El Pasoans at greater risk for skin cancer
By Martin Bartlett |
There is no such thing as a safe tan. Sun-worshippers who are flocking to Borderland pools and barbecues to soak up our abundant, red hot sunshine won’t like to hear it, but doctors say it’s just a cold hard fact about skin cancer.
“There is no immunity to it whatsoever,” said Dr. Karen Herman of the Dermatology Center of El Paso. “That’s not just from May to September.”
Living in the El Paso-Las Cruces-Juarez area places patients at an especially high risk for skin cancer, she said.
“We live in a climate where we’re able to be outdoors most of the year,” she said. “We are at a high elevation which gives us even less protection form the Ozone Layer.”
In addition to climate and geography, Herman said the Chihuahuan Desert’s low humidity robs skin of moisture, which is a natural barrier against sun exposure.
That’s why it’s especially important to take precautions.
She said it is crucial to use sunscreen each morning. Most sunscreen consumers pay close attention to the SPF rating printed on the bottle. SPF, though, only indicates the length of time a product will offer protection from the sun’s UVB rays, which causes sunburns.
However, it is the UVA rays that doctors say pose a greater risk. They cause wrinkles, sun spots and skin cancer.
“Even on days when it’s grey outside or cloudy, you still have the UVA rays that are penetrating through and hitting our skin,” Herman said.
If a sunscreen doesn’t offer protection from UVA rays, she said, it can do little to protect against skin cancer. In 2007, the Food and Drug Administration urged manufacturers to stop claiming that sunscreens prevent cancer, according to the FDA’s Web site.
Dr. Darrick Antell, a New York-based plastic surgeon and spokesman for the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, said he’s seen plenty of people who have had way too much sun exposure walk through the doors of his Park Avenue office.
“While I love the sun,” he said, “people need to practice safe sun.”
He’s done several studies on sun exposure. A notable one involved one twin who got a lot of sun and another who limited sun exposure. He said the conclusion is unambiguous: “People with more sun exposure age more rapidly.”
While much of Antell’s work is devoted to cosmetics, he said the health and wellness impact of sun exposure is simply undeniable. “Not only does it cause more wrinkles in the skin, it causes more skin cancer,” he said.
Antell, 57, said many of his contemporaries are paying the price today for years of unprotected sun exposure in their youth.
“Much of the damage was done when we were teenagers; sadly, I think we created the problem years ago,” he said.
Present day sun-worshippers need to get over that old idea of a healthy glow, doctors say. A large community of Internet users, though, touts the idea of using the sun to help with the body’s natural production of Vitamin D.
The Vitamin D Council calls itself “a group of concerned citizens that believe many humans are needlessly suffering and dying from Vitamin D Deficiency.” The organizations claims that sun exposure can help pump up the body’s production of Vitamin D and actually fight diseases like cancer, mental illness and autism.
Most of the mainstream medical community is skeptical, though. The group even recommends regularly spending time in the sun without wearing any sunscreen.
“We have not seen problems with people having a ‘D’ deficiency,” Herman said. “You have to hibernate to not get some Vitamin D from the sun.”
She said you get enough sun to bolster Vitamin D production just from being near a window or walking to your car in a sunny parking lot.
In a place like El Paso, she said, there’s more danger in getting too much sun exposure than in not getting enough.
“We’re not called the Sun City for nothing,” she said.
Comments or questions about this story? E-mail news@elpasoinc.com
|
|
