Terry Ryan and sister-in-laws

They have been warning us for years…the skin police. Don’t go outside without SPF50 on your skin. Blah, blah, blah. Where were they when I was pouring iodine into the baby oil and slathering it on my body to enhance the perfect burn?  Nowhere, that’s were they were. Now I look at the skin of my peers who all used to lay on the Million Dollar Beach and burn until our skin peeled off in sheets. Some of them are wrinkled and some not so wrinkled. Hey, they said we would be wrinkled, old prunes by the time we turned 60. As I now gaze into the gorgeous tanned skin of one of my BFF’s whose lazy, summer days are spend floating around her pool with absolutely no sunscreen on I say “ha!” to all the experts.

What I am most happy about is that my generation was not berated into using mass quantities of sunscreen with god knows what ingredients. Yikes! I personally am more afraid of slathering chemicals on my skin than sitting out in the sun. However, I don’t sit out in the sun anymore because I believe pale is the new tan. Yeah, you heard me. I like not having tan lines.

Last year I went to my husband’s dermatologist for an itchy spot on my shoulder which proved to be harmless and she called it something I can’t even repeat.  She did say, “You have amazing skin.” So, here we are, two different specimens who have great skin: me and my BFF sunning in the pool. What separates us from the rest of the population who have not so nice skin? Is it genes alone or did we do something different way back then?

In spite of drug store shelves lined with sunscreen products, skin cancer is on the rise. (Here is a good place to look up the facts. http://www.skincancer.org/skin-cancer-information/skin-cancer-facts) When I was in high school and college, nobody ever died from skin cancer. Now, I hear sad stories of friends of friends or their relatives dying from skin cancer, mostly the dreaded melanoma: the mother of all skin cancers.

Here is a list of all the skin cancers you have should be knowledgeable of:

Types of Skin Cancer

(source: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/wyntk/skin/page4)

Skin cancers are named for the type of cells that become malignant (cancer). The three most common types are:

• Melanoma: Melanoma begins in melanocytes (pigment cells). Most melanocytes are in the skin.
  Melanoma can occur on any skin surface. In men, it’s often found on the skin on the head, on the neck, or between the shoulders and the hips. In women, it’s often found on the skin on the lower legs or between the shoulders and the hips.Melanoma is rare in people with dark skin. When it does develop in people with dark skin, it’s usually found under the fingernails, under the toenails, on the palms of the hands, or on the soles of the feet.

• Basal cell skin cancer: Basal cell skin cancer begins in the basal cell layer of the skin. It usually occurs in places that have been in the sun. For example, the face is the most common place to find basal cell skin cancer.In people with fair skin, basal cell skin cancer is the most common type of skin cancer.

• Squamous cell skin cancer: Squamous cell skin cancer begins in squamous cells. In people with dark skin, squamous cell skin cancer is the most common type of skin cancer, and it’s usually found in places that are not in the sun, such as the legs or feet.

What is the best defense?

I strongly recommend shade. Yep! Something as simple as that. While my neighbors in Florida are chopping their trees down (they are messy was the reason given to me) I cherish the trees that I have shading my lawn. The couple across the street, removed the old oaks in their front yard as soon as they moved in, but then would park in front of my house when the mister of the house was cleaning his car because he wanted the shade!  Yes, shade is a good thing. Seek it.

Staying inside during the sun’s zenith is a good idea. I walk in the early morning or the late afternoon. I also always wear a hat and sunglasses. I never NEVER use tanning booths. Ugh! No way Pass.

Use a sun umbrella. Yes, a sun umbrella was in vogue during the Victorian age as ladies in their long dresses walked through flowery fields yielding parasols to protect their fair skin from the sun. Fair skin was “in” because it meant that you were not of the working class, heaven forbid. Tan faces were the norm for the farmers. Then, as time progressed, and the working class switched to factory work and became sun-deprived, a tan was a sign that you were part of the upper class; yachting on your boat off the coast of Cannes or playing tennis in Malibu. Then in my generation, a tan was kind of sexy. We lined up on the sand and soaked in the rays saying things to each other that tanned thighs looked thinner.  Got to say that none of my friends I baked with on the beach has yet to come down with skin cancer, knock on wood.

I now use an umbrella (parasols are still popular as a wedding accessory) when I know I am going to be standing in the sun for a long period of time let’s say for a grave-side service or for a summer outdoor concert. I am ten degrees cooler than the non-umbrella user, and I’m blocking out the harmful rays. Get into the habit of storing an umbrella in your car and you will thank me later. Here are some great sun umbrella’s.

