Health Explanations for Motivated Patients: Your Checkup
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From understanding diabetes and depression to navigating obesity, high blood pressure, and everyday wellness—we make complex health topics simple, human, and actually useful. Whether you’re managing a condition, supporting a loved one, or just curious about your body, this podcast helps you get smart about your health without needing a medical degree.
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Health Explanations for Motivated Patients: Your Checkup
Sunburn, Skin Aging & Skin Cancer Prevention
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We dive deep into the essential topic of skin cancer prevention and sun protection methods. As summer approaches, it's crucial to understand how to protect yourself from harmful UV rays that can lead to skin cancer, a condition that affects one in five Americans in their lifetime.
• One in five Americans will develop skin cancer in their lifetime
• Seek shade between 10am-2pm when the sun's rays are strongest
• Wear protective clothing including lightweight long sleeves, pants, and wide-brimmed hats
• Choose broad-spectrum, SPF 30+ water-resistant sunscreen
• Apply one ounce (a shot glass amount) to cover an adult body
• Reapply sunscreen every two hours or after swimming/sweating
• SPF 30 blocks 97% of UVB rays, but no sunscreen blocks 100% of rays
• Babies under six months should avoid sun exposure completely
• For sunburns: stay indoors, keep skin moisturized, drink extra water, and don't pop blisters
Share this episode with anyone who spends time in the sun. Check us out on Instagram, visit our website for all our old episodes, or sign up for our email list in the description wherever you listen to podcasts.
Production and Content: Edward Delesky, MD & Nicole Aruffo, RN
Artwork: Olivia Pawlowski
Hi, welcome to your checkup. We are the Patient Education Podcast, where we bring conversations from the doctor's office to your ears. On this podcast, we try to bring medicine closer to its patients. I'm Ed Delesky, a family medicine doctor in the Philadelphia area.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:And I'm Nicole Aruffo.
Ed Delesky, MD:I'm a nurse and we are so thankful you were able to join us here again today, so I guess the Catholics could have come up with something better than unleavened bread for the body of Christ. I get the whole thing Like, I get why it's all of that, but I was just thinking that, you know, might grab more. A rolling stone doesn't gather a lot of moss. I don't know if that's the the thing I'm trying to say. They should have picked the cheese, because since we recorded last, a new pope was picked, and couldn't they have picked a nice manchego or something you know I, or a cooper sharp?
Nicole Aruffo, RN:something maybe we should take it up with le. Is that the name he picked?
Ed Delesky, MD:Yes, that's the name he picked. Maybe I'm sending a pigeon, a carrier pigeon, to the Vatican.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:Maybe we should go.
Ed Delesky, MD:Maybe we should go to the Vatican and pitch this idea to Pope Leo and see what happens.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:I feel like he'd be down for it. He seems like a cool guy.
Ed Delesky, MD:Who wouldn't? I mean it would put more delis in business. It would keep business booming because, like now, we have to go to get, go to the deli to get our cheese for sunday. Right, I mean, I think this is a good idea yeah, I think it's great. Thank you, you're welcome in other news um, we spent the last week at the beach and we had a phenomenal time. We played one of the most important sports that there is known to man pickleball.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:I didn't know if you were going to say pickleball or golf.
Ed Delesky, MD:Oh well, I mean there's. We'll start with the pickleball.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:Pickleball was so much fun. That was my first time ever playing and I don't know why I didn't get on this pickleball bandwagon sooner, but I'm happy I'm here now. I also don't fully know all of the rules and I don't know that I'll ever put much effort into learning them, because my primary goal and focus, much like golf, is just making contact with the ball.
Ed Delesky, MD:Yeah, which I?
Nicole Aruffo, RN:did a lot of and I thought I was pretty good and it's fun enough doing that. We don't need to. You know, keep score, figure out when you can and can't be in the kitchen. Exactly, you know.
