A doctor is encouraging people to look up one thing on their phone every day to slash their risk of a deadly disease that kills more than 3,000 people in the UK annually. NHS surgeon, Doctor Karan Rajan - who is known online as Dr Raj, shared his vital tip for preventing skin cancer on social media platform TikTok. Dr Raj revealed there is a simple way to check on your mobile phone whether you need to apply sunscreen that day.
According to Dr Raj, weather apps will tell you the ultraviolet (UV) index for the day, with certain levels needing extra caution in order to keep the skin healthy. Speaking to his more than 5.3 million followers, he explained: “I found out only this year that you can look at the UV index on your mobile phone.
If you go on your weather app, it gives you the UV index for the day on your phone.” Wearing sunscreen can not only help protect against cancer but also reduces the appearance of ageing, he said. “The issue about sunscreen is there's two things, right?” Dr Raj continued.
“UV rays increasing your risk of cancer versus UV rays increasing the risk of photo ageing and just aesthetic damage.” He warned that if you are fair skinned you will need to apply sunscreen on a daily basis - or if the UV index is at around three. Dr Raj said: “Now, if I didn't care about photo ageing and the sun making you look older and I only cared about the skin cancer, if I'm in the UK where it's probably UV index three, most of the year, do I need to wear suns.