EFFECTIVENESS OF ANTIOXIDANTS (VITAMIN-C AND VITAMIN-E) WITH AND WITHOUT SUNSCREENS AS TOPICAL PHOTOPROTECTANTS

Considerable interest has been recently generated concerning the use o f natural compounds, anti-oxidants in particular, in photoprotection, Two of the best known anti-oxidants are vitamins C and E, both of whic h have been shown to be somewhat effective in different models of phot odamage. Very little has been reported, however, on the effectiveness of a combination of the two (known to be biologically the more relevan t situation); nor have there been detailed studies on the ability of t hese anti-oxidants to augment commercial sunscreen protection against UV damage, We report that (in swine skin) vitamin C is capable of addi tive protection against acute UVB damage (sunburn cell formation) when combined with a UVB sunscreen, A combination of both vitamins E and C provided very good protection from a UVB insult, the bulk of the prot ection attributable to vitamin E. However, vitamin C is significantly better than vitamin E at protecting against a UVA-mediated phototoxic insult in this animal model, while the combination is only slightly mo re effective than vitamin C alone, When vitamin C or a combination of vitamin C and E is formulated with a commercial UVA sunscreen (oxybenz one), an apparently greater than additive protection is noted against the phototoxic damage. These results confirm the utility of anti-oxida nts as photoprotectants but suggest the importance of combining the co mpounds with known sunscreens to maximize photoprotection.