The Link Between UV Sensitivity and Skin Color

Recently, scientists took samples of skin, ranging in color from light to dark, and exposed these samples to increasing amounts of ultraviolet light. After each exposure, the samples were tested for amount of redness, DNA damage, cell death, and level of p53 accumulation. p53 is a biological pathway linked to skin cancer. Increasing levels of p53 are linked to greater possibility of developing skin cancer.

Anyway, each type of skin was measured on these various factors, and scientists found that for light, medium, and tanned skin, UV damage was apparent throughout all the layers of the skin, while for the brown or dark skin, damage was more restricted to certain layers; the ones just under the top layer.

This means that lighter skin tends to absorb UV damage more quickly and more deeply than dark skin, and is more likely to develop skin cancer.

This is something that you may have intuitively known, or believed to be true, but it's now been shown accurate by scientific studies. This means, too, that people with lighter or fairer skin really can't risk too much UV exposure before exhibiting skin cell damage.

Taking this a bit further, this would mean that light or fair skinned people are prone to aging more quickly and becoming more wrinkled with less damage than their darker skinned counterparts.