New research in suggests that sunscreen cannot be relied upon alone to prevent malignant melanoma, the deadly form of skin cancer.

The research appeared in Nature: “This research adds important evidence showing that sunscreen has a role, but that you shouldn’t just rely on this to protect your skin,” says Dr Julie Sharp, Cancer Research UK.

The research supports public health campaigns that ask people to both use sunscreen and cover up their skin with clothing.

The Nature study attempted to explain the mechanism in which UV light can cause melanoma, and scientists examined the molecular effects of UV light on the skin of mice at risk of melanoma, and if disease development was blocked by sunscreen.

Crucially, the researchers show that UV light damages the skin cells and causes faults in the p53 gene, which normally helps protect from the effects of DNA damage.

Sunscreen can greatly reduce DNA damage and slow the development of cancer. But protection from sunscreen is not complete.

Professor Richard Marais, study author and Cancer Research UK scientist, based at the University of Manchester, says: “UV light has long been known to cause melanoma skin cancer, but exactly how this happens has not been clear. These studies allow us to begin to understand how UV light causes melanoma.

“This work highlights the importance of combining sunscreen with other strategies to protect our skin, including wearing hats and loose fitting clothing, and seeking shade when the sun is at its strongest.”

Dr Julie Sharp, head of health information at Cancer Research UK, said: “We’ve known for some time that sunscreen, when applied properly, can help protect our skin from the harmful effects of the sun’s rays. But people tend to think they’re invincible once they’ve put it on and end up spending longer out in the sun, increasing their overall exposure to UV rays.

“This research adds important evidence showing that sunscreen has a role, but that you shouldn’t just rely on this to protect your skin. It’s essential to get into good sun safety habits, whether at home or abroad, and take care not to burn – sunburn is a clear sign that the DNA in your skin cells has been damaged and, over time, this can lead to skin cancer.

“When the sun is strong, pop on a t-shirt, spend some time in the shade and use a sunscreen with at least SPF15 and good UVA protection.”

Image of sunscreen on back from Shutterstock

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Some wacky bleeding sent me to the doctor ages after my menstrual ship set its last sail (could that pricey skin cream be reversing the whole biological clock?). The doctor peers inside me and says, “Oh.”

Oh?

He writes a stack of ‘scripts for a litany of tests and says be back tomorrow for a biopsy. I whisper, is this serious?  He says 50/50 – don’t worry.  Throwaway advice that’s impossible to heed.

So I spend the day at Jordan Hospital getting poked and pricked. Here, you take a paper ticket for each procedure, patients served by number like a medical bakery. Your ticket is called; you register and pay the cashier, have the test, then take another number.  My 80 words of decent Arabic relate to taxi directions and food, so comic relief when chatting to nurses is rampant.

I go home, try to be calm despite imagining all manner of organ-chewing cancers throwing a rave in my belly. See, I had a funny friend who filled a coffin one month after getting tagged with ovarian cancer. I think about brilliant comedic actresses Gilda Radner and Madeleine Kahn, both felled by the disease. It doesn’t matter that my doc said “cervix”. It doesn’t matter that there’s no family history here, I never smoked, and I floss. I begin to suspect that wise-assness is hazardous to your health.  I’m doomed.

I think Please God I need two more years to get the kid launched into college.  Then I need to marry off my husband so she’ll have a decent new mom.  The Universe contracts.  It’s me alone on a blackened stage, a blinding spotlight pinpointed on my gut.  I’ve never been so terrified.

Next day, I’m admitted for the surgery. Doc is a handsome older Arab with a blunt bedside manner. As they prep to knock me out, I start crying like a newborn and he wipes my face and pats my stomach and chants don’t worry, don’t worry, and, incredibly, tells me he’ll sing me a song.

And there, in pre-op, surrounded by busy nurses and moaning pregnant women awaiting their cesarean sections, he starts to warble the refrain from the 1950’s tune Que Sera, Sera which (for readers who don’t speak Doris Day or Spanish) means “whatever will be, will be”.

Are you f**king kidding me?

Muslims have a very real acceptance of bad stuff.  It’s that powerful Insha’Allah thing.  It’s God’s will, so why worry or rage?  It’s a larger spiritual riff on Mad Magazine’s earsome cover boy Alfred E. Newman: “What, me worry?” But  this American control freak could more easily swallow a bus than that peaceful mindset.

(Afterwards, friends say it’s remarkable that my doctor even intimated anything could be wrong: it seems Jordanian husbands/fathers/sons are typically given their wives’/daughters’/mothers’ diagnoses first, possibly to avoid the drama played out by my wailing pregnant roommates – histrionics and keening I’d only ever witnessed at Italian Catholic funerals.)

That oddball pairing of excellent modern medicine with archaic paternalistic tradition was a good conundrum to chew on if only to get my head working on something other than my immediate problem.

When I awake, the crooning doc reappears, visibly happier. Produces a specimen jar with what looks to be a purple thumb bobbing in saline. Says he’s 90% sure it’s all fine. He says, “Looks like a polyp.  Lab will have test results in a few days.” I leave the hospital feeling like I dodged a meteorite, although I won’t feel completely fine until the lab results are in.

