Deadly sun

Just when you were enjoying your summer:

As many as 60,000 people a year die from too much sun, warns the World Health Organization. . .

Of the 60,000 deaths, 48,000 are caused by malignant melanomas and 12,000 by other skin cancers, the report Global Burden of Disease of Solar Ultraviolet Radiation estimates.

More than 1.5 million "disability-adjusted life years" or DALYS - a measure of the loss of full functioning due to disease and death - are lost every year due to sun exposure, WHO believes.

From the BBC. On the other hand, too little sun exposure may also cause cancer, through vitamin D deficiency (easily remediable through diet, however -- that daily spoonful of cod liver oil doesn't seem so pointless now).

At least Mexoryl has finally been approved for sale in the USA (though it's been readily obtainable from eBay sellers in Canada and elsewhere for some time) -- though now comes this:

Rubbing sunscreen into the skin reduces its effectiveness, a study says. . .

They found that when the sunscreen was rubbed in it offered almost zero protection because the cream accumulated in lines and sweat glands and did not offer even protection.

Researchers said rubbing in sunscreen could even put people at higher risk because while it did not protect against UVA rays it did offer resistance to UVB which causes the skin to redden.

Whatever sunscreen they were using, it was an older single-spectrum formula -- clearly not Mexoryl or the like -- and it was tested not on live volunteers, but on "left-over skin from plastic surgery operations". In any event, there's no way beachgoers will be convinced to apply sunscreen without rubbing it in: you might as well get them to just paint themselves white.

Posted by David on July 27, 2006 9:43 AM