Melanoma is among the most common cancers to affect Americans.
The Skin Cancer Foundation reports that “Over the past three years, more individuals have had skin cancer than all other cancers combined.”
But current studies suggest that these data may be skewed.
Over-Diagnosing Melanoma Cancer
A 2009 study in the British Journal of Dermatology discovered that sun exposure might not be the true cause of skin cancer, not in the way we know it.
They discovered that the increase in skin cancer lesions reported in the United States does not correspond truly malignant lesions. It was discovered that health experts are quick to diagnose patients with cancer even if their moles are non-cancerous.
The researchers concluded: “The distribution of the lesions reported did not correspond to the sites of lesions brought on by solar exposure. These findings need to lead to a reconsideration of the treatment of ‘early’ lesions, a look for better diagnostic methods to differentiate them from truly deadly cancer malignancies, re-evaluation of the role of ultraviolet radiation and recommendations for protection from it, along with the need for new instructions in the search for the cause of melanoma.”
Moreover, the fairly stable cases of deaths brought on by skin cancer did not correspond to the ever-increasing number of patients suffering from the disease.
A review of 4,000 cases found that there was an annual increase of 9.39 to 13.91 cases per 100,000 per year between 1991-2004. The researchers concluded that this increase was primarily due to an over-diagnosis of non-cancerous lesions.
They wrote: “There was no change in the combined occurrence of the other stages of the disease, and the overall death just increased from 2.16 to 2.54 cases per 100,000 per year … We therefore conclude that the big increase in reported incidence is likely to be due to diagnostic drift, which categorizes benign lesions as stage 1 melanoma.”
The Melanoma-Sun Exposure Link
Cancer charities and research groups have been informing us for several years that sun exposure triggers skin cancer, however this isn’t really totally true.
While the issue caused by sunburns can contribute to problems in the skin and melanoma, research study shows that high skin cancer rates are affecting a very specific population: indoor workers with light skin.
Professionals suggest that there’s almost no proof at all to support the claim that sun exposure causes melanoma. Several research studies have actually likewise found that regular sun exposure helps prevent skin cancer. This is because regular sun direct exposure allows your body to adapt to the severe impacts of the sun while also increasing your vitamin D levels (a cancer-fighting vitamin), which your body produces when your skin gets some rays.
A short article in the distinguished scientific journal The Lancet suggests that cancer malignancy occurrence has actually been discovered to decrease with greater sun exposure, and can be increased by sunscreens. The author argues that indoor workers receive 3-9 times less UV exposure than outside employees yet just indoor employees have increasing rates of cancer malignancy.
To explain, the sun produces both UVA and UVB rays. Both rays trigger tanning and burning. UVB rays allow your body to produce vitamin D, however they burn your skin quicker. UVA rays penetrate your skin more deeply and lead to photoaging, wrinkles and skin cancers.
Most windows block out UVB rays, but enable UVA rays to penetrate through.
The researchers responsible for the latest studies on the subject of skin cancer and sun exposure said:
“We assume that one factor involves indoor exposures to UVA (321– 400nm) going through windows, which can trigger mutations and can break down vitamin D3 formed after outdoor UVB (290– 320nm) exposure, and the other factor involves low levels of cutaneous vitamin D3.
After vitamin D3 forms, cancer malignancy cells can convert it to the hormone, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3, or calcitriol, which causes growth inhibition and apoptotic cell death in vitro and in vivo.
… We agree that intense, intermittent outside UV too much exposures and sunburns start CMM (cutaneous deadly melanoma); we now propose that increased UVA exposures and inadequately maintained cutaneous levels of vitamin D3 promotes CMM.”
Using The Sun To Your Benefit
The idea in healthy sun exposure is to spend as much time in the sun as you can and never get burned. If you have light skin, this might be only 10-20 minutes during peak UVB hours (10am-1pm). If you have darker skin, it may take your body a long time to reach peak vitamin D production.
Sunscreen and long-sleeved clothes can stop the rays in their tracks, so make sure to provide the sun some real estate by exposing your arms and/or shoulders while outside. If you’re going to be outside for a long period of time, soak up the sun for a bit and cover or use some homemade sun block to protect your skin from burning.
Source: dailyhealthpost.com
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