It’s no sweat: Use sunscreen (and check that mole)

Valley 101 Clay Thompson Arizona Republic USA TODAY NETWORK

This column was original published June 7, 2001: Today’s question:

I play a lot of golf and use sunblock lotion to avoid sunburn and protect myself from skin cancer. However, doesn’t the sun lotion clog up my pores and, thus, reduce my body’s ability to perspire and cool itself off?

Gee, I never thought about that. That’s a pretty good question. It’s better than this:

When they talk about sea level do they use the Atlantic or the Pacific?

That one turned out to be really hard and involved a lot of stuff like ellipsoids and geoids and orthometric heights and I still haven’t figured it out. I’ll explain it all later.

The easy answer to the sunblock question would be to advise you to stop playing golf, which I think is pretty good advice in any circumstances. But I don’t suppose that was what you had in mind so I called a few dermatologists and asked them.

Do you ever get the feeling when you’re talking to a doctor about something completely unrelated that they can tell something is wrong with you, even over the phone? Something you don’t want to know about.

Like you’ll be talking to a dermatologist about sunscreen or geoids or something, and he’s thinking, “I bet this guy has a mole on his butt that has got to come off,” and the next thing you know, you look, and there’s a big ugly mole on your keister.

Anyway, the answer is, don’t worry about it. The doctors I asked said even if the lotion did inhibit your ability to sweat, which it probably doesn’t, the benefits outweigh the cost.

Most sunscreens are absorbed into your skin and don’t just coat the surface like paint, so they probably don’t do much to keep you from sweating.

Look for sunscreens that contain micronized titanium or zinc. These protect you from all kinds of ultraviolet rays, which are the dangerous ones.

And drink a lot of water. It’s good for your ellipsoids.