if our skin cells are constantly dying and being replaced by new ones, how can a bad sunburn turn into cancer YEARS down the line?

Question

if our skin cells are constantly dying and being replaced by new ones, how can a bad sunburn turn into cancer YEARS down the line?

In: 3306

Answer 1

All it takes is one damaged cell.

Then that divides and passes on the damage.

Harmless at first because it isnt too broken, but every new copy frays juuuust a little more until one bad split.

That one bad split has that cell go ABSOLUTELY BONKERS possibly even recruiting all of the cells near it with that damage to start joining it, being considered “one of us” by the broken cell.

Since these cells are just trying to split and split and “repair” damage that isnt there, the cells start filling a gap that isnt there.

Normally the body sees broken cells and gets rid of them like any other foriegn material, but these cells break in juuuust such a way that the body still thinks they’re ok and, so, ignores them.

So, that tiny mole from sun exposure could, years down the line, have one of those melanin producing cells break and suddenly you have melanoma. Like making a copy of a copy of a copy on a copy machine, if you spill something on the page, it might not show too poorly on the first copy. But by the 11th copy of a copy that faint grey from the background might become a big garbled mess as more and more data gets corrupted.