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[music] Hello, I’m Dr. Neal Schultz
[pause]
and welcome to DermTV.
A lot of people know by now that you can’t get a sunburn through window
glass, whether it’s on your car or whether it’s at home in your room with a
lot of windows or even in your office. That’s because window glass blocks
all the UVB rays which are they rays that cause sunburn and do contribute
to skin cancer. But that window glass has no effect on UVA rays, UVA rays
are the rays that cause premature aging of the skin and also are important
in contributing to skin cancer. A question that I’m often asked is, if I’m
in my room, with a lot of windows and I also have a lot of mirrors, can the
mirrors additionally reflect the UV light and cause more damage and the
short answer is, those mirrors will reflect all the UVA light but none of
the UVB light. Let’s take a look at this. Most mirrors are just a piece of
flat glass with a coating on the back of aluminum. Some of them have
silver, but most of them today are aluminum. We already know that when the
light goes through the glass all the UVB is absorbed, so even if you’re at
home with your windows open and UVB comes in once it hits the mirror it’s
going to be absorbed by the glass, the UVB is gone. But aluminum, the
backing on the mirror, is a very effective reflector of UVA and we also
know that the glass doesn’t stop the UVA so that’s the reason the mirrors
reflect almost all of the UVA light and none of the UVB light. So, mirror,
mirror on the wall, which UV do you reflect to all? UVA my dear, and that
just one more reason to wear sunscreen every day, indoors or out, with an
SPF of between 15 and 30 and
UVA protection.