Health: Indecent Exposure.(sunscreen)

indecent exposure

Some people don't use it enough; others rely on it too much. What scientists now know -- and many people don't -- about sunscreen.

Sunscreens induce nearly as much guilt as charitable donations and thank-you notes: They all make us feel as if we aren't attentive enough, diligent enough, or generous enough. In the case of sunscreen, we probably aren't. That's just one of the discoveries that researchers have made while investigating how much protection sunscreens really offer against burning, aging, and skin cancer. For the average woman on the beach, a bottle of sunscreen is merely a way to keep skin from getting burned. If the lotion fails to do the job, she'll suffer the red, painful repercussions for a few days. But die? Unlikely. Physicians, on the other hand, view sunscreens in life-or-death terms, because of their potential role in thwarting a lethal disease. Skin cancer -- the most common of all cancers, with more than 1 million cases diagnosed annually -- causes 10,250 fatalities in the United States every year, according to the American Cancer Society. There has been a staggering 1,800 percent jump in melanoma since the 1930s. (Basal- and squamous-cell carcinomas, which are more treatable, make up 95 ...