Protect Your Skin This Summer

Enjoying the beautiful sunshine, laying outside on the beach, or swimming in your backyard pool, well, now the summer is truly coming. Your skin can soak up some fresh air and sunlight, which makes us happier and helps our bodies produce Vitamin D.

However, while there are truly many advantages sunlight brings to us, it can also cause a lot of damage to our skin, such as resulting in a skin cancer, the most common type of cancer in the United States. The American Cancer Society also reports that over 73,800 people in the United States will be diagnosed with skin cancer in 2015.

So, have you begun to care more about your skin this summer?

The Skin

Obviously, skin is a very important tissue for human-beings. It allows us to feel many different things in our daily life, such as pressure or heat, and more importantly it protects us from infection and dehydration.

Structure

Generally in humans and other mammals, the skin is made up of three parts including the epidermis, the dermis and the subcutis (or hypodermis).

The epidermis part forms the surface of the skin, and it is comprised of several layers of cells called keratinocytes. While the dermis part lies underneath the epidermis and contains skin appendages: hair follicles, sebaceous (oil) glands and sweat glands. The rest subcutis includes fat cells and some sweat glands.

Our skin has to be constantly renewed throughout our lives, because we rely the skin to cope with a lot of wear and tear everyday, to repair skin damage efficiently, and to keep itself in good condition. All of this relies on a whole host of different stem cells, including epidermal stem cells, hair follicle stem cells, melanocyte stem cells.

• Epidermal stem cells are found in the basal layer of the epidermis, and are in charge of daily regeneration of the different layers of the epidermis.

• Hair follicle stem cells are found throughout the hair follicles. They are responsible for constant renewal of the hair follicles, as well as regenerating the epidermis and sebaceous glands if these tissues are damaged.

• Melanocyte stem cells are not yet certain where they can be found in humans.But These type of cells make sure the regeneration of melanocytes, a type of pigment cell, and play an important role in skin and hair follicle pigmentation.

To Protect Your Skin

The best way to protect your skin and lower the skin cancer rate is to first limit your exposure to the sun. You can try to avoid the direct sunlight in long periods of time, and choose to stay in the shade, and remember to wear a hat, sunglasses, and especially the sunscreen when you you outside room. Also you need to remember that not only you can be safe in the sun if you do above, but all of these can help you protect your skin from wrinkles and disease!