D. Darr et al., EFFECTIVENESS OF ANTIOXIDANTS (VITAMIN-C AND VITAMIN-E) WITH AND WITHOUT SUNSCREENS AS TOPICAL PHOTOPROTECTANTS, Acta dermato-venereologica, 76(4), 1996, pp. 264-268
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.