SUNTANS CAN KILL YOU

Combined Reports

Sunbathing only became popular in the 1930s, and soon almost everyone believed a bronzed body was a symbol of fitness and vigour. Before, it was re­garded as a mark of having to work at a menial, low-status job to be tanned, and those who could afford to deliberately avoided overexposure to the sun's harmful rays.

Then the designer Coco Chanel returned from a holiday in the South of France sporting a suntan, and a trend was born.

The lure of a bronzed skin is acknowledged even by scientists only too aware of its potentially dangerous effects, such as Dr. Antony Young, a senior skin photo-biologist at St.Thomas's Hospital, London. "We are conditioned to think of tanned bodies as being sexually attractive", he says. "Personally, 1 think that fish-white skin that has never seen the sun is unattractive, but equally, really heavily tanned skin just looks old leather - which is where the word 'tan' comes from".

The latest research shows that baking in the sun may be one of the most dan­gerous things you can do.

Exposing our bodies to the sun is one of the riskiest things we do. Medical experts agree that ultraviolet (UV) rays from the sun are the chief cause of skin cancer, which accounts for nearly one third of all cancer.

The scientists who know more about human skin than anyone else confirm that all suntanning is dangerous - no exceptions.

A suntan is not a sign of health. It is a crude defence mechanism: your body's desperate - and always unsuccessful - attempt to protect you from damage that can be irreparable. Your system throws a dark curtain of pigment called melanin over you to keep dangerous UV radiation from doing even more harm. But it is too late. Once a suntan appears, the damage has already taken place.

Unfortunately, even those at lower risk are not immune to skin cancer or other ravages of the sun.

People who tan now may pay later. And the price they pay may be high: skin cancer, ugly aged skin, impaired vision and a damaged immune system. With all those risks, who needs a suntan?

Dermatologists know from several studies that sunburn in childhood can be particularly dangerous. These studies show, for example, that white children who spent the first five years of their lives in South Africa or Australia are two to three times more likely than average to develop maligqant melanoma.

Another risk factor is skin type. Northern Europeans, particularly those with red or fair hair, light-coloured eyes and fair skin, are most vulnerable to malig­nant melanoma. Also, an abnormally large number of moles (more than 100 in young people, more than 50 in older people) seem to increase the likelihood of developing the disease.

Last year, the 1,300 deaths from malignant melanoma were divided equally between men and women, but far more women than men actually develop it -seven cases in women to every four in men. The reasons for the variation may be connected with hormonal differences or sunbathing habits, and are not yet fully understood by doctors.

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 1378