What Causes Age Spots on the Hands?
Age spots are caused by ultraviolet light. When you go out in the sun, UV rays make the body produce melanin at a faster than normal rate. Melanin is the substance that is located in the epidermis, and it gives your complexion its natural colouring.
Extra melanin in the skin makes it turn darker after exposure to the sun. How deeply tanned you can become depends on how much melanin you happen to have. Age spots and melanin are related because age spots are caused by excess melanin becoming clumped in one spot.
Your generic history plays a part in how likely it is that you will develop age spots as you reach middle age. If your mother or close relatives have a large number of age spots, then you are more likely to develop them too.
Also as the body ages, it produces melanin in higher amounts. Age spots are the result of these higher levels of melanin in the body and are just another factor in the ageing process.
If your hands have patches of paler colour skin this is a condition called Vitiligo. This is where areas of the skin “loose pigmentation” as opposed to age spots which in simplicity “gain pigmentation”.
There is a lot of debate around the cause which is due to skin cells that produce melanin either dieing or becoming damaged and then ceasing to function. Therefore no melanin is produced and the skin in that area has no colour and so looks paler than the rest the skin. Globally this affects less than 1% of people but can be distressing especially on a dark skin tone.
Other changes to the hands that may happen around the same time as age spots are surface lines on the back of your hands, dry and parched skin, dry cuticles, and brittle, weak and splitting nails. The skin on the hands may also take on a more translucent and thin appearance making veins more visible.