Balance between Health Risks and Benefits for Outdoor Workers Exposed to Solar Radiation: An Overview on the Role of Near Infrared Radiation Alone and in Combination with Other Solar Spectral Bands

Knowledge, Attitude, Reception, and Preventive Practices Towards Skin Photoaging Among the General Population in Jazan, Saudi Arabia

Introduction Skin photoaging is caused by prolonged exposure to sunlight, particularly ultraviolet rays (UV). High cumulative levels of UV radiation may cause burning, photoallergic or phototoxic reactions, pigmentary changes, photoaging, and even immunosuppression and skin cancers. Therefore, this study aims to assess knowledge, attitude, reception, and preventive practices towards skin photoaging among the Jazan general population in Saudi Arabia and its determinants. Methods A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among the general population of Jazan, Saudi Arabia, who were aged 18 years and above and agreed to participate in the study. The calculated minimum sample size was 385. An online, semi-structured, self-administered questionnaire was distributed conveniently in Google Forms through social media platforms. It included four sections: The first section was about sociodemographic characteristics. The second section assessed the smoking, exercise, and healthy diet behavior of participants and the use of sunscreen. The third section assessed the knowledge regarding the photoaging process and its preventive measures utilization using three-point Likert scale questions. The fourth section assessed attitudes towards the photoaging process and its preventive measures through three-point Likert scales. Results The study included 452, of which 243 (53.76%) were aged 18-30 years, 258 (57.08%) were females, and 272 (60.18%) had white skin color. Approximately 417 (92.26%) were nonsmokers. Sixty-eight percent (372) spent 1-3 hours in the sun. Social media was the primary source of information on photoaging 81 (17.92%). Around 234 (51.77%) defined photoaging correctly. Regarding sunscreen usage, 58 (12.83%) always use sunscreen, and 177 (39.16%) never use it. However, 191 (42.26%) recognized the correct sunscreen application. Approximately 233 (51.5%) and 240 (53.1%) of respondents had fair knowledge and a positive attitude regarding photoaging and sunscreen use. Being female, pursuing university and postgraduate education, and taking information on photoaging from a physician were linked to a higher knowledge of photoaging (p<0.05). Participants who never use sunscreen had lower knowledge than those who always use it (p<0.001). None of the demographic factors was associated with the attitude towards sunscreen use (p>0.05). Conclusion There is a substantial gap in knowledge and preventive practices related to skin photoaging among the Jazan general population in Saudi Arabia. Gender, education level, and information sources influence knowledge levels. Targeted educational interventions are needed to enhance awareness and promote healthier practices, particularly sun exposure and photoaging prevention.

Near-infrared radiation causes sebaceous gland enlargement along with an ROS-dependent augmentation of epidermal growth factor receptor expression in hamsters

As near-infrared radiation (NIR), which is a composition of sunlight with an 780-1400 nm wavelength, is associated with skin aging such as wrinkles and slacks, the biological actions of NIR with high dermal penetration remains unclear. In the present study, we found that NIR irradiation (40 J/cm2 ) at different levels of irradiance (95-190 mW/cm2 ) using a laboratory device with a xenon flash lamp (780-1700 nm) caused sebaceous gland enlargement concomitantly with skin thickening in the auricle skin of hamsters. The sebaceous gland enlargement resulted from the proliferation of sebocytes due to an increase in the number of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA)- and lamin B1-positive cells in vivo. In addition, NIR irradiation transcriptionally augmented the production of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) accompanied with an increase in the reactive oxygen species (ROS) level in hamster sebocytes in vitro. Furthermore, the administration of hydrogen peroxide increased the level of EGFR mRNA in the sebocytes. Therefore, these results provide novel evidence that NIR irradiation causes the hyperplasia of sebaceous glands in hamsters by mechanisms in which EGFR production is transcriptionally augmented through ROS-dependent pathways in sebocytes.