Ed Delesky, MD:I think that's, uh, that naming on the courts, but really it's called the kitchen. There's two lines, you know, for those listening shaking their fists like I play pickleball all the time. These losers don't know. No, we don't. But I watched a crisp two minute YouTube video and learned what I could to direct the group enough. Um, it's fun. I mean, we were up against a crisp wind, a brigantine clearly the windiest city in America.
Ed Delesky, MD:And it was a that was a tough wind to go up against One side. You kiss the ball to the other side and it airmails across the court and the other side. You have to put your entire butt into the hit and then you barely get it over. You served it like four times into the net.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:I know I was hitting it so hard. More gusto, nick, more More.
Ed Delesky, MD:But no, it was a phenomenal time. We have pickleball equipment. We got to look around in our area and see where we can play.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:We left the pickleball equipment at the beach house, though, yes, I have to go back next weekend and get some or get it. Oh wait, we also have to talk about how that troll said that you cheated on your wife with me. Yep, like, left your wife for a nurse at work. Yes, we're reading it like unless you have like a second family that I don't know about no eddie allegedly cheated on his wife with me and left her and his family for me and let it be known this was an internet troll that was like when I was, like you know, promoting the podcast neither of us has ever been married before.
Ed Delesky, MD:Right, we are getting married, and it will be the first time for both of us right and this guy is like yeah, you left this, you left your family for this nurse that you're doing a podcast with, and I was like this and then he called me out by name no one wants to listen to your podcast, ed. He's like you're a cheater, Ed.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:What is going on?
Ed Delesky, MD:So I swiftly blocked that guy and the person who laughed after that on our threads account, which we're very active on. If you haven't figured that out, yeah, that was crazy. I have come across a lot of nice people on threads and the internet who are like very grateful for what we're doing here and they're like, wow, this is so great, haven't seen anything like this before. But then there's a couple knuckleheads out there like that. That it's.
Ed Delesky, MD:It could have been worse, though it could have been so worse and I'm not used to it, so I lost like a little tiny bit of sleep on it. Do you feel like you're?
Nicole Aruffo, RN:on like a Bravo show at the center of a cheating scandal.
Ed Delesky, MD:No, not one bit at all. No, I don't feel like that at all. We're not speaking this into existence. Is that how that works? I mean like, so you know, we're going to dazzle our way into our newest TV show. We're watching Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:So good.
Ed Delesky, MD:And this woman on there has a thing where on Sunday she facilitates a chat called Confessional Sunday or whatever.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:Yeah, sinner, sunday Sinner.
Ed Delesky, MD:Sunday. If you haven't looked up this show, you got it because it's like for the culture piece. It's so interesting, but people are putting stuff about the castmates on there that, like his or isn't true, and it's so salacious. It heightens the entire conversation. I don't know.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:She'll get like write ins from like anonymous, random people. And there have now been two storylines where she's like, oh, I got this people. And there have now been two storylines where she's like, oh, I got this right in from someone who says like she's like slept with like one of the girls in the group's husband and like then it becomes a whole thing because like that person was like probably just lying right there's stirring up so much trouble.
Ed Delesky, MD:So that's I don't know that, and she's just like begging for more attention. When she's doing that, I'm like why are you creating so many problems for people?
Nicole Aruffo, RN:She's got to keep her spot for season three.
Ed Delesky, MD:That's true. They're cutthroat in that way. They're like can I come back into the group? And they're like, yeah, let's vote in front of you right now. No one votes for that to happen, it's the ketamine. Okay for like that to happen. It's. It's the ketamine, okay, yep, I'm glad you brought it up. So these people on this show can't like drink coffee, they can't drink alcohol.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:It's against their religion and like very religious in that way where they like don't do drugs, they don't drink alcohol, they don't drink coffee, but they like drink a lot of soda, which is like also a lot of caffeine but whatever. But then so they'll be like, no, we're, like you know, straight edge, like soda's our vice. We don't do anything exactly, but then they go to these I don't even know what you would call it infusion clinic things and have these like ketamine sessions. Yep, just like, just like. Here I go really hanging a, hanging a left there I don't see how the two align.
