Science seeks ways to take the sting out of sunburn

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

If you’ve hit the beach, chances are you’ve experienced an unfortunate rite of summer: The sunburn. Skin so swollen it hurts to bend. The heat that rises from reddened shoulders. The “ow, ow, ow” from the shower after you’d thought the pain had faded.

For all the creams that promise to soothe, there aren’t super treatments for a sunburn. Dermatologists say the best bet: Some of the same pills you pop for a headache — such as the ibuprofen found in Motrin and Advil, or naproxen brands such as Aleve.

If that sounds too simple, well, scientists don’t know exactly what causes this kind of touch-sensitive pain. But research is getting them closer to some answers.

British scientists found a clue in some healthy people who volunteered to be sunburned for science. Don’t worry — they controlled the beams of ultraviolet light so that only a small patch of the volunteers’ arms got a medium burn, just enough for a unique kind of testing.

One reason sunburns are so common is that by the time you see pink and head indoors, more damage already is brewing. Unlike an immediate burn from, say, touching a hot stove, a sunburn’s pain is delayed as the red darkens over the next 24 to 48 hours.

Researchers from Kings College London tracked how their volunteers’ sunburned skin became more sensitive. At the peak of pain, they cut away a small bit of damaged skin to analyze all the biochemical changes inside — and found a protein that’s responsible for triggering the cascade of pain and redness.

The protein summons inflammation-causing immune cells to the damaged spot as sunburned skin cells die off. Its activity increased more than did other pain- related chemicals as the sunburn worsened, the researchers reported last week the journal Science Translational Medicine.