Category Archives: News

Hello, Sunscreen! Do I know you?:

By Huijing Y., with contributions from Hannah Gibson and Chahana P.

When summer comes, people like to visit beaches and enjoy outdoor activities. Sunscreen becomes indispensable for people to protect their skin from sun damage and skin cancer. As consumers, we determine what sunscreens to use and buy. Do the public/consumers know enough information about sunscreens? Do they actually protect our skin? Let’s find out.

To investigate how much people know about sunscreen, we distributed a survey to approximately 60 people. 33 responded. Most were high school students. Some were teachers or adults from non-profit organizations. Their ages range from 15 to 40.

Here is a summary of our survey results:

SuncreenChart1


Sunscreenchart2

SunscreenChart3SuncreenChart4

According to our survey, 76% of the respondents use sunscreen. It is a good sign that the majority of people are aware of the harm of being exposed to sunlight. So they take their first action and start to use sunscreen. However, most of the respondents do not use the sunscreen when it is cloudy or cold outside; indicating that people do not believe that they could still be harmed by UV when it is cloudy or cold.

Let’s talk about how much people know about sunscreen. Half of the respondents state that they know what the SPF is. But none of the respondents could write it out in this 2-minute survey. In fact, SPF stands for Sun Protection Factor. It refers to the theoretical amount of time you can stay in the sun without getting sunburned. For instance, if your skin starts to redden in 10 minutes without using sunscreen, applying a sunscreen with SPF 15 increases that time by a factor of 15, indicating you could stay in the sun for 150 minutes. Also, a higher SPF blocks out more UVB: a product with SPF 15 could filter out around 93%, a product with SPF 30 filters out around 97%.

It seems like higher SPF means better protection for your skin. 59% of respondents believe higher SPF would provide more for their skin. In fact, there is not enough evidence to prove that higher SPF provides better protection since the amount of skin protection depends on how sunscreen is used. For example, the longer sunscreen stays on the skin, the more it will be wiped off by clothes and sweat and the less skin protection it provides. Sunscreen should protect skin from UVA and UVB. But SPF is only applied to the UVB. Consumers should be aware of the ingredients—zinc oxide and titanium dioxide, which can protect skin from UVA. Above all, consumers only know basic information about sunscreen.

We found out what we can do to educate people about sunscreen. We found out most respondents buy sunscreen in a convenience store where the salespeople don’t know much about sunscreen. Consumers hardly get sufficient information when they ask salespeople questions about sunscreen. Also, salespeople in cosmetic stores are considered to be professionals. Consumers are likely to trust what they say about the sunscreen. However not all salespeople in cosmetic stores understand how to use sunscreen properly and how to choose a good sunscreen. Based on this, we propose these tips for consumers looking to buy sunscreen.

  • Find credible articles online about SPF and sunscreen protection.
  • Read the ingredients on the product before buying it.
  • Ask your family doctor how to use sunscreen properly and effectively.

Now we know sunscreen. Next time you see some, say out loud, ”Hey sunscreen, how’s it going?”

Sunscreen Talk: What is really in our sunscreen?

By Rakeb Girma, Teya Stevens, Venus Montgomery, and Hannah Gibson

On November 7th we called Neutrogena and asked them three questions regarding our sunscreen experiment and sunscreen regulations. After a long wait and one crazy story to tell(a whole other story), we talked with a representative named Geoff. The first question we asked was “What is the highest effective SPF value?” In reply the Neutrogena representative said the highest effective SPF value is 100 because that is the highest allowed by the FDA. In reality, the highest approved SPF value is 50. “The FDA now says that there is no legitimate evidence to suggest that anything above SPF 50 will provide increased protection (Wazer, 2011, Why You Don’t Have To Wear SPF 100 Anymore).”  Another question we asked the representative was, “What is the difference between sunscreen and sunblock?” His response was, “Sunscreen is a chemical substance used to protect skin from UV from the sun.”

Sunscreen contains many chemicals and we wanted to learn more about the sunscreen manufacturing process.

