Can you train your skin to resist sun damage?
I just had an urge to understand Melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer. I’m not sure why it just seemed like a good idea. Partly because I’ve been wondering what new developments there are in our knowledge and what trends are associated with this kind of cancer.
I’m glad I checked it out. It turns out that intermittent exposure to the sun is the worst problem. This is reflected in most cases in men on their backs and women on their legs. This fits in with what I’ve picked up over the years.
We’ve been exposed to sun damage for millennia, so it’s only natural to assume that we have built defences against it. In my opinion, the strength of this defence is likely to be down to how much we train it through exposure.
What I mean is that people who work outside every day will be well prepared for the summer heat by their exposure during the spring. I assume the damage is related to the amount of protection you already have, and so exposure during the spring when the sun isn’t directly overhead will build up some resistance and have a training effect on the skin.
Every so often, a day of prolonged sunshine will come along, and many spend a long time in it. Those who already have some protection are just less likely to go over the threshold at which damage occurs. I believe it’s effectively as simple as that.
Like training in sports protects us from the damaging effects of exercise, repeated safe exposure to the sun protects us from the damage from intermittent intense exposure.
Otherwise, you’d expect people with bald heads to have the highest rates of melanoma because no matter what direction you walk, the top of your head is always exposed to the sun, assuming you don’t wear a hat. Since this isn’t the case, it suggests, though it doesn’t prove, that a training effect may occur.
I just wanted to mention this idea of a training effect and state the reasons I think it may exist because I think it could be a very useful way to limit the danger from this kind of cancer and from the sun itself in a natural way.
It also implies that regular outdoor activity, exposing the parts of your skin you would normally expose, such as my head, neck, and forearms, is the best way to combat skin cancer. Yet it also helps fight osteoporosis, diabetes, and coronary heart disease. So there’s a lot to gain if it’s true.
The article also hints that indirect DNA damage is the major cause of Melanoma. It strikes me that the body is likely to have natural methods to protect us from this problem and that through repeated safe exposure, these methods would become well developed in our skin, and thus it would be well trained and equipped to prevent the damage
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Natural ways to protect against sun damage
Go ahead, soak up some sun; the benefits of getting vitamin D from sun exposure can outweigh the risks of Skin cancer. Of the 30 leading causes of death in the United States in 2010, 19 were linked to low vitamin D status.
In 2023, I took the kids camping in Swanage, England, and on the final day, we visited Kimmeridge Bay. That day was one of the best for sun all summer, and we were not prepared because we had seen mainly rain for weeks. So, we had not been able to get out and develop the protection we would normally have at that time.
I have been working on developing my skin’s resistance to the sun for years, and it has worked so well. I also have a habit of seeking out the shade during the heat of the day.
These habits have served me well but were not possible this day at Kimmeridge because there was no shade, and we had not been there before, so we did not know what to prepare for. Most importantly, though, the point is about the problem with relying on sunscreen instead of developing your own protection.
At Kimmeridge, the small part of me that got burned was the edge of my ankle, which is normally covered by socks, so I wasn’t prepared for the sun. Above that area, there were no burns at all, and on really exposed areas, I got red but not burnt—only this area.
In 2025, I just had more related experiences. My youngest applied sun lotion and played on the beach at Swansea in overcast 22 °C heat. She got a little sunburn in the area she missed when applying sunscreen. This mistake is easy to make because you cannot see where sunscreen is applied and where it is not applied. So it is always possible to forget an area for many reasons. We all do it. The high factors typically used from factor 15 to factor 50 indicate that no underlying sun protection has developed in the skin, which means that it will burn while the rest of the skin is protected.
If you contrast this with developing natural protection and topping up with sun lotion, you will minimise your chance of burning. I proved this to myself on a trip to Southend beach. There, the sky was clear and the sun was intense with 28 °C heat. I used factor 4 with factor 15 on my head, face and neck and didn’t burn. I browned, which increased my sun protection, building on the existing protection I had been developing. This means that my skin is more capable of withstanding the sun’s rays without damage for a longer time.
So I need less support from sunscreen, and if I miss a spot, the risk of burning is less because I have developed my natural protection. When I feel my natural protection is near its limit, I seek shade, cover up, apply stronger lotion, or do all three. Over time, this pattern of sun exposure increases my natural defences and reduces my cancer risk.
Previous research showed that getting burnt is linked to cancer, and sun lotion builds on your existing skin protection ability.
This illustrates the issue with relying on sunscreen, as it’s easy to miss an area. We never used to have sunscreen, therefore it is a modern tool which needs to be used properly. so we must use it as a tool to help develop our natural protection and not rely on it as our sole tool of protection while neglecting our natural defences.
Can you train your skin to resist Melanoma first appeared on my original blog.
Further references
- What is a Solar Callus? Dermatologist FACT CHECKED!
- Ask the Expert: What Is a Solar Callus?
- The construction of the solar callus
- Main cause of sunburn is finally identified, and it’s time to rewrite the textbooks
- damages to the RNA are the first to trigger a response to UV radiation
- “We found that the first thing the cells respond to after being exposed to UV radiation is damage to the RNA, and that this is what triggers cell death and inflammation of the skin,”
- The ribotoxic stress response drives acute inflammation, cell death, and epidermal thickening in UV-irradiated skin in vivo
