Summer is around the corner, so it’s time to get out the sun cream. While most sun creams do a pretty good job of protecting against harmful damage caused by the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays, our recent study suggests they could be made even better. We found that adding a particular class of antioxidant (a type of molecule thought to help prevent or slow cell damage) to sun creams could help provide more powerful protection against damage from one type of UV radiation than existing ingredients.
The sun emits three types of ultraviolet radiation: UVC, UVB and UVA. Each of these is harmful, but the most harmful are UVC and UVB. Thankfully, the ozone layer stops many of the harmful rays reaching the Earth’s surface. Many, but not all. Around 95% of the UV rays that reach the Earth’s surface are UVA, but around 5% are the more harmful UVB rays.
