Sunscreens CAUSE Skin Cancer! Warning!

[Scepcop]

Hi all,
Last week, a friend of mine told me that sunscreen and moisturizer are actually unnecessary and do more harm than good. She said that they actually CAUSE skin cancer rather than prevent it, which is why so many Americans have it nowadays, even though they use sunblock or sunscreen. She also said that the chemicals used in most moisturizing creams are bad for your skin.

I always felt this way too, since the Oil of Olay moisturizing cream I put on my face feels so sticky and uncomfortable on my skin, and made my skin feel like it can't breathe. So I found it odd that so many people were recommending it, including skin care professionals. I also have started having frequent pimple outbreaks after using facial moisturizing cream. Once I stopped using facial creams, the acne stopped as well.

Now let's look at some basic logic here:

- Humans have been fine without sunscreen and facial moisturizers for thousands of years, without having any skin cancer problems. So why the hell is it a necessity nowadays when it wasn't for thousands of years? This logic fallacy is huge and not addressed by the skin care industry.

- How is it that humans began having skin cancer when sunblock was invented, but they didn't have it before? That should speak volumes right there.

- Humans have evolved under the sun for millions of years, so why is the sun now a dangerous thing that you have to protect against with sunscreen? The sun is the source of life and provides vitamin D for your skin. The worse it can do to you is give you a sunburn or dehydrate you. A sunburn is like a chemical peel, and not harmful at all. Kids get it all the time. It's not lethal.

- How come the blacks in Africa who don't use sunscreen don't get skin cancer, but black Americans who do use sunscreen get skin cancer? That right there speaks volumes.

Anyway, my facial skin has been a lot better since I stopped putting moisturizing cream on it, and using organic soap without bad chemicals on it. Some would say that I was using the wrong moisturizer and that I should keep trying others until my acne outbreaks stop. But come on, get real. There are thousands of facial moisturizers out there. I can't just buy all of them and try them every week like a wild goose chase.

Besides, I don't have a dry skin problem. In fact, my face is usually oily. So what's the point of using a moisturizer anyway? Why go through all the trouble? It doesn't make sense!

My friend told me that there is a conspiracy between the skin care industry that sells sunscreen and the cancer industry that profits from it. So you'd best avoid them both altogether. My intuition felt that she was right, based on my experience and gut feeling, as well as the basic logic points outlined above.

What do you all think? Have we all been duped regarding sunscreen and facial moisturizers?

Here are some articles I found that suggest that sunscreen can actually cause skin cancer and do more harm than good. One of them is even by NBC.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/28796417/ns/h ... damage-it/
http://www.naturalnews.com/001264.html
http://taraariano.com/moisturizer-the-big-lie/
http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/home/sunsc ... cancer.htm
http://www.thebetterhealthstore.com/New ... en_01.html
http://inhabitat.com/study-suggests-tha ... in-cancer/
http://www.aolnews.com/2010/05/24/study ... ng-cancer/

If you Google "moisturizers cause acne" you will get many hits as well.

[SydneyPSIder]

moisturiser will cause pimples for you simply because it's thick and blocking your pores.

nanoparticles have been described by some as suspect as used in sunscreen, that's all I know

[NinjaPuppy]

I don't know anything about sunscreen causing cancer but I use moisturizer on my face with an SPF of 15 daily. So far, so good.

[Arouet]

So let's assume for the sake of the argument that the conclusions of that abc report are correct and some sunscreens due to their formulation actually result in an increase of free radicals - does that mean it must be a conspiracy and that the "cancer inducstry" is deliberately causing more cancer, or are ther other options Scepcop?

[really?]

Winston it seems you have a rather unwarranted approach to looking at things. Everything is tinged with conspiracy rather than a well reasoned conservative outlook. From my reading and limited knowledge on the subject it's not these products directly cause skin cancers but how inappropriately an inadequately and with over confidence people have using these products that is the cause for skin cancers.

Winston how do you know people of the past didn't not suffer skin cancer?

[NinjaPuppy]

[SydneyPSIder]

also, people have evolved with different levels of pigmentation depending upon latitude. the study of the chemistry of pigmentation is pretty fascinating, and the supposed natural selection processes that go with it. anyhow, white folks have pretty well adapted to freezing conditions with little sun, presumably also needing clothes to survive -- i.e. migrating into northern Europe and surviving was probably only achieved by wearing animal furs, in the last 40,000 years, say, with appropriate allowances for Ice Ages. hence north Europeans' skin is incredibly fair to try to capture as much sunlight as possible and manufacture Vitamin D etc. Africans and people generally living on or near the equator however have evolved dark skin to minimise sun damage. the trouble is with migration and colonisation these days is that people who evolved in extremely low sunlight climates now live in sunny ones, and it's easy to travel thousands of miles in a few hours, rather than never, or over hundreds or thousands of years of slow steady movement allowing adaptation. nature can't keep up with our technology!

nothing much to do with sunscreen there however...

[really?]

[Medweb]

Interesting information. Are you sure its confirm? In NBC article which you have provided its mentioned that "A small but impossible-to-ignore study, published in Free Radical Biology & Medicine" can you provide link to that small study?

To be on the safe side its always a better idea to stay away from sunscreen & other artificial stuff. Before sunscreen was developed were people suffering from skin cancer as more and more people are suffering today?