sunburn

The longer we stay in the sun, the more its rays have an effect on our skin. Our body can deal with some of the UV rays on its own. We can tell when our skin tans. But that doesn't last very long. If we exceed the threshold of self-protection, our skin burns. Sunburn is a symptom of acute UV overexposure. The skin is higher when it is sunburned UV dose get than she can bear and reacts with inflammation. This inflammation is directly triggered by the excessive damage to the DNA in the skin. Sunburns are not to be taken lightly, because the damage to the DNA leads to skin cancer in the long term. Studies have shown that people who have had more sunburns in their lifetime have a higher risk of developing black skin cancer.

By the way, sunburns are mainly caused by the UVB part in sunlight. This means, for example, that you can hardly burn yourself behind a pane of glass, as glass only lets UVA rays through. But be careful: UVA radiation still leads to damage to the skin, even if you don't notice it in the form of sunburn.

The sunburn dose

The skin has the ability to repair the damage that UV radiation causes to the DNA. But this great function of the body has its limits. If the damage to the DNA becomes too great, the system surrenders and reacts with inflammation. From which radiation dose this happens differs from person to person. In order to find out this limit for a person, researchers irradiate the skin with UV radiation in studies and measure the point at which sunburn occurs. They then refer to this as Minimal topic can (MED). We call it the sunburn dose for the sake of simplicity. You can find the average sunburn dose for each skin type in the article on Skin type.

Your personal sunburn dose

Finding out your sunburn dose is not an easy matter. Usually this is done by determining the Skin types made. This gives an estimate of where the sunburn dose could be. Over time you will notice whether your own sunburn dose is higher or lower than the initial estimate. However, it should also be noted that the sunburn dose can change over the course of the year. In spring, for example, the skin is usually less used to the sun and burns itself more quickly than in late summer.

Attention: The sunburn dose is not to be interpreted as a limit below which no damage to the skin occurs! Even if you don't get sunburn, UV radiation still leads to long-term damage.

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Further reading:

• Skin type
• Can sun-a-wear prevent sunburn?
• 75 percent of melanoma skin cancer cases can be traced back to too much UV radiation

Sources:

• Study on the relationship between sunburn and black skin cancer: https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/183/9/824/1739859