Ed Delesky, MD:The other thing is um when they go get their like esthetician treatment and they're getting their botox yeah, when they get botox and they all get like, they all huff the nitrous and they're like showing the sun. They're like, oh yeah, we once again.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:We don't drink alcohol, we can't drink coffee, can't drink coffee but here's the laughing, laughing gas, though just to take the edge off yeah, it's um, seems very interesting to me.
Ed Delesky, MD:I'm not exactly sure how it works. I love it, but it's fun, it's good to see on tv and they um, well, I don't know if it's good to see on tv, it's entertaining for us if you stumble upon it.
Ed Delesky, MD:But they create so much conflict within themselves and they're all sober like no alcohol whatsoever yeah, usually when you're watching a reality show and there's some sort of like confrontation or whatever, people have been like drinking or you know it's at a party or whatever, but these girls are stone cold sober yep doing all these crazy things, getting into all these crazy fights and then, like the guys were fighting, but then, like you, can actually follow their train of thought, because there's logic and reason behind their fighting, which is, yeah, that's true like they'll be getting like all like heightened and mad, and then they'll be like yes, I understand where you're coming from, but this is what I'm trying to say but this counterpoint to your counterpoint in the subplot of this conversation, I'm like wow, this is, this is different than what we've often been consuming.
Ed Delesky, MD:So that was that. That's that golfing was fun.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:Yeah, it was rusty on the first hole yeah, rusty on, like the first three holes, I would say yeah, but then a couple times like I feel, like when I made contact with the golf ball, it goes straight, yeah, and relatively far for someone who doesn't regularly golf.
Ed Delesky, MD:I mean listen, when was the last time you golfed?
Nicole Aruffo, RN:Two summers ago.
Ed Delesky, MD:Exactly so. If we did this a little bit more, found ourselves a driving range that wasn't being deconstructed. Get out there, do it a little bit more.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:I think we'd be pretty good. Also, maybe if I wasn't using a golf club that was meant for someone who's a foot taller than me.
Ed Delesky, MD:Which is fun, because I'm using a golf club that's meant for someone who's like eight inches shorter than me.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:Yeah, why do we do that?
Ed Delesky, MD:Well, because we don't? It's not a consistent enough hobby that we don't. We haven't purchased our own golf clubs, we're still using the ones that my dad had. Yeah, so that's why? Because we only go once every two years at this point. So I don't think it quite.
Ed Delesky, MD:You know, como se dice, Maybe when we move back to the suburbs yeah, because I mean that's an activity that you're gonna do all the time in the suburbs. Yeah, that, these runs that we've been going on, we've been running a lot more recently together some nice peloton runs. A little quirk on the app, you never mind, but the these peloton runs have been so great and once again, we just love the love the app, love the program, we love doing it together and that was really fun. You get to do it on the beach too. Low tide can't do that at high tide, slippery sand. Oh yeah, I know we were walking out there and I was like, oh wow, it would be impossible to run in these conditions. But like in the morning, in these conditions it was like sloping slanted sand. Did you like that alliteration?
Nicole Aruffo, RN:Yeah, that was great.
Ed Delesky, MD:Thank you. I'm a poet, oh my God. Well, it's been about 11 minutes and I think our audience is eager to learn 11 minutes, and I think our audience is eager to learn what we are going to talk about today. So what are we going to talk about today, nick?
Nicole Aruffo, RN:Today we're talking about skin cancer and sun protection. Awesome, which will be a timely episode, since we're at Memorial Day in the beginning of summer.
Ed Delesky, MD:Excellent that sounds great. All right. So sun protection is important. You know, this week we're spending some time down at the beach and it made us think to do this episode. So when you think of sun protection, what do you think that is the main thing you're trying to prevent.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:Skin cancer.
