Did you know that more than 1 million cases of skin cancer are diagnosed in the United States every year? One in every 3 cancers diagnosed worldwide is a skin cancer. In 1944, Coppertone sunscreen became the first mass marketed sunscreen. Fast forward to today, about a billion dollars worth of sunscreen are sold each year in the United States.
These days, dermatologists and uninformed health fanatics give the sun a bad reputation. We see shows featuring doctors that lecture audiences on skin cancer and the necessity – real or imagined – of sun screen. We read magazine articles regarding the subject of the public’s growing concern with skin cancer. We watch commercials that promote sun screens to protect us from the UV rays that reached out to us for thousands of years.
The sun and its light surrounds us nearly every minute of every day. Even on cloudy days, its rays still reach the surface of the planet, keeping the life on earth warm and alive. All living things need the sun to survive, as it produces plants with their needed energy. In turn, plants provide us with food and a number of other substances that we can easily make use of. It feels good to bask in its light, and soak it up onto our complexion. But how does the sun affect our skin? And what does it make or break the average anti-aging routine?
The sun can cause up to ninety percent of aesthetics resulting from the dreaded aging process – such as wrinkles, fine lines, sagging, or age spots. It is one of many environmental elements that we receive consistent, daily exposure to, whether we walk from our car to a building a few times a day or take a walk in the sun for hours. Dermatologists have harped and crowed about the need for sunscreen to prevent some of the damage from occurring, and to protect the skin from developing skin cancer and other forms of sun damage that will show up years down the road. With all the environmental factors involved in the aging process, it is understandable that so many people place such high importance on minimizing the damage.