The Use of Hemispheric Directional Reflectance Method to Verify the Usefulness of Filters Protecting the Skin Against Infrared Radiation

Introduction

Infrared radiation (IR) has a wide spectrum of both positive and harmful effects on the human body. Negative properties, manifested by increasing the level of reactive oxygen species (ROS), affect the skin ageing acceleration. Other adverse effect of infrared exposure is related to its ability to significantly penetrate deep into the skin, between its layers, up to blood vessels and other tissues and warm them up. Due to its harmful effects, protecting the skin against infrared radiation becomes an important issue.

Aim

The aim of the research was verifying the usefulness of filters available on the market with protection against infrared radiation declared by the manufacturers, by examining their impact on the directional reflectance of the human skin.

Methods

A group of 27 people was gathered, to obtain the results. Four products were applied on the participant's forearm skin, and then measurements of the directional reflectance of the skin were made at successive time points, using the 410-Solar reflectometer. The collected data was analyzed, and showed changes in reflectance under the influence of the applied protective products.

Results

The products used in the study showed a statistically significant effect on the directional reflectance of the human skin in near infrared radiation range and little effectiveness for higher wavelengths.

Discussion

The results indicate that the selected products show radiation protection against IR radiation only after several dozen minutes of application, which may suggest that they must penetrate deeper skin layers to be effective. Hemispheric directional reflectance turned out to be an effective method allows to assess the effectiveness of protective properties of cosmetics.

Designing a Band for Vehicles' Drivers Induced by Ultraviolet and Infrared Radiations

Background

Solar radiations that reach the Earth can be divided into ultraviolet, visible light, and infrared. Overexposure to these radiations can facilitate adverse skin diseases such as sunburn, skin cancer, and photoaging. People who drive vehicles for an extended period are likely to develop skin cancer in the exposed body area.

Method

This research proposes a wearable protective device around the upper arm to measure the transmitted radiation through the front and the side windows. A novel skin type classification algorithm using a color sensor was created to provide an accurate skin type identification. Also, the device was programmed to calculate the time before sunburn occurrence based on the ultraviolet index, sunscreen's sun protection factor, and skin type.

Results

The prototype was tested inside a Toyota Camry model 2001 vehicle with an accuracy of 97%. The front window had transmitted more infrared radiation compared to the side window. The highest recorded value was 76.76 mW/cm². On the other hand, the side window had transmitted more ultraviolet compared to the front window as it lacks the protective polyvinyl butyral layer that the front window has. The highest recorded ultraviolet index was 3.5.

Conclusion

These results highlight the importance of wearing the designed solar band and using appropriate UV and IR protection while driving a vehicle to prevent skin diseases from occurring.

Angle-invariant eye-friendly color filter capitalizing on a multi-layer nano-resonator integrated with highly reflective/absorbing media

Color filter with a combination of excellent angle insensitivity and high near-infrared shielding absorption is essential to broaden its practical application of harsh environment. However, there are few attention on the near-infrared absorption of color filter, prominent to the protection of human eyes in some special application scenarios. Herein, we propose and develop a dual-function color filter composed of four-layer silicon/titanium planar nanostructure that integrates with both angle-invariance and near-infrared shielding. The proposed color filter enables the creation of three reflective color primaries of cyan, yellow, and magenta (CYM) employing a combination of Fabry-Perot resonance and anti-resonant effect with the tuning of silicon thickness. The created reflective colors are less sensitive over a wide angle of incidence up to 60°, where the center wavelength of optical spectra is shifted by below 1.8%. Besides the angle-invariant performance, the color filter can effectively shield near-infrared light with a 70% average absorption under normal incidence. Moreover, this filter's thermal stability at 500°C demonstrates its feasibility for extreme environments. The demonstrated color filter is suitable for architectural decorative coatings and outdoor protective coatings in some harsh environment with strong near-infrared radiation, such as glass smelting, steel forging, and long-term sunlight exposure.