Ed Delesky, MD:Yeah, Skin cancer and for our vein people out there aging as well.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:Can't have aging and all of this kind of seems like okay, like none of what we're about to say is a hot take and stay out of the sun. If you're in the sun, wear a sunscreen, which we'll talk more about, but one in five Americans will develop skin cancer at some point in their life, so it sounds like the people need a reminder.
Ed Delesky, MD:Yeah, it's the most common type of cancer and so it definitely deserves a lot of time and attention, which we're going to give it today, awesome. So there are a couple essential protective measures that you can take, essential protective measures that you can take, one of them being seeking shade when we're trying to reduce our chances of sun exposure and skin cancer. So between 10 am and 2 pm, the sun's rays are the strongest.
Ed Delesky, MD:Best time to tan, the best time to tan and the worst time to get skin cancer, and so avoiding the sun during those times is probably the best way to tan and the worst time to get skin cancer, and so avoiding the sun during those times is probably the best way to go.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:So what if you're not avoiding the sun or you're like us and we're on the beach between those times?
Ed Delesky, MD:Yeah, I mean realistically. I know like we're, we got to walk the walk here. I guess, realistically, you should be wearing sun protective clothing and I remember getting lots of lectures in med school about this that, like you'll see dermatologists out there, they are wearing lightweight clothing long sleeve shirts, pants, wide brim hats and sunglasses, all to offer them extra protection from the sun. But there's one big one that you know is not clothing at all. That is a big conversation. What are we thinking about here?
Nicole Aruffo, RN:Sounds like we're talking about sunscreen.
Ed Delesky, MD:We are, and so can you tell us a little bit about. So who needs sunscreen?
Nicole Aruffo, RN:Everybody needs sunscreen, regardless of your skin tone, age, gender, whether you think you don't need sunscreen because you really don't burn, Like I thought. For my entire adolescent and most of my adult life thus far, except in the recent years, I've been really good about wearing sunscreen all the time. But you know that took me a solid 30 years to get to that point.
Ed Delesky, MD:So Right, and you know, like you mentioned earlier, one in five Americans develop skin cancer in their lifetime, which is really disturbing. But not only does not using sunscreen lead to that outcome, but using sunscreen also helps premature skin aging, which is a bit of the zeitgeist, Don't?
Nicole Aruffo, RN:want that and you know any of the girlies who want to shoot up their face, freeze your muscles under there to prevent wrinkles. That's all good and fine, but you can't do that and then not wear sunscreen because you can't fix it from the inside and then have bad skin on the outside. Botox can fix your skin.
Ed Delesky, MD:Botox can fix your skin. So, yeah, so when you're thinking about choosing the right sunscreen, what sorts of recommendations and all of this conversation has been and I'll brought to you by the american academy of dermatology. They have a website. This is their frequently asked questions portion of their website that we're actually just diving into For our episode here. So when we talk about what type of sunscreen, what characteristics it should have, what? So when we talk about what type of sunscreen, what characteristics it should have, what things do we think about?
Nicole Aruffo, RN:So the three main things that you want to look for when you are looking for a sunscreen first is broad spectrum protection. Um, everyone talks about the UV rays, but their UVA and UVB um, the kind of adage is that UVA is for aging and then B is for burning, and then one that's SPF 30 or higher, which really on the scale of SPFs like 30, is not really that high.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:No it's pretty minimal. You'll still get a tan. That's what we use and then also looking for one that's water resistance, for obvious reasons, if you're out at the pool, the lake, the beach, whatever, you're in the water and then obviously sweating.
