July and August, the sunny months, coincide with the holidays and consequently with the increase in consultations with the dermatologist for skin lesions due to excessive exposure to solar radiation.
Did you know that the sun’s rays (besides causing skin cancer) are responsible for 80% of skin aging, in the form of wrinkles and various types of blemishes? Did you know that they can even alter the autoimmune system and therefore have to do with diseases such as lupus?
According to World Health Organization, WHO, Nearly 100,000 people die each year from overexposure to ultraviolet radiation from sunlight, which causes melanomas and other types of cancer, according to the report. “The Global Problem of Diseases Caused by Ultraviolet Light”.
Other studies have also found that excessive exposure to the sun’s rays can cause allergic and phototoxic reactions to substances taken -such as medications- or applied to the skin. For human health, the sun can be a double-edged sword. Although it has positive aspects, such as participating in the synthesis of vitamin D, in the skin after sun exposure, its excess constitutes a source of risks for multiple diseases.
Dermatologists explain that there are three types of ultraviolet radiation, UVR, and each one offers a certain risk: type A or UVA, which produces pigmentation and is related to skin aging and wrinkles, UV B, which causes sunburn and related with skin cancer and the development of cataracts and alterations in the immune system.
Most of this radiation is absorbed in the ozone layer. Finally UV C, the most harmful of all, which cannot reach it thanks to the ozone layer.
Cultural factors, according to specialists, have determined changes in outdoor activities, the type of clothing, the wrong desire to be tanned, among others, which affects the increase in the frequency of different types of skin cancer. In the world it begins to become a true epidemic, as some forms of cancer become fatal.
Specialists reiterate that the effects of the sun are cumulative. That today’s beautiful tan will be tomorrow’s stain, freckle, wrinkle and cancer. They insist that care measures must be taken in these months of July and August, because with vacations and exposure to the sun, the risks multiply. If you are going out, it is advisable to use sunscreen. If you are on the beach, the use of the protector must be permanent, since the sand enhances radiation.
Of the 100,000 annual deaths from overexposure, about 48,000 are caused by malignant melanomas and the rest by skin carcinomas. The WHO recommends limiting the time you are exposed to the sun, seeking shade when the rays are more intense, wearing protective clothing, using protective lotions with factor 15 or higher, and avoiding the use of UVA ray lamps.
According to specialists, the sun is the cause of 80% of skin aging. This aging is attributed to intrinsic (genetic) and extrinsic factors (related to the environment) or to external factors, within which the sun plays a predominant role.
Most of the aesthetic changes seen in aging skin (wrinkles, spots, yellowish skin or loss of texture) are due to the cumulative effect of solar radiation.
It is enough to compare the skin of an area exposed to the sun, with a cover to observe this difference. These changes have to do mainly with the degeneration of collagen fibers.