Be extremely careful of what you rub on your skin. Years ago I was substitute teaching in a cosmetology class and on the wall was a sponge cut in the shape of a hand with a message below that said, “Your skin is a giant sponge.”  Meaning that your skin will absorb everything you put on it, good or bad. If you don’t want to put it in your mouth then why would you put it on your skin? So, now I read just about everything that is in the cosmetic department on the drug store shelves, and I look up ingredients that I am not certain of. Hey, the Internet is a wonderful thing. Let’s take a well-know sunscreen and read the list of ingredients:
Active Ingredients: Octinoxate (7.5%), Octisalate (5%), Zinc Oxide (14.5%) Inactive Ingredients: Water, Propylene Glycol, C12 15 Alkyl Benzoate, Neopentyl Glycol Diheptanoate, Cyclopentasiloxane, Cetyl/PEG/PPG 10/1 Dimethicone, PEG 12 Dimethicone Crosspolymer, Triethoxycaprylylsilane, Aloe Vera (Aloe Barbadensis) Leaf Juice, Ethyhexyl Palmitate, Diazolidinyl Urea, Methylparaben, Propylparaben, Sodium Chloride

Chemical and physical

There are two major types of sunscreen: chemical and physical. Although the terms “sunscreen” and “sunblock” are often used interchangeably, chemical sunscreens absorb UV rays while physical sunscreens, or sunblocks, reflect them. Aha!

Chemical sunscreens contain UVB or UVA absorbing ingredients and create a thin film on the skin that reduces ultraviolet radiation (UVR) penetration to the skin. These ingredients include chemicals like avobenzone and benzophenone, which absorb UVR [source: Environmental Protection Agency]. Chemical sunscreens often contain UVB-absorbing chemicals only; however, there are some chemical sunscreens that contain both UVB and UVA absorbers [source: American Melanoma Foundation].

Because they contain ingredients that physically block UVR, sunblocks provide broader protection against both UVA and UVB light [source: American Melanoma Foundation]. Physical sunblocks reflect UV radiation back into the atmosphere using ingredients such as titanium dioxide and zinc oxide [source: UCSF School of Medicine]. These ingredients scatter both UVA and UVB rays, which provides your skin with full protection from sun damage. There are also sunscreen products that contain a combination of chemical and physical sunscreens, which ensure that your skin is completely protected.

Is sunscreen poisoning us?

Some of the chemical sunscreens are considered endocrine disruptors. Those are chemicals that interfere with the normal function of hormones. The hormones most commonly disturbed are estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and thyroid. Endocrine disruptors, like some ingredients in chemical sunscreens, can cause abnormal development of fetuses and growing children. They cause early puberty and premature breast development in girls, and small and undescended testicles in boys. They cause low sperm counts and infertility. Endocrine disruptors that act like estrogen can contribute to the development of breast and ovarian cancers in women, and other endocrine disruptors may increase the chance of prostate cancer in men. (Source: http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/your-sunscreen-might-be-poisoning-you) 

Now, do you really want to be rubbing that on your child?  I cringe when I see a parent, who is thinking they are doing the right thing, rub sunscreen on their baby. The child is usually crying so I think they know more than the parent. What the mom or dad should be doing instead is limiting the child’s swim time to early morning/late afternoon, and making sure they wear long sleeves and a hat if possible. (I should point out that my parents sent us to the beach to bake all day in bathing suits with maybe a towel to lay down on and told to come home when the beach closed. It was only when we started working as teenagers that we were able to buy baby oil to intensify the suns rays. Yet, we survived.)

What was different?

Was it the thicker ozone layer or was it the food we eat? I think it is the food we put into our bodies. I lived in a simpler time when junk food was a rare occurrence. Why? Junk food was not a necessity and expensive, and few of our mother’s worked so we always had prepared from scratch meals. Drinking soda was a luxury and you never sat around eating a bag of chips. Our snacks were mostly vegetables and fruit because it was readily available in our house and picked from the local farms. Chemicals in food were non-existing and free radicals were kept under control, I am assuming. It was a wholesome and healthy time? Do I think that is what ultimately protected our skin, the largest organ in the body? Possibly. That and some good genes. Think before you apply and be sun safe.

Check this site out for more natural sunscreen protection ideas. http://www.marksdailyapple.com/8-natural-ways-to-prevent-a-sunburn-and-sunscreens-not-one-of-them/#axzz3AIO09tOx

Terry Ryan

Terry Ryan is a health blogger and lives in Sarasota, FL.