After chemists and dermatologists develop the formula for sunscreen, they make small ten gallon batches in stainless steel vats to be tested by the company and the FDA. If the sunscreen is approved, more batches of sunscreen are made in bigger vats that hold up to 1,000 gallons of sunscreen. Purified water is a key ingredient in sunscreen. Water is purified by reverse osmosis, where it is pushed through a filter that removes dissolved salts and metals. The other ingredients are then added. To make the containers, molten plastic is blown into a mold shaped like the bottle. The plastic cools to form a hollow container in the exact shape of the mold. Sometimes a bottle manufacturer stamps a logo onto the plastic while it is hot.  The bottles are filled by tubes connected to the 1,000 gallon vats and capped by a capping machine.

We also wanted to learn about harmful chemicals in sunscreen.

In sunscreen there are many different types of harmful ingredients. A harmful ingredient in sunscreen is retinyl palmitate. Retinyl palmitate may cause cancer or tumor growth. If women who are pregnant use products that have retinyl palmitate in it, their unborn child may have birth defects. A second harmful ingredient in sunscreen is oxybenzone.  Oxybenzone can cause hormone disruption. Oxybenzone can also cause cell damage. Another thing oxybenzone can cause is allergies. Finally, mothers who are expecting baby girls should not use products that have oxybenzone in it. When born, the baby girls would be underweight as a result.

Beach day gone wrong! Our sunscreen experiment.

By  Courtney E., Nathy M., and Chahana P.

Is your skin really safe from the sun when you use sunscreen? Science Club for Girls Media Team did a full experiment to test the difference between using sunscreen and no sunscreen. In our experiment, we first began with a petri dish with a layer of Yeast-Extract Dextrose (YED), a gel-like substance that allows the yeast to grow. We then applied a UV-sensitive yeast strain on top of the gel evenly (the UV-sensitive yeast uses the YED to grow when exposed to sunlight). We decided to use UV-sensitive yeast because this particular strain has a similar structure to DNA; it repairs itself when exposed to UV radiation with sunscreen.

We marked the petri dish into four sections, each labeled with: Sun (no sunscreen), No sunscreen and sunlight, sunscreen type A, and sunscreen type B. We had one side labeled “no sunscreen and sunlight” because we wanted to see the effect of not wearing sunscreen versus having it on; we had this section covered with duct tape. The duct tape represented clothing or zero sunlight. The left sections were exposed to sunlight for about 20-30 minutes. After leaving the yeast alone for a week, the majority of the data confirms that the areas with sunscreen were more protected than the area with no sunscreen. The section that was covered with duct tape was able to grow yeast even though it was covered.

In conclusion, our skin needs sunscreen because it protects us. Not using sunscreen can make our cells unrepairable due to the UV-radiation damage. Next time you head for the beach, apply sunblock!

Sweet on Sweets

sugar written in sugar

Leading scientists investigate the addictive properties of sugar

By Hannah Gibson

Sugary foods and beverages are frequently marketed as if they had addictive qualities, especially in advertising geared toward children. Many of us remember the “Cocoa Puffs” commercials, in which Sonny the Cuckoo bird tries all sorts of crazy schemes to stop eating Cocoa Puffs; he inevitably gets jittery, sees Cocoa Puffs everywhere, and starts screaming “Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!” Advertisements often feature phrases like “Too good to resist.” An Australian cereal made of chocolate filled squares even has the name “Krave.”

The average American child consumes one or more soda or soft drink per day, which provides 10% of their daily calorie intake. In an interview this year with Radio Boston, Kelly Brownell, Director of Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, stated that sugary soft drinks are especially damaging to health because our bodies do not recognize them as food. Instead, the sugar in the drink acts like a drug and triggers an addictive process.

It’s hard to say whether sugar actually is an addictive substance, since it is unclear what an addiction actually is. Webster’s New World Dictionary defines chemical addiction, or dependence, as a “compulsive physiological and psychological need for a habit-forming substance.” Certain physical and psychological signs separate true chemical dependence from habitual enjoyment of a substance or activity. According to the American Psychiatric Organization, addiction is characterized by three behaviors: binging (consuming large amounts of food in a small amount of time after a period of abstinence), withdrawal (depression and anxiety if the substance is not available), and cravings. The cravings increase the longer the substance is not available.

