Does Sunlight Help Acne? by Musely Editors Does Sunlight Help Acne?Those who suffer with acne know that it is not uncommon to explore a variety of treatments in search of a cure, from clinical products to natural remedies. However, many of these acne treatments have been highly debated—one of them being the highly affordable (free!) natural remedy for acne: sunlight. Especially in the summer months, you may find yourself wondering if the sun is good for acne and reasoning that some time outside must be good for your skin. But is sunlight actually good for acne?Can the Sun Help Acne?Is sunlight good for you?It’s likely that you typically soak up the sun for vitamin D, which we all need to support our bone growth and immune systems (Wolpowitz). The sun's UV rays hitting your skin initiates the production of vitamin D in your body, and it only takes a little bit of sunlight to trigger this process, so most people get at least part of their daily dose of vitamin D from the sun (NIH Office of Dietary Supplements).Because sunlight helps you to produce vitamin D, in that respect, some people consider sunlight to be “good for you”. However, others think that sunlight’s benefits extend beyond triggering vitamin D production and that the sunlight itself is actually good for your skin, namely, for getting rid of acne. So, does the sun help acne?Does the sun get rid of acne?Stating that “the sun helps acne” is a broad statement that needs to be broken down. It’s been hypothesized that vitamin D, a product of sunlight, helps to treat acne. This is independent from the hypothesis that sunlight itself is beneficial to acne-prone skin. Let’s first look at whether vitamin D helps to treat acne.Does vitamin D get rid of acne?A small study from 2016 found a potential link between vitamin D deficiency and acne. Vitamin D deficiency was detected in 48.8% of patients with acne but only in 22.5% of patients without acne. More severe deficiency was detected in patients with more severe acne (Lim). So, patients with more acne tended to have less vitamin D found in their bodies. But correlation does not prove causation: this does not tell us whether low vitamin D levels cause acne, if acne causes low vitamin D levels, or if there is a third factor at play causing the conditions that hasn’t been discovered.Unfortunately, the potential link between vitamin D deficiency and acne has not been extensively studied. And furthermore, vitamin D is just a consequence of sun exposure, which does not address whether sun exposure on your skin is actually helpful, independent of vitamin D. Some people have cited the sun as a cure for acne; in the past, this was a traditional view and reasoning as to why acne may improve in the summer and worsen in the winter (Magin).Does sunlight itself get rid of acne?The reverse may potentially be true: sunlight may actually make your acne breakouts worse. A recent study showed that the higher temperatures caused by the summer sun can aggravate acne because of sweating and increased humidity (Sardana).The ultraviolet (UV) light that constitutes sunlight is very harmful for your skin in general. In addition to causing uncomfortable sunburns, UV light actually damages your skin at a DNA level, causing inflammation, blotchiness, collagen degradation, wrinkles (Shanbhag). Sun damage is very harmful because it both makes you more vulnerable to diseases like skin cancer. It also causes your skin to age more visibly. 80% of skin diseases and signs of aging like wrinkles and fine lines come from sun exposure (Shanbhag). Direct sunlight is not a solution for acne and actively harms your skin.Does the sun help acne scars?If not an active breakout, can the sun help treat acne scars from a past breakout? Acne scars are a form of hyperpigmentation. Tanning in the sun may make the acne scars seem less visible by darkening the complexion of the whole face to match the color of the acne scars, but this isn’t worth the risk.Tanning is essentially sun damage:  exposure to ultraviolet light causes the skin to darken, indicating injury to the skin. Additionally, ultraviolet light will also cause aging and skin cancer (Zaidi). Tanning can reduce the appearance of acne scars, but it does not treat them and damages the skin.ConclusionSo, does the sun help with acne? No, the sun is not a cure for acne. Despite any potential link between vitamin D deficiency and acne, the direct effects of the sun are more harmful for the skin than they are beneficial. The benefits of vitamin D production from sun exposure do not outweigh the dangers of sun damage, and natural sunlight has not proven to treat active breakouts.The Day Cream from MuselyIf you do find yourself in direct sunlight, it’s essential to get adequate sun protection by wearing sunscreen (at least SPF 30) and hats outdoors. Using sunscreen won’t stop you from getting your daily dose of vitamin D, but it will protect your skin from sun damage (Neale). One great moisturizing sunscreen option is The Day Cream from Musely. This sunscreen of SPF 50 has 5% titanium dioxide and 7% zinc oxide, creating a strong and effective clinical-grade barrier against both UVA and UVB rays.You can also treat the more damaging effects of the sun, including early signs of aging and hyperpigmentation, with prescription skincare.The Anti-Aging Cream from MuselyInterested in treating the more harmful effects of the sun with a cream that really works? Musely offers The Anti-Aging Night Cream, a prescription tretinoin cream formulated by board-certified dermatologists to treat wrinkles, fine lines, and overall skin texture. The main ingredient of The Anti-Aging Night Cream is tretinoin, which speeds up with rate at which your skin cells reproduce and shed off, leaving soft and smooth skin at the surface and stopping each skin cell from being exposed to damaging sunlight for so long. Tretinoin also reduces inflammation and helps your skin to produce collagen, which keeps the skin elastic. (Baldwin)An increase in the skin cell turnover rate is also beneficial to treating acne. Tretinoin was actually first developed as an acne treatment before it was FDA-approved in 1995 to treat wrinkles and other signs of aging (Baldwin).The Anti-Aging Night Cream also includes two other active ingredients: hyaluronic acid, which draws moisture to the skin to keep it healthy and hydrated, and niacinamide, which brightens the skin and shrinks the pores.The Anti-Aging Night Cream is also available in multiple formulas, each with varying strengths of tretinoin, so that your treatment is personalized based on your skincare needs.Start aging youthfully with FaceRx today!Sources:Wolpowitz, Deon, and Barbara A. Gilchrest. "The vitamin D questions: how much do you need and how should you get it?." Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology 54.2 (2006): 301-317.Shanbhag, Shreya, et al. “Anti-Aging and Sunscreens: Paradigm Shift in Cosmetics.” Advanced Pharmaceutical Bulletin, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Aug. 2019.Magin, Parker, et al. "A systematic review of the evidence for ‘myths and misconceptions’ in acne management: diet, face-washing and sunlight." Family practice 22.1 (2005): 62-70.Sardana, Kabir, Ravi C. Sharma, and Rashmi Sarkar. "Seasonal variation in acne vulgaris—myth or reality." The Journal of dermatology 29.8 (2002): 484-488.Zaidi, Zohra. "Dispelling the myths and misconceptions of acne." JPMA. The Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association 59.5 (2009): 264.Lim, Seul-Ki, et al. "Comparison of vitamin D levels in patients with and without acne: a case-control study combined with a randomized controlled trial." PLoS One 11.8 (2016): e0161162.Neale, R. E., et al. "The effect of sunscreen on vitamin D: a review." British Journal of Dermatology 181.5 (2019): 907-915.Baldwin, Hilary E. et al. “40 Years of Topical Tretinoin Treatment In Review.” Journal of Drugs in Dermatology, vol. 12, no. 6, 2013, pp. 638.