I didn’t think I needed a new perspective “snap”, but I got it anyhow. You betcha, each day is winning lotto ticket.

So the moral to this story: get yourselves to the doctor.  Regularly. Pap smears, mole checks, cholesterol and blood pressure checks. Mammograms, prostate checks and colonoscopies. Go to the dentist too. Overcome your embarrassment and excuses. Just check that your doctor’s song playlist includes tunes that match your own life outlook.

Because you can’t do any good if you’re dead.

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Wearing full body clothing might not be the thing for everyone in the Middle East: but cover up the very young – especially those with light skin. Middle East sun exposure in the young leads to higher rates of skin cancer later in life. 

The new study by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem looked at extensive medical records of over one million Israeli adolescents before military service. They reveal how how exposure to the intense Israeli sun of young, light-skinned children increases substantially the risk of cutaneous melanoma – a serious form of skin cancer.

The incidence of cutaneous melanoma is on the rise in all parts of the world where light-skinned people live. Rates have tripled over the last decades in the United States, and the rise was even steeper in Europe.

What about in Israel? What segments of the population are more at risk and at what stage? Dr. Hagai Levine and Prof. Jeremy Kark set out to find the answers, using records of young Jewish males who were examined between 1967 and 2005.

These men were followed up by data linkage for cancer incidence until the end of 2006. Females were not included because their baseline data were available only for a more recent period.

In their study, the researchers found – not surprisingly – a quadrupled higher risk of skin cancer among native-born Israelis of European origin (including the Americas, Australia and South Africa) and those immigrating from those countries over those of North African or Asian origin.

Israel’s subtropical latitude means residents are exposed to more solar radiation than in much of Europe, and therefore the findings implicate childhood sun exposure as a clear, preventable risk factor for melanoma.

But even for those who spent their childhood in Europe, the data showed that those who came to Israel before age 10 had almost double the risk of cutaneous melanoma compared to those who arrived from Europe later in childhood.

The study of melanoma susceptibility according to countries of origin is especially suited to Israel because of the massive immigration that has taken place since the establishment of the state, bringing Jews of varying skin hues from Europe, North Africa and Western Asia.

The study on Israel and cutaneous melanoma was published recently in the International Journal of Cancer. In addition to Levine and Kark, researchers from the Israel Defense Forces Medical Corps, the National Cancer Registry and other institutions participated in the work.

Israel is one of the few western countries where military service is mandatory. All Israeli Jewish adolescents are obligated to present themselves at age 17 for a medical board examination before military service (even if exempted later from service).

Consequently, use of these data provides a generally representative sample of the young Jewish population, particularly of males.

These findings, say the researchers, provide solid support for the importance of stressing the issue of childhood sun exposure, particularly in light skinned people, as a preventable risk factor for cutaneous melanoma and can aid in directing public health and research efforts.

Here at Green Prophet we urge readers to use sunscreen, and if possible that without parabans. You can try your hand at home made organic sunscreen here. And while we are on the issue, read here why sun caught later in the day is more dangerous than early morning rays.

Image of mom and baby via Shutterstock

The post Why You Should Keep Young Children Out of the Middle East Sun (New Research) appeared first on Green Prophet.

Are you one of those people who slather sunscreen all over your face come high noon, but remove the T- shirt later in the day to catch those warming, vitamin D-making rays? Well if you are one of those people (which was me until I read this study)  who take joy in basking in the “safe” late day sun drinking a beer or sailing your sailboat, be warned: according to a relatively recent study published in PNAS (links to PDF), afternoon sun ups your risk of getting skin cancer five fold.

And it’s not because of anything the sun did: according to the researchers it’s all about our internal circadian clocks and our DNA’s ability to fend off the damaging effects of UV radiation. It turns out that our DNA is less protected to mutations late in the day. Simply put: our body works less good after a long day on the job. The bad news: more DNA damage is found to occur. This damage can result in skin cancer.

Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the United States and statistics in sunny countries, especially in the Middle East, see similar numbers. The main cause of skin cancer is DNA damage caused by the UV component of sunlight.

In humans and mice, the researchers led by Dr. Aziz Sancar (inset), a professor of biochemistry at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, found that mice exposed to UV radiation (UVR) at 4:00 AM display a decreased latency and about a fivefold increased multiplicity of skin cancer (invasive squamous cell carcinoma) than mice exposed to UVR at 4:00 PM.

“We conclude that time of day of exposure to UVR is a contributing factor to its carcinogenicity in mice, and possibly in humans,” the write.

They add: “With these considerations, then, we suspect that by restricting UVR exposure to morning hours would reduce the risk of skin cancer in humans. This recommendation, however, must be considered provisional until actual DNA repair rates are measured in the skin of human volunteers.”

Our basic advice is this: wear a hat and long sleeves and pants when you can (long protective fashion is the fashion in the Middle East for a reason!), and wear sunscreen.

There are all kinds of natural sunblocks to choose from, and Karen provides a DIY organic sunscreen recipe to make your own, one without all the parabens and yucky chemicals in the commercial long-shelf life brands. If you have kids, make it with them and teach them the dangers of sun exposure at the same time.

Whether you live in a sunny country or are visiting one this winter, love the sun, but stay safe.

Image of drinking beer in the sun from Shutterstock

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