One of the first steps you can take to reduce your risk of cancer is to watch your exposure to direct sunlight. In addition, you’ve got to wear sunscreen.
"There's a meter in your skin. Every minute you're out in the sun, your body registers it," Neal Schultz, M.D., a cosmetic dermatologist based in New York City and creator of DermTV.com, tells Women’s Health. "Whenever you start protecting yourself from the sun, you will stop the process of additional damage and start to reverse, to some extent, what you've already accumulated.”
The thing is that many people assume that they only need to wear sunscreen during warmer months. But that’s not true.
You should wear sunscreen daily. Women’s Health notes that the FDA recommends wearing broad-spectrum sunscreen with an SPF value of 15 or more. Apply 30 minutes before exposure and every two hours thereafter, and make sure to lather up. Don’t sell yourself short by applying too little sunscreen.
- Don’t dry clean your clothes.
Dry cleaning clothes risks chemical exposure that can harm us. This is why you should avoid dry cleaning clothes -- or do so as little as possible.
According to Prevention, a solvent called perchloroethylene, or perc, is used in the dry cleaning process. Studies show that this substance may cause liver and kidney cancer as well as leukemia.
The primary danger comes to those who work in the dry cleaning industry because they come into contact with chemicals on a daily basis. However, as warnings often do, this could change in the future.