We used to believe that the sun’s rays funneled health into our bodies. After all, we look healthy with a tan: the darker the tan, the more robust we appear, right? Besides, the sun puts vitamin D into our skin, right?
Wrong. Except for the part about vitamin D, we’ve learned that these ideas are very dangerous. The healthy “look” actually is a mirage, or a mask for illness and worse.
The relatively modern craving for a suntanned skin has in recent years ignited a worldwide epidemic of deadly melanoma, a skin cancer that experts recently have projected to kill 7,300 Americans annually – with 1 in every 105 contracting melanoma in a lifetime and facing a l-in-5 chance of dying of it.
These figures come from Dr. Darrell Rigel, a clinical assistant professor of dermatology at New York University Medical Center in Manhattan. He has been tracking this cancer for 11 years.
“Melanoma is increasing faster than any other cancer in the United States,” says Dr. Rigel. “Ten years ago, it was unusual to see someone under 40 with melanoma. Now it is common in people in their 20s and 30s.”
Dr. Rigel’s figures about melanoma and the death rate seem optimistic, compared with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announcement that the Earth’s protective ozone layer is dwindling twice as rapidly as had been expected. Worldwide data gathered by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s satellites moved the EPA to predict that the thinning of the atmosphere’s ozone shield will admit even more of the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays and lead to as many as 12 million skin cancers and more than 200,000 skin cancer deaths in the United States in the course of the next 50 years.
The depletion of ozone worsens as you get closer to the North and South Poles. In the United States, it is worst in areas north of a line reaching from Reno, Nevada, to Denver to Philadelphia. Large parts of Europe and regions around the equator also are affected. Worst in the world, however, is the “ozone hole” detected over Antarctica during the winter months. The depletion of ozone previously was thought to cease in warmer months, but it now has been found to continue into April and May, when people start spending more time outdoors.
The chief cause for this depletion of our ozone shield is said to be chloro-fluorocarbons and other chemicals that eat away the ozone. The threat of global warming worsens as the diminishing ozone layer lets in more of the sun’s ultraviolet rays and our atmosphere’s increasing “greenhouse” gases form a thickening blanket around the Earth and prevent its heat from escaping into space. Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predict the planet’s warming will speed up in the next century.
In the last century, sun-bronzed skin signaled low social status – farmhands, construction workers, and others who labored outdoors. Pale skin marked an upper-class background, particularly in women. The reverse is often true today. A tan can denote a person with enough wealth and leisure time to pursue outdoor sports and/or bask in the sun for hours.
Australia – south of the equator, with plenty of sunshine and many fair-haired, fair-skinned citizens of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic origin who like the great outdoors – has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world. According to one survey, a third of all Australians will develop at least one skin cancer. Australia holds a yearly National Skin Cancer Awareness Week, during which literature and posters are distributed and dermatologists hold free skin cancer screenings.
Australians seem to be growing more cautious about sun exposure.
Karin Eskenazi, of Manhattan – a former sun-worshipper, blond, fair, and freckled – had a melanoma one-third the diameter of a pencil eraser removed from her left shin when she was 24 years old. Says Ms. Eskenazi, “For years, I’ve taken winter vacations in sunny places like Florida and Mexico. I worked outdoors one summer, and I did have a blistering sunburn when I was 12.1 fit the high-risk profile.”
Luckily, she had noticed the new growth on her leg and quickly consulted a dermatologist. The doctor diagnosed her cancer when it was quite new and thin – only 1/32 of an inch, as slim as a postcard. At this stage, doctors can excise the melanoma and can promise an almost 100 percent cure rate. Up to4/32 of an inch, the survival rate drops to 50 percent. If a growth exceeds that thickness, the person’s life expectancy plummets.
Clearly, getting a doctor’s care promptly is a matter of life or death.
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