If you’ve ever been on a beach, you may have noticed people simply laying on the sand for several hours. Although some of those people may be enjoying the warmth of the sun, the majority of them are tanning. Tanning has become so popular that numerous salons have been established for the sole purpose of providing people with the opportunity to get tans indoors; these salons enable people to get tans whether it is the hottest day of the summer or the coldest day of the winter. Although awareness about the dangers of tanning has certainly increased in recent years, many people are still misinformed about its possible health effects. Currently, the best way to protect your skin against sun exposure would be to put on sunscreen, but the idea of avoiding direct sun exposure by doing things like staying indoors or putting on a hat also makes sense. However, a recent study reveals that seeking shade after being exposed to the sun does not immediately relieve skin damage.
Image source: Lost Horizon Images
Researchers have discovered that ultraviolet (UV) radiation from sources like the sun and tanning beds continue to cause skin damage even hours after exposure to UV radiation has ended. They conducted their study on mice and human melanocyte cells, which produce the pigment melanin that gives skin its color, by shining a UV lamp on them and found that the cells generated cyclobutane dimers (CPDs), causing DNA damage by making the information contained within DNA difficult to read. The researchers noticed that in addition to generating CPDs during UV radiation exposure, the melanocyte cells continued generating CPDs even after exposure stopped for hours; further testing revealed that half of the CPDs present in the cells were generated during radiation exposure while the other half were generated after exposure stopped. The researchers learned that energy produced through chemiexcitation is what enables these cells to continue generating CPDs in the dark; this striking discovery considering chemiexcitation has only been observed in simple plants and animals.
The results of this study may be unsettling since it shows that melanin is both protective and harmful. However, knowing how melanin generates CPDs in the dark may lead to the development of protective treatments that can limit the damage done.
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