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Sun damage & skin cancer prevention
Sun spots, solar keratoses and the prevention of skin cancer — what actually clears sun-damaged skin, what only appears to, and what a tablet can and cannot do.
Why the gentler laser clears sun damage better Sun spots live in the outermost layer of skin, so a laser that removes that whole layer ought to clear them best. In practice it does not. A non-ablative wavelength that penetrates twenty times less shallowly gets comparable or better clearance, with a fraction of the downtime — and the interesting question is why.
A vitamin B3 tablet that lowers skin cancer rates Nicotinamide is a form of vitamin B3 available over the counter. In a large Australian trial it reduced new non-melanoma skin cancers by 23% over twelve months in people who had already had two or more. It is inexpensive, well tolerated, and it is not a substitute for sun protection — and in transplant recipients the evidence is conflicted.
Lasering sun spots before the light treatment Photodynamic therapy struggles with thick, crusted sun spots because the cream cannot get through them. Running a fractional laser over the area first opens channels for it — and across a series of trials that combination clears more, recurs less and improves the look of sun-damaged skin more than the light treatment alone.
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Last updated September 2026.
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