Melanin can only protect your skin so much. If you continue to be exposed to the sun, the UV radiation can eventually damage your skin. That damage shows up as:

* wrinkles
* brown age spots
* blotchiness
* leathery, sagging skin that looks older than it is.

To get a good idea of the effects of sunlight, look at your parents' skin and see how different it is from yours. Much of that difference is due to sun exposure and only a small part is due to the fact that your folks are actually older than you are. In the worst-case scenario, too much sun can cause skin cancer, lead to problems with your eyes, or weaken your immune system, making it harder for you to fight off diseases.

Skin cancer is epidemic in the United States. Although the numbers of new cases of many other types of cancer are falling or leveling off, melanoma, the most serious (and most frequently fatal) type of skin cancer, is the fastest-growing type of tumor in the United States in terms of new cases. In fact, dermatologists are seeing patients in their twenties with skin cancer these days - in the past, skin cancer mostly affected people in their fifties or older.

Most skin cancers will be one of the two less serious types - basal cell or squamous cell carcinoma - which have high cure rates, but even these can be very damaging and potentially deadly.

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