Association of sunshine duration with acute myocardial infarction hospital admissions in Beijing, China: A time-series analysis within-summer

BACKGROUND

Over the years, various epidemiological studies found that acute myocardial infarction (AMI) often shows seasonal rhythm patterning, which is usually influenced by the variations of environmental factors, such as air pollution, ambient temperature, solar activity, relative humidity. However, there are few studies on the impact of sunlight-induced AMI especially in developing countries, and they had inconsistent results. This study aimed to examine within-summer variations in the temporal association between sun exposure and AMI.

METHODS

We obtained hospitalization data for AMI of Beijing during 2013-2019. We used a distributed lag non-linear model (DLNM) combined with a quasi-Poisson regression model to estimate the non-linear lag effects of sunshine duration on AMI incidences. We evaluated the overall effect of AMI admissions with exposure to sunshine duration in the lag 0-21 days.

RESULTS

A total of 45,301 AMI cases were enrolled in our study during summer (June-September). The minimum of the morbidity was during days with a sunshine duration of 3.9 h. We found significant and U-shaped associations between sunshine duration and AMI, and the overall estimated relative risk was 1.29 (95% CI: 1.02,1.62) and 1.69 (95% CI: 1.28,2.24) for short (1st percentile) and long (99th percentile) sunshine duration, respectively. The males and younger people (<65 years) were most susceptible to these effects.

CONCLUSION

Our results suggest that both short and long sunshine duration could increase the risk of AMI admissions, especially for males and younger people. We suggest that public health policymakers should fully consider the balance of the pros and cons of solar exposure, and provide appropriate public health recommendations accordingly to gain the greatest benefits from sunlight.

Development and characterisation of an irradiation device for biomedical studies covering the solar spectrum with individual regulated spectral bands

To understand the importance of terrestrial solar exposure on human skin, not only individual spectral components need to be considered in biomedical studies, but also the relevance of the combined action profile of the complete solar spectrum (cSS) must be established. We therefore developed a novel irradiation device that combines the emission of four individual lamps (UVB, UVA, VIS and nIR) to achieve exposure from 280 to 1400 nm with individual controllable lamps. The integrated irradiance of each spectral band is similar to the solar spectrum. The lamps can be utilised individually or in any desired combination. Here we present the design, realisation, and validation of this irradiation device as well as biological results on cellular metabolism (MTT assay), cell cycle alterations, and clonogenic growth in HaCaT cells after exposures to the individual spectral bands as well as their simultaneous combinations. Thereby, we demonstrate that UVB combined with UVA is the main determinant for the metabolic activity within cSS. Also, UVB-dependent effects dominate cell cycle regulation in cSS, whilst UVA and nIR have little influence. Lastly, also clonogenic growth is dominated by the UVB action profile in cSS, despite nIR showing modulatory activity when applied in combination with UVB. Together, this highlights the regulatory influence of the different spectral bands on the three biological endpoints and demonstrates their modulation when being part of the complete solar spectrum.

Exposome and Skin: Part 1. Bibliometric Analysis and Review of the Impact of Exposome Approaches on Dermatology

Introduction

Most skin disorders, such as atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, skin cancer or age-related skin issues, are the result of a complex interaction between genetic and environmental factors over time. As an external organ, the skin provides the opportunity to study the link between exposure to the environment and several specific biological responses using an exposome approach. The aim of this review was to identify the state of the art of exposome approaches and elucidate the impact of the new era of exposomics on dermatology.

Methods

Two parallel and independent bibliometric analyses were conducted based on documents extracted from the Core Collection and the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-Expanded) databases from the Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science (WOS) platform by using the following search terms “exposome” and “skin exposome”. In both searches, we used the topic field that includes title, abstract, author keywords and keywords plus terms and the following filters: “English language” and all documents published up to 30 September 2021. We further analysed and interpreted documents extracted in plain text format.

Results

Based on the defined searches, 910 documents were identified as being related to “exposome” and 45 as being related to “skin exposome”. Environmental sciences and toxicology were the most impacted research areas, and aging, cancer and respiratory allergies were the most documented diseases while, surprisingly, dermatology was much less impacted. Krutmann et al. were the pioneers in implementing this new concept in dermatology with publication of “The skin aging exposome” in 2017 (J Dermatol Sci. 2017;85:152–61). After this tipping point, the number of publications in dermatology evaluating the impact of exposome factors in many skin disorders has steadily increased.

