12 hours of exposure for most of these individual, NON SKIN cells to die?
Yeah….yeah, that totally seems like it would still hold true in real world conditions. /obvious sarcasm
So I guess I’ll be safe as long as I don’t remove my lungs from my chest the next time I’m on the beach, and mix them with sunscreen via a food processor? Is that what they’re trying to imply?
And it’s great how everyone is treating zinc oxide like it’s this brand new concept just because sun damage is such a hot topic in skin care. Obviously they’ve never used calamine lotion or zinc based diaper rash cream.
I read this one as well earlier and was thinking that now we will have people afraid of every type of sunscreen now—great. BTW while shopping for a sunscreen for my daughter, I saw a sunscreen with the line “no chemical sunscreen”. I had to think about this on how they can say that. I see the whole product as a “sunscreen” so I was thinking it must be an empty bottle
. But then I realized they meant they only used a mineral sunscreen as their active ingredient. I wonder how many people will read it as meaning no chemicals at all? I didn’t buy it mostly because of that line!! It bugged me obviously.
There was some other fear-mongering study done by the Environmental Working Group a while back about how Vitamin A may have photo-carcenogenic properties. Hate the EWG. Their main purpose, it seems, is to scare people into believing their natural everything is good, and synthetic/chemical everything is bad.
Science News usually takes press releases verbatim. They don’t write the content. They are an aggregator.
So this came from PR dept at the institution and it may or may not represent the feelings of the researchers. It all depends on how versed in science and how splashy the PR writer is. I certainly know researchers who have been horrified when they see what the PR dept has put out.
I have less of a problem with the test system. Yes, skin cells would have been better but to a certain extent all cells are similar. I very much doubt that keratinocytes would have had a significantly different response. High levels of ROS kill all cells. Tissue is very hard to test anything in, due to heterogeneity and replication issues. Having looked at the manuscript cited, the reason they used lungs cells is because they also do studies on the effects of inhalation of ZnO particles.
As somebody who works with cultured cells I thought that the cells died really quickly. 90% of the cells dead after 12 hours is pretty dramatic. From their previous paper ZnO particles do a good number on lung cells without UV exposure. UV just makes it worse.
Though the way the research was presented in the press release is inappropriate it certainly raises some interesting questions.
I agree on that particular article – however, the most artilces on science daily are good. By the way, there is a new, interesting study (Lao-Ping, Piscataway, N.J, 2012) out there, accodring to which caffeine and exercise can ward off skin cancer. The research was done on mice, but there is some evidence this works for humans also. Science daily recently published an article about this …
They don’t really care if they’re providing info, scaring people unnecessarily, or tarnishing the sunscreen industry: if you click the link, they win.
Pageviews, baby.
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