UQ Mythbusters: Do you burn or tan? One has higher skin cancer risk

With winter over, many of us are heading for the beach and dusting off our picnic blankets to spend some more time under the sun.

But are you doing everything you should do to minimise the risks associated with sun exposure?

UQ Mythbusters is here to arm you with all the info you need to keep yourself – and your family – safe through the sunny months, while dispelling some common skin protection misconceptions.

Professor Kiarash Khosrotehrani, St Baker Soyer Chair of Dermatology in UQ’s Frazer Institute, has us covered (literally) with some answers.

Key points:

You don’t need to wear sunscreen on your face if there’s SPF 30+ in your makeup.
Some sun exposure is healthy for vitamin D – but how much depends on your skin tone.
You need to wear sun protection on cloudy days AND while driving to minimise cancer risk and early ageing.
If you’re an ‘I tan, I don’t burn’ person, your risk of developing skin cancer is lower (but still present!).

True or false: you don’t need sun protection on cloudy days.

False. There is a misconception between heat and sun exposure. Many people do not avoid the sun on a cold day in winter, when they’re on a windy boat, on a mountain or when it is cloudy. But the sun rays, mostly UV rays, have the same level of harm to your skin whether it’s a hot day or not.

Can sun damage really cause premature ageing of the skin? If so, what’s the best way to avoid this?

Yes, absolutely. Aside from skin cancer, sun damage can also make our skin age faster. Particularly, among UV rays, the lower energy UVA damages the collagen and other fibres in our skin that give it its elasticity. Moreover, both types of UV contribute to sunspots on your face.

Avoiding the sun and particularly UVA (read the label of your sunscreen) can provide you with protection against ageing and it’s probably the best way to do it. A daily sunscreen goes a long way to keep your skin youthful.

I don’t burn, I tan. Is my risk of skin cancer lower?

Yes, in general people who have a good tanning ability are less likely to have skin cancer. However, they are not immune from it. The darker tone of their skin simply means that they need more UV rays to get skin cancer compared to someone who doesn’t tan.

True or false: there’s no such thing as a ‘healthy’ tan.

True. Unfortunately, the only healthy tan is a spray tan! Taning is a defence mechanism against sun and UV exposure. When you start tanning, it means that you have damaged the DNA in your skin. This DNA damage ultimately accumulates and puts you at risk of cancer. So tanning is never healthy – it’s always the reflection of damage to the DNA in our skin cells.

True or false: damaging UV rays penetrate car windows.

True. Car windows do not stop UVA rays that age your skin and have also been implicated – to a lesser degree – in skin cancer. Having a daily sunscreen routine means that you don’t have to worry about this.

True or false: you don’t need to wear sunscreen on your face if there’s SPF in your cosmetics.

True – as long as it’s SPF30+. Many cosmetic products, particularly foundations, contain SPF30+ and, in that case, there is no need for additional sunscreen. If the SPF is lower than 30, make sure you apply sunscreen, allow it time to absorb and then carry on with make-up.

It’s important to include daily sunscreen as part of your routine. Most people are very sun-conscious but still get sunburnt because they didn’t predict they would be exposed. Classic examples are when you go gardening for 5 minutes and stay out an hour. In Queensland, having a daily sunscreen routine removes most of this risk.

Although a 30-50+ make up can be sufficient as your routine daily sunscreen on your face, it obviously doesn’t protect the rest of your body and if you are going to be heavily exposed – at the beach, doing sports in the middle of the day or on the water – renewing the sunscreen every 2 hours remains essential.

Is it true that some sun exposure is healthy because it gives us vitamin D?

Absolutely. Our body needs exposure to the sun to make vitamin D for bone health and the light is also important in regulating mood, the day/night cycle and other systems you may not expect, such as our blood pressure. More recently, the public health message regarding sun-protection has been updated to reflect differences in skin type.

Darker skin tones need more routine exposure to the sun to obtain the benefit whereas pale skin tones that burn easily can get the advantages of sun with very minimal exposure that wouldn’t put them at risk of skin cancer. As you can imagine, this personalised advice needs to be followed by every member of the family and it may vary from one person to another.