Whales don’t wear sunscreen. And because these massive sea mammals must surface to breathe, they are being exposed to more and more ultraviolet radiation sneaking through the weakened ozone layer. According to Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse, lead author of a study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, some whales are getting serious sunburns at an alarming rate.
From 2007 to 2009, her team sampled fin, sperm, and blue whales in the sun-drenched Gulf of California, which is the long, skinny expanse of water between mainland Mexico and Baja California.
Nearly all of the skin samples contained “sunburn cells,” abnormal cells associated with ultraviolet-induced DNA damage. These indicators were even found in the lowest layer of skin on the whales, suggesting that those individuals were suffering from very severe sunburns. [Discovery News]
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.
But is even this sage advice subject to the “it’ll cause cancer, no wait, it’ll cure cancer” back-and-forth that plagues medical studies? Reading some headlines today, you might think so. Don’t toss out your tube of Banana Boat just yet, though.
The non-profit Environmental Working Group released another of its reports on the sunscreen industry, coming down hard on the chemicals it uses and the claims it makes in its advertising. Some stories about the report drew headlines like “Sunscreen May Hurt, Not Help;” “Your Sunscreen May Give You Cancer: Study;” and “Study: Many Sunscreens May Be Accelerating Cancer.”
EWG’s report claims that a Vitamin A compound called retinyl palmitate, used in some 40 percent of sunscreens, breaks down and causes skin damage under exposure to sunlight. The report cites research done under the Food and Drug Administration. But, according to dermatologist Henry W. Lim of Henry Ford Hospital:
These claims, says Lim, are based on a study in mice, which are far more susceptible to skin cancer than humans. “It’s dangerous to apply a finding in mice to humans, and I’ve spoken with a number of my colleagues about this and we all agree that it’s very premature to even cast doubt about the safety of this chemical.” The EWG also flagged products with oxybenzone, which it calls a “hormone-disrupting” compound. This, too, is based on mice data, says Lim; the animals were fed significantly greater amounts of the chemical than what’s commonly applied in sunscreen. Other research found no significant changes in blood hormone levels in human volunteers who were told to apply sunscreens containing oxybenzone every day for two weeks [U.S. News & World Report].