Conclusions

Exposome studies are rapidly attracting interest in dermatology. The results of these studies will undoubtedly improve our understanding of why and under which circumstances some individuals develop skin disorders and help design tailored prevention strategies for patients suffering from these disorders.

Effect of Precast Concrete Pavement Albedo on the Climate Change Mitigation in Spain

The widespread use of solar-reflective concrete pavements can mitigate climatic change and urban heat islands (UHI) by cooling the pavement surfaces that are made of concrete instead of asphalt. The methodology that was followed is based on the comparison between the asphalt and concrete albedo effects in a specific application and area. In this study, we found that a reduction of temperature in the terrestrial surface, equivalent to the removal of 25–75 kgCO2/m2, could be achieved. Considering all the motorways and freeways of Spain, which is the third country in the world in km, a yearly equivalent carbon dioxide emissions reduction of 13–27 million tons could be reached. This value is quite high considering that the cement sector worldwide released about 2.9 Gigatons of carbon dioxide in 2016. Therefore, there is a positive balance in the use of concrete pavements. Furthermore, concrete is a material completely recyclable at the end of its service life and concrete pavement construction requires local resources, avoiding GHG emissions due to transport. An increase in the Spanish freeway network albedo by replacing asphalt pavements with concrete ones will improve the local climate change mitigation.

The impact of ultraviolet radiation on skin photoaging - review of in vitro studies

Background

Photoaging, ultra violet (UV) induced skin aging is a gradual process that depends on the time and intensity of solar radiation.

Aim

The aim of this paper was to review of the literature focused on in vitro studies explaining the mechanisms of photoaging.

Methods

Electronic databases, including PubMed and MEDLINE, were searched for in vitro studies on the importance of UV radiation in the skin photoaging process of peer‐reviewed scientific journals. Only articles available in English and full version publications were considered for this review.

Results

Three main modes of UV radiation action on skin cells which lead to photoaging, there are changes in cell metabolism, induction of oxidative stress due to the change in enzyme activity.

Conclusion

The information gathered in this publication will help to better understand the complex and multidirectional mechanism of skin photoaging, which will contribute to the development of research on potential cosmetic products that provide effective and safe sun protection or repair damage caused by UV radiation.

Monitoring the Redox Status in Multiple Sclerosis

Worldwide, over 2.2 million people suffer from multiple sclerosis (MS), a multifactorial demyelinating disease of the central nervous system. MS is characterized by a wide range of motor, autonomic, and psychobehavioral symptoms, including depression, anxiety, and dementia. The blood, cerebrospinal fluid, and postmortem brain samples of MS patients provide evidence on the disturbance of reduction-oxidation (redox) homeostasis, such as the alterations of oxidative and antioxidative enzyme activities and the presence of degradation products. This review article discusses the components of redox homeostasis, including reactive chemical species, oxidative enzymes, antioxidative enzymes, and degradation products. The reactive chemical species cover frequently discussed reactive oxygen/nitrogen species, infrequently featured reactive chemicals such as sulfur, carbonyl, halogen, selenium, and nucleophilic species that potentially act as reductive, as well as pro-oxidative stressors. The antioxidative enzyme systems cover the nuclear factor erythroid-2-related factor 2 (NRF2)-Kelch-like ECH-associated protein 1 (KEAP1) signaling pathway. The NRF2 and other transcriptional factors potentially become a biomarker sensitive to the initial phase of oxidative stress. Altered components of the redox homeostasis in MS were discussed in search of a diagnostic, prognostic, predictive, and/or therapeutic biomarker. Finally, monitoring the battery of reactive chemical species, oxidative enzymes, antioxidative enzymes, and degradation products helps to evaluate the redox status of MS patients to expedite the building of personalized treatment plans for the sake of a better quality of life.