Transcripts

Dr. Jessica Wu:
There is no such thing as a safe tan unless it comes from a bottle or spray.

Dr. Jessica Wu, Dermatologist for the website everydayhealth.com…

And that's because a tan is a sign of your skin producing pigment to try to protect itself from ultraviolet radiation. And the same goes for freckles. We think that freckles are so cute on young children but those are the first signs of sun damage.

Skin cancer is on the rise so you should keep watch for anything that looks suspicious. Although very curable skin cancer is nothing to take lightly.

Because it can literally eat off your entire nose or ear and it can travel into your nerves, it can possibly spread into your brain in very extreme cases - so early detection is very important.

You should use a sunscreen with at least an SPF 15. Now if you do get sunburned…

There are things that I tell my patients to do that have been studied in laboratory animals (and I preface this by saying that these studies have not yet been done on humans) such as drinking green tea and applying green tea to your skin as well as eating tomato paste. These have been shown to help protect against sunburn damage after the fact.

There's more information at the everydayhealth.com website which you can link to from ours: somethingyoushouldknow.net - I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.