As with most other health issues, you can do a lot to protect yourself when it comes to the your skin health. Learn why sun damage is the real enemy, and how to guard against it.

Just like the rest of your body, your skin ages over time. But much of the visible surface damage, like dryness and lines, comes as a result of sun exposure, which you can protect yourself from. More good news: It’s possible to ease some of these signs of aging in your skin with simple prescription creams.

Aging Skin: Causes and Effects
A variety of factors are to blame for the typical signs of aging skin. These can include:

Sun exposure. “Take a woman with the skin changes that we associate with aging — wrinkles, dryness, age spots — and look at the skin under her arm. That skin is likely to be smooth and clear. The difference is sun exposure,” says Steve Feldman, MD, PhD, professor of dermatology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, NC.

Called photodamage, the effects of sun exposure on your skin are caused by ultraviolet light, and the lighter your complexion, the worse the damage is likely to be. Over time, even a small amount of unprotected sun exposure each day can cause:

• Age spots. Also called solar lentigines, or liver spots, these dark patches of skin are caused by sun damage. Bigger than freckles, age spots are more common in women with lighter complexions.
• Spidery veins. As skin ages, especially with sun exposure, you become more prone to the eruption of small blood vessels near the surface of your skin called telangiectasias.
• Leathery texture and dry scaly patches, or actinic keratoses. Aging skin does not retain moisture well. This is due partly to the loss of sweat and oil glands, but sun exposure will also make your skin dry.

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