DoctorOz: Sunscreen Safety - Harm vs. Good?

A new FDA-proposed rule on sunscreen is giving many wondering if some of the most effective sunblocks on the market can soon disappear from store shelves. And with so many options out there, how do you know which sunblock will protect your family from what you dread most, which is skin cancer? So today, we are investigating, and we've got some audience members here who are concerned about which sunblock they are dying. Anela, for example, has lots of worries. For example... So, with my family, I like to go natural whenever possible, and I buy mineral-based sunscreens, but I don't know if it gives us enough protection. But you do use mineral-based right now? Yes. How many mineral-based sunscreen people are there out there? Zinc oxide, titanium dioxide? Nobody. Good. It's good to know. I actually... I like the mineral ones, and I use them, but to get to your question, Isabel, what's your sunscreen question? You know, with so many choices out there, it gets overwhelming, so I just try to buy the best quality until I get duped into buying the most expensive one. Yes. And most probably, get the biggest SPF, right? Yes, exactly. But what SPF do you really need? That question comes up all the time. All right. Here to navigate the sunscreen aisle is dermatologist Dr. Whitney Bow. She says picking the right sunscreen goes far past the inconvenience of minor burns. Thanks for being here. That's so correct, Dr. Oz. Thanks for having me, because if you add up all the cases of skin cancer that have been diagnosed in the last year, that number is actually greater than if you combine the number of cases of breast cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer, and prostate cancer. So it's really, really common. At some point in our lives, a lot of us will struggle with this, but it's all because of the sun. So help us understand this new proposed FDA rule. Okay. So overall, the FDA is still saying that the benefits of sunscreen outweigh the risks, but the FDA is recommending that we take a closer look at which sunscreen ingredients actually get absorbed through the surface of the skin into the bloodstream, and what that means for our health. So in general, there are these two categories, right, that you referred to before. There's the physical or mineral blockers, and there's the chemical ones. So the FDA is saying the physical and mineral blockers are safe, they just sit on the surface of the skin, they really don't get absorbed. It's the chemical ones that the FDA is looking into, because we do have some small animal studies showing that they can get absorbed into the bloodstream, and they can potentially have negative effects in those animals, but what that means for humans, you know, we don't know yet. Come over here. Show us the difference between the two. I asked the audience earlier, I'm not sure yet they were all clear on this. So these are the natural sunblocks, and we have the chemical-based sunblocks, and we're not judging, we're just going to explain what they are and how they're different. So take it away. It really all comes down to the active ingredients. So if you're thinking about the mineral or the physical blockers, which a lot of people refer to as the natural sunscreens, you're thinking about the ones that contain zinc oxide and or titanium dioxide. So these are the ones, guys, that they sit on the surface, it's almost like a shield, so they reflect or scatter the UV rays. And they're the ones that can be kind of chalky, like they're difficult to rub in, right, some of them. Yes. You know, they cast for the ghost sometimes. Yes. You can have a little bit of a ghostly appearance. You got it. Scares people. So the chemical-based sunscreens, so these are ones that contain ingredients like avobenzone, oxybenzone, octinoxate, octisalate. These work differently. They act more like a sponge. So they absorb the UV rays, and these are actually pretty easy to rub in. Most of you use these because they are simple and straightforward, and you don't have to reapply them all the time, which is the other benefit, I think. Both of them really should be reapplied every two hours if your skin is dry, and if you get wet or you're sweating, you should be reapplying it even more often than that. So almost every hour, they both have to be reapplied throughout the day. All right. So we have basic game plans. Come on over here. Our friends at Good Housekeeping put the various sunscreens to the test. Joining us now is April Franzino. Hi. Beauty director for Good Housekeeping Magazine. Thanks so much for having me. Knows all things beauty. Thank you. So you took those different sunblocks you just talked about and you put them to the test. Yes. What did you do? So the Good Housekeeping Institute's Beauty Lab basically scans the market from drugstore brands all the way to the high end and looks at the formulas, but first what they do is they blind the labels. So testers don't know what brand they're testing, so they can't be biased for or against a certain brand. And then they distribute them to more than 1,000 testers across the country in summer months so that they're getting exposure in everyday conditions. They're outdoors, they're swimming, they're at the ocean, the pool, and then we get their feedback on how they work in everyday life. So they