Will young people develop age spots if they stay up late? Young people do develop age spots, but the reason is...

Rumor: "Young people who stay up late will develop age spots"

Some time ago, there was a hot search saying that a 25-year-old woman in Jinan, Shandong, basically never went to bed before 12 o'clock. She developed age spots due to staying up late for a long time, which aroused the attention and anxiety of many people - does staying up late really cause age spots?

Rumor analysis: This statement is not accurate.

The factors that make you prone to age spots are not staying up late, but genetics and age. Long-term sun exposure may also be related to age spots, but staying up late is not a risk factor. This news should be "A woman who likes to stay up late has age spots", not "A woman has age spots because of staying up late". There is no causal relationship between staying up late and age spots.

In this news, staying up late is a fact, and age spots should also be a fact. But the problem is that there is no causal relationship between the two. Why do I say this? Let's continue reading.

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The real reason for age spots is...

Because the factors that make people prone to age spots are not staying up late, but genetics and age. If someone in the family has age spots, the probability of their offspring having spots will be higher than that of the general population. In addition, the older you are, the greater the probability of having spots. Even at the age of 25, there is a certain risk of having age spots. Someone in Australia has calculated that 15.7% of people aged 15 to 19 have age spots, and the incidence rate of people aged 15 to 30 increases to 32.3%. If you are over 50 years old, almost 100% of people have age spots. What is puzzling is why young people also have age spots? The answer is simple. The name "age spots" is not accurate, and this misnomer is very common in medicine. The proper name of age spots is seborrheic keratosis. In addition to genetics and age, long-term sun exposure may also be related to age spots, and the only risk factor is not staying up late. What everyone does not know is that staying up late has taken a lot of blame for our health. For example, many people have androgenic alopecia, which is originally inherited, but is often mistakenly believed to be caused by staying up late. This attribution error is very common. Everyone should look at it rationally and not be misled by online information.

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What should I do if I have age spots?

First of all, if you suspect you have age spots and want to treat them, the best way is to see a dermatologist, and then do two things: first, further evaluate and confirm the diagnosis. Because there are many other "spots" that may look the same as age spots, it is difficult for ordinary people to distinguish them, such as sun spots (solar sunspots caused by sun exposure), flat warts (a type of HPV infection of the skin), actinic keratosis (a skin hyperplasia related to sun exposure and skin aging), basal cell carcinoma (the most common skin malignancy). Second, discuss with your doctor and develop a plan. The first thing to do is to see whether to treat it and when to treat it. This is because age spots are almost painless and itchy, change slowly, and will not become malignant. Therefore, if you are not bothered by it and it does not affect your appearance, you can choose not to treat it temporarily. If you want to treat it, the better and more classic method is for the doctor to perform destructive treatment, such as:

Liquid nitrogen cryotherapy: This is a very cold liquid that freezes away lesions;

· Surgical treatment: Depending on the nature of the lesion and the doctor’s experience, surgical methods such as excision, shaving, and scraping may be chosen to directly remove the lesion.

If you want to use home medication for treatment (such as tretinoin ointments), you should be cautious, because topical medications are not very effective and are not the first recommended option. Even if they are effective, it may take weeks to months to see the results, and there is a certain probability of side effects, such as redness, peeling, and irritation of the skin.

Even if you don't have spots, you should be careful about staying up late

Although staying up late has nothing to do with age spots, it is generally not good. After all, we humans are also living creatures and need proper rest. According to the National Sleep Foundation, adults usually need 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night to maintain optimal health and performance. This is the recommended range for most adults. However, there are individual differences and it cannot be generalized, because some studies also believe that adults can relax their sleep time to between 6 and 10 hours per night. In addition to the length of sleep, the quality of sleep is also very important. Good sleep quality includes: enough deep sleep and a regular schedule. In addition, from a health perspective, we also recommend avoiding stimulation before bedtime, such as avoiding excessive use of electronic devices, drinking coffee or strenuous exercise, which may affect falling asleep and the depth of sleep. Finally, we would like to say that with the accelerated pace of modern life, staying up late has become the norm for many people. But the real cause of age spots is genetics, age and long-term sun exposure. At the same time, we must also understand that good sleep habits are essential to maintaining health. When facing the skin problem of age spots, we should not trust unverified online information, but seek professional medical advice. If you are diagnosed with senile plaques, you can choose the appropriate treatment plan based on your personal situation and the doctor's advice. Let us treat health problems with a scientific attitude and protect our health with rational actions!

Looking in the mirror of rumors

There is a type of rumor, or logical fallacy, called "attribution fallacy". The rumor analyzed in this article is a type of attribution fallacy - "post hoc", which means that one thing happened before another thing and is considered to be the cause of the latter. For example, "I met a black cat and then hit my head against the door frame. It must be the black cat that brought me bad luck" is also this kind of fallacy. Everyone should pay attention to it in life.

References

[1]https://www.uptodate.com/contents/seborrheic-keratosis

[2]Barthelmann S, Butsch F, Lang BM, et al. Seborrheic keratosis. J Dtsch Dermatol Ges. 2023; 21(3): 265-277.

[3]Zare P, Ramezani M. Seborrheic keratosis in an adolescent: A rare presentation. Clin Case Rep. 2023; 11(7): e7697.

[4]National Sleep Foundation. How much sleep do we really need? https://www.thensf.org/how-many-hours-of-sleep-do-you-really-need/

[5] UpToDate. Seborrheic keratosis. https://www.uptodate.com/contents/en/seborrheic-keratosis

Author: Tang Jiaoqing, MD, Chief Physician of Dermatology

Review | Feng Jun, deputy chief physician of the Dermatology Department of Sinopharm Tongmei General Hospital