Ed Delesky, MD:Absolutely. And when we talk about actually using that sunscreen, it's important that you use sunscreen every day on exposed skin, regardless of the weather conditions, because even in cloudy weather, 80% of the harmful UV rays can penetrate and get to you. One thing that was really interesting reading this article is that most adults need about an ounce of sunscreen to cover their body and all of the sun exposed areas, and that is about the amount of a shot glass, which, if you really just take the bottle, turn it over and you're squeezing it into a shot glass, it feels like a lot.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:It's a lot. Yeah, it feels like how my dad applies sunscreen. He, the man, paints his body. Good for him.
Ed Delesky, MD:But don't forget that you have to apply it to the tops of your feet, your neck, ears and the top of your head. For the friends who are not having as much head on the hair on the top of their head recently, skin cancer also can form on the lips, and so people often will find themselves using a lip balm or a lipstick containing sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher, and one key thing when it comes to sunscreen is reapplying, and they offer some good guidance on how often to reapply.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:Yeah, the recommendation is every two hours Seems reasonable. I mean, I feel like when we're on the beach and stuff, like it seems always like you put your sunscreen on when you get to the beach or the pool or wherever, and really the recommendation is to do it about 15 minutes before you're outside.
Ed Delesky, MD:Right.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:And then it seems like it's being reapplied, like if you're like oh, my shoulders feel red, or like my shoulders are hurting, but like you're already burning when you're.
Ed Delesky, MD:so if you just do it every two hours, you can prevent that absolutely, and if you're doing activities like swimming or you're running around and you're sweating a lot, you also should probably reapply after that too, like any topical medication, and so that's something that probably is underdone. I mean yeah, one in five.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:We're guilty of that. We'll be better tomorrow at the beach we certainly are.
Ed Delesky, MD:Tomorrow we'll be better, and so, like we were talking about understanding these UV rays again, uva rays are for aging. They prematurely age skin and they can cause wrinkles and age spots, whereas uvb often leads to the burning type of rays, which are higher risk for skin cancer, which is something that is something we're always thinking about. We were talking about sunscreen a lot, and it does come in all different shapes and sizes. It seems that there are lotions, creams, gels, sticks. Gels, sticks, sprays, lip balms. I think it's all personal preference, and that's what the American Academy of Dermatology was saying too. As long as it gets on your body, the best type of sunscreen is the sunscreen that you actually use. What about this interesting tidbit here about the effectiveness of SPF and how much of the UV rays it actually blocks?
Nicole Aruffo, RN:Yeah. So kind of going back to what I was saying about the three things to look for in your SPF, and the minimum SPF being 30, that's because with an SPF of 30, that's blocking 97% of the UVB rays, which are those burning rays.
Ed Delesky, MD:Yeah, which is crazy, because higher SPF numbers actually don't block sunscreen 100 percent, and if you're already blocking 97 percent of the of the UVB rays, there's only three percent to go, and so using the same amount of SPF doesn't actually accomplish that goal. But what using a higher SPF does do is it gets you more protection with less volume, because we all, I think, tend to underutilize the amount of sunscreen that we should use. But using a higher SPF 40, 50, 60, higher you can use less to be able to get the point across to your body.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:And no sunscreen protects 100% from even SPF 100.
Ed Delesky, MD:Yeah, it doesn't do it.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:Doesn't mean that it's blocking the sun 100%.
Ed Delesky, MD:Absolutely. So what about thinking about sun protection in babies and toddlers? Tell me what's the word on sun protection six months and under in a baby.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:So the general kind of recommendation for the little guys is just to avoid completely keeping them in the shade. Getting your little baby a cute little sun hat and sunglasses that they'll take off in three seconds, but they're still super cute and you can try.
Ed Delesky, MD:And then after that, once you get infants are older than six months, using a particular sunscreen that's for children is the best option, and so, and in terms of infants, there are special types of sunscreens those that contain zinc oxide or titanium dioxide, which may be, less irritating for sensitive skin.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:Yeah, the zinc is like the SPF I use on my face every day has zinc in it. Oh, okay, which I like, specifically because I have eczema and I'll get it like around my eyes and it doesn't bother that.
