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Most of us already know just how harmful those sun rays can be…others need a little more proof. So if it’s proof you want, proof you get.

This 69 year-old-man had driven a delivery truck for 28 years…during those long years ultraviolet A (UVA) rays transmited through the window glass of his truck, penetrating the epidermis and upper layers of dermis.

The result… asymptomatic thickening and wrinkling of the skin on the left side of his face.

The case was discovered and studied by Jennifer R.S. Gordon and Joaquin C. Brieva, dermatologists at Northwestern University, and published in the New England Journal of Medicine:

Chronic UVA exposure can result in thickening of the epidermis and stratum corneum, as well as destruction of elastic fibers. This photoaging effect of UVA is contrasted with photocarcinogenesis.

Although exposure to ultraviolet B (UVB) rays is linked to a higher rate of photocarcinogenesis, UVA has also been shown to induce substantial DNA mutations and direct toxicity, leading to the formation of skin cancer.

We all knew that being exposed to the sun makes you age prematurely, but seeing the dramatic difference in a single face is just shocking.

[Cheers gizmodo]