Sun Tanning

I was reading Xiaxue's blog that day (yes, this is what you do when you are stuck in some boring place like STIRLING - which is a small district hospital outside Edinburgh and there is NOTHING to do here) and she mentioned that life doesn't get better than sitting out in the sun smattered with Banana Boat's SPF 4 sunblock, soaking up the rays and sipping a cocktail while day passed into night.

No offense or anything Miss Xiaxue, but honestly, that is like the road straight to Skin Cancer-dom.

Extracting what information I know from my very short two weeks of Dermatology teaching, the great burning ball of fire we call the sun, is, in general :
BAD BAD BAD.

UVA and UVB rays from the sun is damaging, VERY DAMAGING, to your skin's structure, darkening the pigmentation, causes DNA damage... the list goes on.

Wait, that might not be right. UVA is.... while UVB causes....

erh..

Ok, whatever. Basically UV rays -> a big NO NO. Skin cancer occurs largely BECAUSE of sunrays. And sitting down outside in Singaporean weather with nothing but a SPF 4 sunblock on is just plain suicide.

Try wikipedia-ing it or something, but UV rays does damage DNA structure and your body will try to repair itself. Your skin has melanin, which is the pigmentation that gives you your skin colour today. Tanning causes darkening of melanin or extra build up of it, giving you that brown colour. However, like any type of machinery, the longer you abuse it, the faster it breaks down.

Which leads us to skin cancer.
Skin cancer, like any type of cancer, is a process at which your skin cells (there are different types of skin cells which cause different types of skin cancers) suddenly gets tired of repairing itself and decides to stop. And this is when you get all the sudden proliferation of crap cells that doesn't do anything but causes non other than - ta da! - skin cancer.
In a really simplistic way of course.

I really am NOT pulling your legs.
Look at your grandma's face. Or if you are around my age, maybe your mother's or father's face. Or the back of their hand. All the brown spots that people call ageing spots? Yes, all due to sun damage. But no, of course they are not cancer. Because they are benign and do not grow more than what it is suppose to.

Yes, the cosmetics industry raves about whitening products for lightening pigmentation and also dermatologists rake in the dough from laser surgery to remove dark spots. To be honest, sun damage is really not preventable. Everyone gets exposed to sun some time during the day. However, we can minimise it by using sun block. Yes. Every. Day.
Slap on that SPF 50 sunblock. And reapply. REAPPLY.
And No, SPF 50 does NOT last for 50 mins.
It just means it blocks out more UV rays. However, SPF 30 blocks out almost 99% of UV rays and SPF of 40 or 50 blocks out maybe just that 0.01% more or something. I might be totally wrong on the figures, but the essence of my message is correct. Yes. Correct.
All sun block whatever the SPF you put on your skin, will probably be reabsorbed in about 20 minutes. Leaving your skin vulnerable to UV rays again.

And skin cancer.

If you are smart enough, put on some sun block on the back of your hand too. Because that is the 2nd most exposed area to sun.

Now, if you follow this routine strictly, and please avoid sun worshipping for heaven's sake! , you will probably still have even coloured skin when you are 50.

Before I put my professional career on the line by giving wrong information, nothing is absolute and if you do, TOUCH WOOD! develop skin cancer eventhough you have used SPF 50 sunblock for your entire life, reapplying every 2 minutes on every inch of your body and also avoided the sun like plague - I am truly sorry.

However, I'll recommend you to a fellow dermatologist and get you a 5% discount.
There is still hope yet.