Ed Delesky, MD:Does the other sunscreen bother it around your eyes?
Nicole Aruffo, RN:though it does. Oh, you know, I'm a delicate little petunia that's getting clipped.
Ed Delesky, MD:Look at little Petunia that's getting clipped and you know it sounds like when you're using all the sunscreen. You're going to be going through it quite a bit, and so there's going to be more sunscreen in the house and you'll have to buy more. But the good news is that sunscreen usually retains its original strength for about three years, or you should just look at the expiration date to make sure that you're not applying something on your skin that has been expired for four or five, six years.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:Yeah, once the sunscreen gets, cause I feel like we've all had a bottle or a couple of like old sunscreen laying around and like your beach bag from 10 summers ago and it kind of gets that like yellow, gross like consistency and color, no good anymore not good anymore okay. So, ed, that's so weird to call you that you can call me eddie eddie okay.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:So, eddie, tell us what if one would be concerned about their vitamin d? And we know that we get a lot of vitamin d from the sun, but we're protecting ourselves from the sun.
Ed Delesky, MD:Right.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:What's the recommendation for that?
Ed Delesky, MD:So if you ask a dermatologist, they'll continue to say avoid the sun. And there are a lot of people in our society who are vitamin D deficient, and so there are recommendations from the AAD to get it in your diet and other forms rather than solely relying on getting it from the sun. Using this much sun protection can actually impact how much vitamin D you have. So it's something to think about, and we're talking about the normal, average, healthy adult. There are certain circumstances and chronic conditions where vitamin D is very important, and obviously, for all of this, you should consult your own doctor. Now, in terms of what happens when this fails, because no one's perfect and at the end of the day, many people get sunburn, and this happens to me at the beginning of every season and because my skin is very fair. I'm not Italian like some people in the room, and so the idea is immediately you should get out of the sun and get inside. But you've helped me in several other ways, like you've given me aloe. We've kept my skin moist.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:We now have aloe in our house because of him.
Ed Delesky, MD:Yeah, and drinking a lot of extra water and it's very soothing. And as for someone who's had a lot of skin peeling and for from sunburn yeah, that bad um the. The word from the american academy of dermatology is to avoid popping the blisters because they can lead to infection infection, which isn't great. So you also should probably prevent that skin that was burned from getting burned again, and so staying out of the sun after you get burned is important as well, and I think that's the word on sun sunscreen for now yeah yeah, and sunburn and protection.
Ed Delesky, MD:So so SPF 30 is the way to go, or up.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:And maybe after everyone listens to our podcast. Next time all of these statistics come out, it'll be less than one in 5% of.
Ed Delesky, MD:Americans. Maybe one in six. Maybe one in six? That'd be great. So thank you for coming back to another week of your Checkup. Today, hopefully, you were able to learn something for yourself, a loved one or a neighbor. Please check us out on our Instagram, check out our website to find all of our old episodes, or, wherever you listen to podcasts, you can sign up for our email list. It's available in the description wherever you listen to podcasts, and my one call to action for you all this week is really share this with anyone who spends any amount of time in the sun. So, basically, I'm just asking you to share this episode with a friend or a neighbor, as we continue to try to get the message out for the work that we're doing here. Thank you for coming back and, most importantly, stay healthy, my friends. Until next time. I'm Ed Dolesky.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:I'm Nicole Rufo.
Ed Delesky, MD:Thank you and goodbye.
Nicole Aruffo, RN:Bye.
Ed Delesky, MD:This information may provide a brief overview of diagnosis, treatment and medications. It's not exhaustive and is a tool to help you understand potential options about your health. It doesn't cover all details about conditions, treatments or medications for a specific person. Thank you use. This content doesn't endorse any treatments or medications for a specific patient. Always talk to your healthcare provider for complete information tailored to you. In short, I'm not your doctor, I am not your nurse, and make sure you go get your own checkup with your own personal doctor.