Rochelle Schwarts-Bloom, a professor at the Duke University Medical center, explains that addictive drugs affect the brain by triggering the release of chemical neurotransmitters, which create a “high.”

There is evidence that sugar has addictive properties; a team of Princeton University psychologists, lead by Dr. Bart Hoebel, produced in rats the behaviors and brain chemistry of addiction. The rats were divided into four groups. The experimental group was given access to feed and sugar for 12 hours then deprived of both for 12 hours. Hoebel also set up three control groups. One group had access to sugar and feed at all times, one had access to only feed at all times, and one had access to only feed in 12 hour periods. The rats in the control groups displayed no signs of addiction, but the group on the 12-hour on, 12-hour off sugar and feed schedule did. Rats in the experimental group that were later denied sugar for 24 hours tended to binge, exhibit withdrawal symptoms—like tremors and anxiety—and display behaviors consistent with craving; this response was similar to rats on morphine or cocaine. Hoebel and his team also found that sugar consumption triggered the release of the neurotransmitter, dopamine, in the rat’s brains. Addictive drugs like morphine and cocaine trigger a similar response, suggesting an addictive quality to sugar.

Other researchers, like University of Swansea neuroscientist David Benton, have criticized Hoebel’s work, pointing out that a huge variety of actions and substances trigger a release of dopamine in the brain. Sure, sugar and cocaine stimulate release of neurotransmitters, but so do music, humor, winning a prize, familiar faces, attractive faces, smiling faces, and being in love. Clearly, the release of dopamine isn’t sufficient evidence of addiction! Further, rats on the alternating sugar and feed schedule showed the neurological and behavioral signs of addiction, but the rats with constant access to sugar did not. This suggests that perhaps sugar is not an addictive substance, like heroin or cocaine, but that addiction to sugar may occur if it’s eaten in a period of binging followed by long periods of restraint.

Even if Americans are not clinically “addicted” to sugar, they are definitely eating way too much of it. The average American eats 64 pounds of sugar a year; that’s about 124 grams (31 teaspoons) of sugar per day, which is more than three times the recommended amount. The American Heart Association recommends that a person following a 2,000-calorie a day diet consume 36 grams (9 teaspoons) of sugar daily. There are many health conditions linked to a diet too high in sugar, including an increased risk for heart disease, kidney disease, liver disease, diabetes, gout, hypertension, gum disease, tooth decay, obesity, and the substance potentially has addictive properties.

There has been a push in recent years to limit the amount of sugar in packaged food. Many parents are concerned about the aggressive marketing of sugary, unhealthy foods and beverages to children and are trying to limit their sale in school cafeterias. In their article “The Toxic Truth About Sugar,” Robert Lustig, Laura A. Schidt and Claire D. Brindis advocate for regulations and a tax on sugary products. In May, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed a ban on oversized sugary beverages. Recently in Massachusetts, a legislative attempt to end the sales tax exemption for soda failed; the exemption makes it easier to for sodas to be cheaper. In some places soda can be cheaper than water.

According to Ashley Geardherdt, a researcher at Yale University, sugar is minimally regulated, and food companies receive subsidies form the federal government, making it possible for them to produce extremely sugary foods. Geardherdt is concerned about the rapid increase in the amount of sugar in the American diet and feels that “although much research needs to be done, the evidence that sugar can trigger an addictive process is impressive and convincing, is definitely a public health issue.”

While it is still unclear if sugar is addictive, there is enough evidence to suggest that foods too high in sugar do present public health risks. Shedding light on the dangerous aspects of sugar through research and education will help address the issue of sugar as a national health risk.

Hannah is a Science Club for Girls Media Team member and high school student in Cambridge, MA. See Hannah’s article on Huffington Post and spread the word!