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Welcome back, sunshine! It's April and I've got all the windows wide open in my Hollywood apartment for the first time this year. The wind blows in, sometimes even birds fly in—and the tomato seeds in a pot in my dining room burst up through the soil as the room itself warms like a greenhouse. Sunshine lifts our spirits, gives light allowing vision and aids our bodies in producing necessary vitamins. In fact, I am convinced that I am half plant/half animal like the recently discovered green sea slug, and that maybe I am photosynthetic by nature, too. Maybe not. But no matter how one looks at it, sunshine is a giver of life and deserving of all the gratitude and respect we humans can give. So with all these life-sustaining accolades, why does sunshine elicit such a bad health rap?

According to the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPH):

“Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer in the United States. Since 1973, new cases of the most serious form of skin cancer, melanoma, have increased approximately 150%. During the same period, deaths from melanoma have increased approximately 44%. Approximately 65%-90% of melanomas are caused by ultraviolet (UV) radiation."

The sun is the source of two types of UV radiation: UVB and UVA rays. It turns out that UVB rays, because they are the rays that cause tanning, were also thought to cause skin cancer. So previous incarnations of sunscreen were developed to block UVB rays. Yet skin cancer rates skyrocketed (dark-skinned readers please pay attention, too!), so scientists were forced to consider that the cause of a tan may not be the cause of melanoma skin cancer—which is, of course, what we are all trying to avoid when running to the market with greasy SPF30 goo in our crosshairs.

The Skin Cancer Foundation recommends only five ingredients known to successfully block UVA rays: avobenzone, mexoryl, octocrylene, titanium dioxide and zinc oxide. So check your goo selection for one of these before purchase. Unfortunately, though these chemicals are proven to block cancer-causing UVA rays, they themselves may cause toxicity that is more harmful than the radiation they are blocking.

Octocrylene, for example, is a powerful free-radical generator that, get this, initiates a reaction that can lead to melanoma when activated by ultraviolet light, like that from the sun. Titanium dioxide is known to cause DNA damage to human cells and is a suspected carcinogen. Zinc oxide is generally recognized as safe by the FDA as a food additive; however, inhaling zinc oxide fumes can result in a nervous disorder known as metal fume fever, which brings up the social responsibility of our purchases. Someone's mother is working in the factory that mixes our sunscreen concoctions. If manufactured in China, someone's 12-year-old son might be working in that facility. By protecting ourselves, we may be harming another.

Since, according to the NCCDPH, "More than one half of a person's lifetime UV exposure occurs during childhood and adolescence because of more opportunities and time for exposure," it is vital that parents assist their children in regulating their sun exposure. Zinc oxide is the only sunblock approved for use with children under six months of age. However, zinc oxide leaves a greasy white residue on the wearer's skin.

Worse, the Green Guide product report tells us that:

"In order to render transparent sunblocks containing titanium dioxide and zinc oxide, many manufacturers are using ‘micronized’ ingredients or ‘nanoparticles,’ that is titanium dioxide and zinc oxide particles that have been fragmented to sizes below 100 nanometers (a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter long). Some research indicates that titanium dioxide, particularly if it enters the body through cuts or inhalation, can cause more damage to DNA than larger particles of titanium dioxide, as noted in the November 1996 Toxicology Letters."

Even after learning about the potential dangers of some of the active ingredients in sunscreen, you may have settled on one you feel comfortable putting on your and your child's skin this summer. But before you rush out to the drugstore, you should also consider the safety of the inactive ingredients in sunscreen, which I will discuss next week.

See Part 2: Choosing the Best Sunscreen—or None at All: The Inactive Ingredients

[Sign up to be notified each time Tonya publishes a new Clean and Green Everyday blog entry on EcoHearth.– Ed.]

[See a complete list of writing by Tonya Kay on EcoHearth.com or visit her Clean and Green Everyday blog. – Ed.]

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