Skin cancer can often take you by surprise when you least expect it. It is frightening when you discover a seemingly small mole and are told that it is a form of skin cancer. Therefore, it is to your benefit to know skin cancer risk factors and ways to prevent this disease from happening in your future.
Though the pandemic is keeping us inside, the weather will heat up soon. Even though we are practicing social distancing, we will spend more time in the sun before you know it to garden, sunbathe, swim or just take a walk or run. This is why it is important to become more aware of your skin cancer risk factors such as family history regarding skin cancer because sharing the same gene pool puts you more at risk at potentially inheriting it.
Skin cancer risk factors are also determined by things like skin color. Dark skin offers the best defense from skin cancer compared to light skin. The reason for this is due to this particular skin’s high amounts of melanin, which shields it from DNA damage while absorbing safe amounts of UV radiation and stabilizing folate levels. The catch is that this extra bit of built-in natural sun protection that dark skin helps protect against skin cancer, but not completely. Dark-skinned people still need to pay attention to the sun and wear sunscreens and get skin checks for abnormalities.
Some other skin cancer risk factors include simple things like how long that you actually spend in the sun, especially direct sun. If you are a sun worshiper, then do yourself a favor and avoid the sun during peak hours of 11-3 P.M., use ample UVA/UVB sunscreens of 50+ and regularly reapply or better yet start faking a tan with self-tanning products.
You also have to take into account medications that you take that may not react well with the sun. Certain drugs can also increase skin cancer risk factors that you need to be careful of.
What else that can contribute to increasing your likelihood of skin cancer is once having a severe sunburn that blistered in the past.
Some people are drawn to indoor tanning, but subjecting your skin to tanning beds and sun lamps is a risky proposition, especially for young women that use tanning parlors often to perfect that perfect sun burnished glow. The repeated exposure to its ultraviolet (UV) rays are a dangerous practice that can damage DNA cells, being another of these skin cancer risk factors that you want to avoid. Instead of taking such a needless chance of developing the worst form of skin cancer, melanoma, you can fake the same beautiful tan through self-tanning products at home.
While some skin cancer risk factors are ones that you can control, others such as the hand that heredity dealt you with a predisposition to a rare genetic condition are not. This is why everyone should be aware of the dangers of the sun from all sources.
