Wednesday 4 July 2012

SUN IS THE NO;1 AGAR

Stripes are for the Flag: Sun Is the Number One Ager

 t's Summer. It is the Fourth of July. That usually means lots of time outside. Which is great for your Vitamin D levels, but not so great for your skin.

I am constantly surprised at how lots of individuals who ought to know better are walking around outside in the hot sun without sunscreen. Including me.

Floating in a friend's pool last weekend, I noticed with shock that I hadn't put on any sunscreen. If I, the sunscreen queen, am doing that, how lots of others less vigilant than I are adding years to their face every minute?

Let's review: Sun exposure is the Number age accelerator.
 If you are complaining about lines, wrinkles, crows feet, age spots  the first to blame is that giant fiery star in the sky.

I turned to Dr. Julie Karen, Assistant Clinical Professor of Dermatology at NYU School of Medicine, who had discovered an alarming dark spot on my toe a year ago in the coursework of a LaRoche-Posay sunscreen event (he's nice eyes), to describe how damaging tanning can be. (Lots of the emphasis is mine because I need you to visually listen to this.)

And did you know? Most photo-aging occurs in the summertime, according to dermatologist Dr. Melanie Grossman, speaking as a panel professional on PaloVia (a skin renewing laser).

 What are the dangers of tanning?

 Tanning, which lots of people think about a sign of "health", is the skin's response to injury.
  In response to destroy, from exposure to ultraviolet radiation (from the sun or tanning beds), the skin attempts to protect itself by producing melanin (a brownish pigment) to darken & protect itself from further destroy.
  Short & long-term exposure causes well-documented destroy to the skin (both on a cellular level  destroy to DNA which ultimately can eventuate in skin cancer), as well as loss of elasticity, persistently dilated vessels (which manifests with redness), undesirable sun spots (solar lentigos) &, of coursework, wrinkles.

"Exposure to the sun does not need to product a sunburn to be harmful.

 Is there a difference between the sun and tanning beds?

 "The above damage/changes occur with both natural sunlight & tanning bed exposure. Tanning beds usually emit UVA (long wavelength radiation), which penetrates deeper & has long been recognized to cause photo-aging (again, wrinkling, sun spots, textural abnormalities, ruddiness) & more recently has been recognized to cause skin cancer as well. Even occasional exposure to tanning beds increases one's risk of skin cancer. Specifically, it increases the risk of the deadliest kind of skin cancer, melanoma, by 75%. Tanners are two.5 times more likely to create squamous cell carcinoma & one.5 times more likely to create basal cell carcinoma.

  About 90% of non-melanoma skin cancers are associated with exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun."
 What are the ramifications for younger skin?

 or more blistering sunburns in childhood or adolescence over double a person's chances of developing melanoma later in life. An individual's risk for melanoma doubles with five or more sunburns at any age."

"Early tanning increases the risk of all forms of skin cancer. all of individuals frequenting tanning salons (71%) are young females aged 16 to 29. 

Can there be such a thing as an addiction to tanning?

 Need some pleasure endorphins? Eat a watermelon. Play frisbee (but wear sunscreen).

Absolutely - studies have shown that endorphins (pleasure-inducing molecules) are released after exposure to UV radiation and that tanning can in fact be addictive!"

Happy Fourth of July.

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