Keeping Beautiful Under the S... Video Transcript

Participants

, Mariano Busso MD, Susan Cingari , Steven Shapiro MD

Summary

For many people, the purpose of tanning is obvious: bronze is beautiful. But although a deep tan may get you compliments this summer, too much exposure is likely to give your skin trouble down the road, causing premature wrinkling and other problems. Our panel of dermatologists will offer some expert tips on keeping you skin in top shape.

Webcast Transcript

SUSAN CINGARI:  Hello, I’m Susan Cingari, and welcome to our web cast from Miami.

Many of us think of sunbathing as enhancing our beauty.  There’s nothing better than a good tan, right?  Well, as it turns out, sun exposure can have negative effects on your skin in the long run if you don’t take care of yourself.  And we all should, so that’s why we’re here to talk to two University of Miami dermatologists about keeping our skin beautiful.

Dr. Mariano Busso to my right, thank you for joining us, Dr. Steven Shapiro to my left.

Let’s start with UVA and UCB rates, there’s a lot of confusion about them.  You hear about it, you don’t really know what they mean.  Talk to me about that.

MARIANO BUSSO:  Sure.  The sun has visible light and invisible light.  Within the invisible light we have the ultraviolet light A and ultraviolet light B, UVA and UVB.  They both produce suntan, sunburn, premature aging, skin cancer, and also allergies and deterioration of the immune system.  The UVA penetrates the skin deeper, so it can be harmful, and it’s more related to premature aging.  UVB can be filtered out through glass windows, whereas UVA not as much.  Therefore we see a lot more aging or even skin cancers on the left side of our body because of our driving habits, we get more sun through the windows in our cars.

SUSAN CINGARI:  So essentially, should we wear sunscreen in the car?

MARIANO BUSSO:  We should wear sunscreen before we leave home.  As a matter of fact, we receive about one to two hours per day of indoor tanning without even noticing it.  So first thing in the morning we should apply sunscreen.

STEVEN SHAPIRO, MD:  One thing about damage to the skin and skin cancer, most people feel they have their sunburn and the sunburn goes away and the skin goes back to normal.  But the skin actually has memory in it and it can remember that damage, and years later it can cause skin cancer.

SUSAN CINGARI:  Speaking of UVA and UVB rates, a lot of people are saying, “Okay, we know we’re not supposed to gout in the sun so we’re going to go to a tanning salon.”

What about tanning salons?  Talk to me about UVA and UVB rates, if there are any, in the tanning salon.

STEVEN SHAPIRO, MD:  I’d like to start with this one.  Years ago we thought that UVB caused skin cancer, and we remember UVB for bad.  And the tanning salons, to that point, were about 98%.  So what happened is they switched to UVA and now they’re about 98% UVA.  Later on we found out that UVA caused skin cancer, as well.  So what happened is that we know that tanning salons contain about 98% UVA, 2% UVB, both rays cause skin cancer, therefore the tanning salons cause skin cancer.  In fact, I believe it was this week, the FDA listed sunlamps on their list of carcinogens.  So we do know that tanning salons do cause skin cancer.

MARIANO BUSSO:  People need to understand that when you have a tan, the skin is sending is sending you a messaging, which is, “I’m getting darker to protect from radiation.”  So it’s a protective mechanism as opposed to a health mechanism.  So every time you have a suntan, that’s bad.