There was a report on the Iowa Public Radio recently that shows that the rates of melanoma are dramatically increasing. According to the Director of the University of Iowa’s Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center, Dr. George Weiner, the increase can be considered an epidemic.
Now, Iowa is not exactly Florida, right? So what is causing this tremendous increase? Dr. Weiner notes that the increase is most evident in young women who tan indoors. As he states, “In girls who tan versus those who don’t, melanoma skin cancer is 70 times common”. Let that sink in… 70 times more common. That’s alarming!
The news article can be found here. I’ve already ranted on a previous post about how young people and the indoor tanning industry dismiss the risks of tanning beds. I wonder if in the future, society will look back on our tanning bed culture and shake their heads the way we do now when we learn that patent medicines in the 1800s contained all kinds of poisons.
One good thing – while my husband’s 21-year-old cousin was in town on her last full day, we had a discussion about sunscreen, that started because she asked me when I started moisturizing my face. I told her that I was really obsessive about it right around her age. That led into a discussion about sunscreen. She said that her mom really drilled into her head that she needed to wear sunscreen all the time. I agreed but then I asked her the killer question – do you go to tanning beds? She squirmed a little and said she did – but that she didn’t go that often. I said that it was not a good thing for her to do at all if she wanted to keep her skin healthy. I told her that the rates of melanoma in young girls who tanned indoors was skyrocketing. I then took that moment to roll up my pant leg and show her my scar. This is from melanoma, I said. I didn’t tan indoors and I still got it. Anything you can do to reduce the risk is worth it. Self-tanners are far safer and give you better results anyway.
I think looking at the scar really shocked her but was also a very visceral reminder that bad stuff can happen and you need to try to reduce the risks whenever you can, even if you think it’ll never happen to you.