• Question: How long do you have to be in the sun to get skin cancer? or does it depend on how sensitive your skin is?

    Asked by alisonkatie to Iain, Mariam, Leo, Jo, Gioia on 16 Jun 2010 in Categories: . This question was also asked by clark, erussell.
    • Photo: Gioia Cherubini

      Gioia Cherubini answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      When it’s down to what to do and what not to do to avoid getting cancer, we can’t talk of certainties but only of probabilities.
      We know that exposure to sun (to UV rays) induces breakage into your DNA, so quite a bad cellular damage that the cell has to repair If the damage is too big, the cell may not be able to repair it anymore.
      So, what you can do is always protect yourself from this risk and avoid sun exposure without a sun cream with a good protective factor (even when you are already tanned!) and avoid sunbeds
      As for me, even if I don’t have a very sensitive skin, I never go to the seaside without putting sun cream on and I even put sun cream on my face just to go out!

    • Photo: Mariam Orme

      Mariam Orme answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      It totally depends on how sensitive your skin is and how strong the sun is. If you burn, that increases the risk of cancer a lot.

    • Photo: Joanna Watson

      Joanna Watson answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Like Mariam and Gioia said, it does depend on how strong the sun is and how sensitive your skin is, but also you can just be lucky or unlucky about whether the sun manages to cause damage to your DNA. The best way to avoid the problem though is to always wear sunscreen and keep covered up when the sun is really strong.

    • Photo: Leo Garcia

      Leo Garcia answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      The relationship between exposure to UV light (the part of sunlight that damages our DNA) and skin cancer is complicated so it’s impossible to say, for example, 6 hours in the sun = skin cancer. However, your risk of developing a serious form of skin cancer is doubled if you have 5 or more serious sunburns. Bad sunburn in teenagers or kids is particularly harmful and can cause cancer much later in life.

      The sensitivity of your skin can also play a role. People with very pale skin, red hair, or lots of moles or freckles are particularly at risk.

      Even when sun damage doesn’t cause skin cancer it can make your skin wrinkled and blotchy. The best thing you can do is use a decent sun tan lotion and avoid sun beds.

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