tell us whether they leave any film on skin, how they look and feel, their scent, any irritation that happens to them, all the factors that go into whether you're going to use a sunscreen or not, and most importantly, whether they protect from sunburn. So these are the things that we take into account when we're testing sunscreens. So again, consumers, they prefer the chemical sunscreens. But in a laboratory setting, when everything's controlled, which one performs better, mechanical or chemical? So in a laboratory setting, when it's done by third-party testers like Consumer Reports, the chemicals do perform a little bit better than the physical or mechanical blockers do overall. So guys, big message here, any sunscreen's going to work, it's better than nothing for sure. Right. But we're trying to give you a little bit of edge here in terms of which ones you tend to be benefiting for a bit more. So what do you have to say when someone comes to the SPF them, what's the number there is the most vital? Right. So when it comes to SPFs, in a lab setting, again, when you look at that, 30 and above, those higher numbers, they don't seem to be providing much of an added benefit, it almost seems to plateau. But Dr. Oz, in real life, those higher SPFs can be much more forgiving because, as I spoke with April earlier, people do not use as much SPF as they're supposed to, they don't reapply it as often as they're supposed to. So it's nice to have that buffer. So I do recommend that people look for that. If you're going to the beach, look for an SPF 50, an SPF 60, because by the time you actually use it, you're probably getting more like an SPF 15 the way that most people tend to use it. How many of you like a nice shot of alcohol at night when you get home? I thought so. You know how big that shot glass is? Got some hands. Right. That's the amount of sunblock you're supposed to put on when you go out. You got to fill up the whole shot glass, not with vodka, but with sunblock. So most of us just don't do that. And reapplying it, and reapplying it, and reapplying it, which a lot of people don't do. And there's one other issue, which is SPF talks about blockages of one of the kinds of the rays of the sun, but there's actually two kinds of rays. There's more, but two big ones. So the UVBs, what do they do, and why does the SPF apply to this? So SPF only applies to UVB. It has nothing to do with UVA. If you want UVA coverage, you have to look for the words broad spectrum on the label. So the UVB, I say B for burn. You know, so they're the primary cause of a sunburn, and it only affects the superficial layers of the skin. So this is a model of the skin. We've got the superficial layer here, right, the epidermis, and then there's a dermis just beneath it. And if we didn't realize, thank you for doing that, Scott, you'll see the UVB only goes to the top. So it burns the skin, but it doesn't affect the dermis. Now what does the UVA light do? Okay, so UVA goes a lot deeper. So I tell people A for aging, because it goes all the way down into the layer where your collagen is made. So if you're concerned about signs of aging, they both, UVA and UVB, can cause skin cancer. But A goes a little bit deeper and can cause a lot of those signs of aging, like lax skin and wrinkles. So that's why you need the sunscreen. And when you get sunscreen, you apply it correctly on that superficial layer. Now you protect the epidermis and the dermis. They're both protected. And the sunscreen, if it's doing its job, will do that for you. But again, it has to be broad spectrum, which means it's protecting against the UVB and the UVA together. You got it. Clear. Now, advice to folks on sunscreen. Now we've given all the basics here. What do you actually do in your family? What do you recommend that we do in ours? Right. So what do I tell my patients? Now, I got to tell you, my recommendations may change, you know, as the new research comes in. But what I'm telling patients and what I do for my family right now is that I do believe that the benefits still outweigh the risks of sunscreen. And yes, I do think that the chemical sunscreens do perform better than the physical. But if you're concerned about safety, if you're worried about how much is being absorbed into your skin, I tell people, look for those sun-protective fabrics. You can now find fabric, either a long-sleeve rash guard, a cover-up, that actually filters out 98% of the UVA and UVB rays. So it dramatically cuts down on the amount of sunscreen you actually have to apply and reapply throughout the day. That's what I think, for kids, probably the best solution of all. In our family, we try not to let anyone out without a shirt on. And then you have to apply a lot less sunscreen, save some money there, and apply it to the parts of your skin where it shows, the back of your hands, the face, and you can use mechanical or chemical, whatever you happen to like. In fact, you're so passionate about this, Dr. Mo started her own line of UV apparel. Congratulations. I did. Thank you. So up next, our investigation into the summer health products that you use most continues with a deep dive into the best bug sprays on the market. Yo, look at those guys. Ooh! Deep diving. Be sure to subscribe to my channel so you don't miss anything, and remember to check back often to see what's new.