INDIANAPOLIS — A new study is shedding light on what young adults get wrong about sun safety and the importance of protecting yourself with sunscreen when you go outside.
Whether it’s cloudy or sunny, doctors recommend lathering up.
"As young adults, I think it's just good to build habits to apply sunscreen to your face, to the surfaces outside of your covered clothing area,” said Dr. Jenny Yu, the Chief Health Officer for Healthline. “So that you develop the habits and decreases the overall effects of sun in your entire lifetime.”
This advice is something Brittany Sollman is taking a lot more seriously now.
“I had a spot on my chest that was red, and I noticed it had been there for a while. I ignored it for a while,” she said. “It turned out it was Basal-Cell Carcinoma, a type of skin cancer.”
The 29-year-old also had to have two precancerous moles removed from her skin to be examined.
“I spent a lot of time in tanning beds in high school,” she said. “As a kid, I played a lot of sports and was sitting outside to watch my brother play, then through high school and just vacations and sitting out in the sun."
According to a new study from the American Academy of Dermatology, young adults, particularly those aged 18-25, have a higher risk of skin cancer because of increase rates of tanning and burning without.
“There's nuggets of information that's out there about sunscreen potentially blocking vitamin D,” said Dr. Yu. “I always say that those nuggets of information are a little bit misguided in the sense that you can't think of just a piece of information in silo, and you have to think about it in a broader sense.”
Dr. Yu also added it’s important to always do thorough research, especially for young adults turning to social media to get information or following trends.
She added that no matter your race and age, everyone, especially young adults, should use sunscreen.
“External factors of UV exposure change the overall collagen composition and quality of the collagen of your skin, but it can also increase your skin cancer risks over time,” explained Dr. Yu.
Experts say that exposure will also speed up aging and the quality of your skin.
In addition to using sunscreen, they’re also pushing vigilance about self-exams.
“There's a mnemonic of ABCD in terms of looking for the changing nature of a mole. So, it's always good to take surveillance of what moles you have, in this they change shape as they change color, as they change intensity in terms of their depth,” Dr. Yu said.
"Sometimes we catch it too late, and we get checked too late, so getting in as soon as you notice something or even just a routine of getting in with a dermatologist staring in your early 20's,” added Sollman, who's grateful her diagnosis was caught early.
Experts say the sun’s rays are strongest between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. and recommend applying a broad-spectrum, water-resistant sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher, even on cloudy days.
Doctors say you should reapply sunscreen every two hours, or after swimming or sweating.
