Dr. Henry Lim shares insights into new needs and challenges for protecting the skin from the visible light spectrum.
Henry Lim, MD, FAAD, is a board-certified dermatologist, Henry Ford Health System, Detroit, Mich., and former president (2017-2018) of the AAD.
Exposure to visible light can cause unwanted skin effects. The problem, says Henry Lim, MD, FAAD, is that protecting skin from visible light is a challenge, as available sunscreens are only designed to protect against ultraviolet light.
“So, one of the new areas that is being developed in the sunscreen industry is to develop filters that also could protect against the visible light spectrum of sunlight,” says Dr. Lim.
Visible light is a spectrum of sunlight that was was long believed to be photo biologically inert.
“But our group, as well as others, have shown that visible light can cause darkening of the skin, persistent darkening, for quite a long period of time, especially in darker skin individuals,” says Dr. Lim.
In light skinned individuals, it can cause redness.
Both of these are new findings that have clinical implications, according to Dr. Lim—skin blemishes often remain, especially in darker skin patients.
While the sunscreen industry works to develop filters for their products to protect against visible light, Dr. Lim says there is something not regulated by the FDA that does: tinted sunscreens that contain iron oxide or titanium dioxide pigments.
“Because [these pigments] are tinted, they are visible; but on the other hand they do protect against visible light,” he says.
