Skin Cancer Risk Greater for Rich Women

A research study from the Archives of Dermatology observed the rate of melanoma for young women with different income levels. They found the rate of melanoma was the greatest in the group with the largest incomes. New diagnoses were also growing the fastest for the richest women. The study uncovered some startling results.

1. Teens and women in the top 20 percent of wealth were six times more likely to be diagnosed with melanoma than their counterparts in the bottom 20 percent.

2. For teens and women in the bottom 40 percent of income level, melanoma rates did not increase over the course of the study. For all other groups, the rate of diagnosis increased during the study periods. (Source: LATimes.com)

This information appears both peculiar and reasonable at the same time. Why would those with the most money be at greater risk for a deadly skin cancer? The answer appears simply to be extra leisure time and money fuel the pursuit of vanity-related activities. Tanning in the modern, industrialized countries became fashionable partly due to the influence of Coco Chanel, the fashion designer, who was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Important People of the Century. An accidental tan while vacationing was assumed by some of her fans to be intentional, so they also started tanning. Bathing suits also started shrinking, all the way down to the bikini. By that time not being tan was the unfashionable thing, even to the point of making jokes about it. In the late 1970s tanning beds began to appear so some people could try to maintain their skin-damaging ways in winter in cold locations. Tanning today is a multi-billion dollar industry, and a health hazard.

Clearly it is those with extra income to travel to warm weather climes during harsh winters and pursue artificial tanning, with electric beds, creams, or fake bakes who are continuing the trend started decades ago. Tanning is not healthy, a fact that has not deterred too many people from seeking out the sun or artificial means. Melanoma is thought to account for about 9,000 deaths per year in the United States. Many of these melanoma cases are avoidable through common sense measures such as limiting sun exposure. Tanning, however, is just the opposite. Sun worshippers deliberately expose themselves to sunlight, which obviously is radiation.

It is precisely the fair-skinned who are at the most risk from skin cancer due to excessive sunlight exposure. The American Cancer Society has identified the following risk factors:

* Unprotected and/or excessive exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation

* Fair complexion

* Occupational exposures to coal tar, pitch, creosote, arsenic compounds, or radium

* Family history

* Multiple or atypical moles

* Severe sunburns as a child

Cultural practices, no matter how self-destructive, are not easily broken even if there is an openness to change for the individuals involved in the practice.  So even though skin cancer kills many people each year, it is unlikely in the immediate future tanning will cease.

Image Credit: Onetwo1

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