Possible woo floating around the internet – all sunscreen chemicals including physical blockers such as titanium dioxide can cause skin cancer even if they keep you from getting sunburned. And, actually cause, not prevent, skin aging.
What’s the truth? Are some sunscreen chemicals worse, better than others, long term?
I know nothing about that, but . . .
The woo is saying that titanium dioxide causes cancer now? :dubious:
It’s also an ingredient in a lot of stuff we eat! It’s used as a food coloring (bright white).
This website appears to state that titanium dioxide has only proven to be a carcinogen when inhaled. In a skin cream it is not absorbed nor of course inhaled.
This is the very first Google search result for “titanium dioxide carcinogen”:
However, further reading reveals that this only applies to airborne dust, evidently because it irritates the lungs and isn’t carcinogenic in itself (which is also true of things like asbestos and silica; even sawdust is considered to be a carcinogen when inhaled).