Does sunscreen get into your blood?
Effect of Sunscreen Application Under Maximal Use Conditions on Plasma Concentration of Sunscreen Active Ingredients: A Randomized Clinical Trial.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Scientists tested if sunscreen chemicals soak into your blood when you use it a lot, like at the beach.
No biological mechanisms were identified in this study. This may be an epidemiological, observational, or survey-based study that reports associations rather than proposing causal biological pathways.
Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses
Max 100Randomized Controlled Trials
Max 90Cohort Studies
Max 72Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional Studies
Max 44Case Reports & Case Series
Max 30Expert Opinion & Narrative Reviews
Max 534 / 90
Evidence Score
Participants are randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, minimizing bias. Considered the gold standard for testing whether an intervention causes an effect.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Scientists tested if sunscreen chemicals soak into your blood when you use it a lot, like at the beach.
No biological mechanisms were identified in this study. This may be an epidemiological, observational, or survey-based study that reports associations rather than proposing causal biological pathways.
Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses
Max 100Randomized Controlled Trials
Max 90Cohort Studies
Max 72Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional Studies
Max 44Case Reports & Case Series
Max 30Expert Opinion & Narrative Reviews
Max 534 / 90
Evidence Score
Participants are randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, minimizing bias. Considered the gold standard for testing whether an intervention causes an effect.
Publication
Authors
Matta MK, Zusterzeel R, Pilli NR, Patel V, Volpe DA, Florian J, Oh L, Bashaw E, Zineh I, Sanabria C, Kemp S, Godfrey A, Adah S, Coelho S, Wang J, Furlong LA, Ganley C, Michele T, Strauss DG
Related Content
Claims (4)
When you put on sunscreen with chemicals like oxybenzone or avobenzone, your body absorbs more of those chemicals into your bloodstream than the FDA thinks is safe — even if you just use it normally on your skin.
When people use sunscreen heavily—covering most of their skin and reapplying it four times a day for four days—chemicals in the sunscreen get into their bloodstream at levels higher than what the FDA says should trigger safety checks.
When people use sunscreen all over their body as much as possible, their blood ends up with a lot of oxybenzone—over 200 nanograms per milliliter—while other sunscreen chemicals like avobenzone and octocrylene show up too, but in much smaller amounts.
When you use sunscreen a lot, tiny amounts of its chemicals can get into your bloodstream — but that doesn’t mean it’s dangerous. Scientists just need to study more to figure out if it matters for your health, so keep using sunscreen to protect your skin.