What is sunscreen? Sunscreen is a substance that is composed of sun filter, which is designed to reduce the risk of skin damage by decreasing the amount of ultraviolet (UV) radiation reaching the skin. Sunscreens are available in the form of topical lotion, cream, ointment, gel, mousses or spray that can be applied to the whole of body.
There are few reasons why sunscreen is harmful to us
1) Do not fully protect against skin cancer
Sunscreen can delay sunburn that lead to overexposure to sunlight. The sun protection factor (SPF) number on the packaging of sunscreen indicates the level of protection against sunburn from UVB light. It is a pointer that measures the number of time in minutes needed for the skin to be protected by the sunscreen from getting sunburn. Delay sunburn may allow extended exposure to unscreened harmful UV radiation. The Majority of melanomas are attributable to excessive UV radiation exposure. People not realize that they have too much sun, when they apply sunscreen on their body. This is because sunburn actually acts as a reminder that you got overexposure to sunlight. Thus, it shows that there is no reason for people to apply sunscreen on their body as it cannot prevent them from getting skin cancer.
2) Contain harmful ingredient that lead to health problems
One of the ingredients of sunscreen that contain toxic chemical is oxybenzone which can cause skin cancer. Oxybenzone able to penetrate through the skin and absorb into the bloodstream where they cause harsh DNA damage, leading to cancer. Snscreen with oxybenzone also might lead to free radical harm to the skin, a reaction that in theory might lead to skin cancer. Oxybenzone also able to react with the exposure to UV radiation and our skin’s composition to form chain reaction and breaking the DNA. It shows that, Oxybenzone has ability to damage the DNA cell inside our body that plays an important role for our body system to maintain our health. Thus, when our vital cells damage it will lead us to get skin cancer.
3) Lead to depletion of vitamin D
Wearing sunscreen in unnecessarily time can lead to depletion of vitamin D. People that always applying sunscreen are able to get vitamin D deficiency even they have a balanced diet with adequate intake of food or supplement rich in vitamin D. Moreover, many people that use sunscreen thinking they are doing something good for themselves. Actually they do not know that most of sunscreen product is designed to block UVB rays. Those rays are really important to your skin to generate vitamin D. In fact, almost 100 per cent of human total supply of vitamin D is obtained when exposed to UV rays from the sun. As a consequence, we cannot get sufficient of vitamin D as a UVB rays are filter by the sunscreen. Thus, people that always use sunscreen is possible to suppress vitamin D production and this can lead to depletion of vitamin D.
In brief, from the fact above we can conclude that the usage of sunscreen is harmful to us. Thus, people have to find another alternative to prevent us from harmful UV light as sunscreen no longer able to protect us from health risk. It is important to keep in mind that sunscreen is not the only way to protect the skin. The last word from me is, “If you want to live healthier and happier, please think twice about sunscreen that full with harmful side effect”.
By Amaal Farhana Mohamed
