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Doctors call them ephelides. Sweet Aunt Tildy calls them sun kisses. But whatever you call them, freckles are harmless skin spots the size of a pinhead. When they overlap or run together, they look bigger.

Under a microscope, skin cells look like a flat layer of paving stones. Some of these cells make melanin-a chemical that colors skin brown-black and helps protect it from the sun. A freckle is just a buildup of melanin at one spot in the skin. Light-skinned people have less melanin than dark-skinned people, but people of all races can have freckles. Light-skinned people with red or blond hair have the most.

Freckles usually appear on parts of the body exposed to the sun-your face, hands, shoulders, arms, and upper back and chest. Some freckles stick around all the time. Others come out in summer and fade in winter. That's because the sun's ultraviolet rays cause the skin's melanin-making cells to make more melanin. Instead of tanning evenly, people who start out with less melanin in their skin tend to freckle.

Like hair, eye, and skin color, freckles are inherited. Scientists in the Netherlands recently discovered a freckle gene. So if you think you have too many (or too few) freckles, blame your parents.

Copyright Carus Publishing Company Oct 2004
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved