THE SUN
We all need sunlight to live, but we don’t have to live with the signs of sun damage on our skin.
Avoiding the sun is almost impossible as we go about our daily life and our culture of admiring tanned skin has left many with lasting skin damage. Although SPF products have come into wide use, prematurely aged skin from sun exposure continues to be the #1 cause of skin aging.
Sub-surface sun damage can be detected via UV light scan in children as young as 4, but the damage is usually not visible until it migrates to the top layer of our skin when most of us are in our early 40’s.
The science behind the aging of skin from the sun and the environment is very complex:
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Many different critical pathways within the skin are damaged during sun and environmental stress
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The damage is caused by a complex interplay between many different factors
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The process doesn’t stop when you go out of the sun, and some of the most fundamental UV damage can occur in the hours after direct sun exposure*