Save yourself from sunlight and snake oil

“I wanted a tan during my vacation but my sunscreen was too strong,” Emma laughs. “My skin burns really easy so I have to look out for myself when I’m pool-side.”

“I probably don’t wear it as often as I should,” says her friend Victoria. “It’s tedious, but I also think it’s the texture that turns off most people.”

Elayna would probably agree with that statement. “It’s not something you usually think about,” she says. “It’s a lot of effort and I never expect to be in the sun for very long unless I’m planning for it.”

Elayna’s younger sister, Kimberley is in elementary school and surprisingly knew a lot more about sun protection than her older sister.

“You have to rub it in an hour before going outside and every two hours after,” she explained.

All of these St. Albert residents made a weird face when the topic of tanning beds was brought up. As much as a tan may be desired, getting it artificially seemed unanimously to be a bad idea.

Canadians seem to be constantly reminded about sun protection every summer (and how we’re never usually doing enough,) but do we really get the message?

Health Canada advises people who plan to soak up sunlight to prepare 20 minutes in advance by applying a generous amount of a mineral-based sunscreen with a sun protection factor (SPF) of at least 15.

The amount of times you have to re-apply (generally every two hours) will depend on the formula’s water resistance and if your activities include swimming or sweating. Always test for an allergic reaction.

Health Canada’s 2013 sunscreen monograph says only titanium dioxide, zinc oxide, and 4-aminobenzoic acid (with nothing else added) can be defined as “natural health” products.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has a “best beach and sports sunscreens” page listing criteria-approved products ranked by price.

Even with the amount of information available, some people still gamble with the terrible consequences that come from neglecting invisible skin hazards on a daily basis.

“There is no such thing as tanning anymore,” says Dr. Nicholas Morison. “It’s simply skin damage now. That’s all it is and that’s really all it has ever been.”

The leading dermatologist at the St. Albert Cosmetic Medical Clinic and Spa, Dr. Morison describes himself as a family physician with a particular interest in skin. On an average day, he performs 30-40 skin biopsies and two skin cancer treatments for his clients. A melanoma case usually appears every six weeks.

Most clients are blind-sided by the diagnosis. “They ignore the dangers,” he says. “They believe it only happens to other people.”

Morison recounted a story involving a couple who bought their own tanning bed and contracted skin cancers as a result. Due to the recent popularity of tanning in the nude, Morison has seen a rise in clients who also require treatment on the more embarrassing areas of the body.

Despite being the most preventable of cancers, skin cancer remains the most common of all cancers for North Americans (one in five will deal with some form of it in their lifetime.) It typically starts in older adults, occurring after years of DNA mutation due to prolonged exposure to ultraviolet radiation.

Avid “sun-tanners” gladly weaken their immune system by thickening and hardening their skin, choking it off its blood supply just to get a “base tan” while outside or visiting a tanning bed business.

Statistics from the Canadian Cancer Society Advisory board in 2014 show that in two previous national surveys, Canadians were increasing their sun exposure (through winter vacations in tropical hotspots) but not their use of protection against the sun’s damaging rays.

Only the coastal provinces seem to have been gradually cracking down on tanning beds and restricting them for minors in the past five years.

National spending on skin cancer was estimated to be at $532 million in 2004 and projected to rise to $922 million by 2031. It is also estimated that only around 1,500 of the annual 80,000 expected skin cancer diagnoses will prove fatal.

This relatively low mortality rate could possibly be to blame for the mass hubris against avoiding overexposure to the sun, but there is also a lot of casual exploitation coming from the cosmetic industry.

For example, vitamin D is often cited as a reason to sun-bake, but Dr. Morison says you only need 15 minutes to get your daily requirement.

The casual lack of personal responsibility is only a symptom of this expensive misinformation epidemic. Forget the timing and amount of sun block or lip balm to use; your product of choice could potentially be ineffective if not hazardous.

In a 2015 sunscreen guide released earlier this month by the EWG researchers, it stated 80 per cent of their tested products to be “a waste of money and time but also potentially harmful.”

Half of the sunscreens in the EWG’s Hall of Shame contain a potential endocrine disruptor called oxybenzone. The most common allergen in sunscreens, it enters the bloodstream and acts like estrogen in the body. Together with four other active sunscreen ingredients, oxybenzone has been linked to the bleaching of coral reefs by dispersing off the bodies of swimmers.

While good for indoor, anti-aging night creams, anything containing vitamin A such as retinyl palmitate actually has the potential to strengthen sun damage and speed the development of skin tumours.

The popular spray-type sunscreens not only require generous amounts to ineffectively cover the whole body, but also pose a serious inhalation risk.

There are products such as Neutrogena that hype a “broad spectrum” SPF of over 100 when in reality the UV protection begins to cap at 30 and doesn’t go past 50.

The vague product descriptions and baseless claims of UV coverage means certain brands are commercially tricking consumers into thinking they have adequate protection. The EWG claims some formulas are made to only chemically numb the sunburn without giving any protection.

Even more alarming are the sunscreens marketed for the young and vulnerable. The formula shouldn’t change based on age, but essential sun-block properties are exchanged for softness and fragrance. No infant less than six months old should wear sunscreen unless approved by a health-care practitioner.

Neutrogena’s Pure & Free Baby Sunscreen claims to be “hypoallergenic” but the product page is swamped with poor consumer reviews complaining of rashes.

It is likely because the product contains methylisothiazolinone: a potent allergen that has been deemed slightly neurotoxic and unsafe in Europe, according to the EWG.

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wants to ban advertising false sun protection factors as in Europe, Japan, and Australia, but it would first have to approve its decade-long backlog of potential sunscreen ingredients already being utilized by these other countries.

U.S. President Barack Obama quietly signed legislation last November requiring the FDA to clear the backlog, thereby ending the source of the bureaucratic limbo that’s been going on with sunscreen manufacturers since 2007.

In the meantime, Health Canada has an appendix of “unacceptable use/purpose” on their sunscreen monograph detailing the misleading and unsubstantiated claims commonly found on products.

Consumers may hopefully be seeing some long-overdue quality improvements as manufacturers become more regulated with data-backed advertising.

Health Canada has unfortunately been trailing even further behind in this progress with Canadian dermatologists having no mechanism to test UVA. Some of them even criticize the move to have SPF backed by evidence, citing that sun protection is far more important than “theoretical ingredient risks” and that “broad-spectrum” is safe no matter what number they slap on the bottle.

What more can we do in the face of all this naivety? Australia was known as the country for having the highest melanoma rates, but the number of incidents have steadied and even decreased among youth thanks to broad social marketing and television campaigns.

You can find further detailed information and tips by checking out Health Canada’s monograph and sun safety pages or by visiting ewg.org.