
A major finding about skin cancer suggests that you may be at much more risk of the disease than you think.
An alarming new report from the Mayo Clinic claims that you are way more likely to get skin cancer than you realize. The study found that new diagnoses of two types of skin cancer have been increasing over recent years, raising your risk of getting the potential deadly ailment.
The paper, published in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings, is based on medical records from the Rochester Epidemiology Project and examins basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma.
Between 2000 and 2010, squamous cell carcinoma diagnoses increased by an astounding 263 percent, and basal cell carcinomas jumped by 145 percent. Women between the ages of 30 and 49 years old saw the greatest increase in terms of basal cell carcinoma diagnoses, while women between 40 and 59 and 70 and 79 experienced the biggest jump in squamous cell carcinomas.
“We know that the sun and some artificial sunlight sources give off skin-damaging ultraviolet, or UV, rays,” says Christian Baum, M.D., a Mayo Clinic dermatologist and the study’s senior author. “This skin damage accumulates over time and can often lead to skin cancer.”
“Despite the fact that sunscreens and cautionary information have been widely available for more than 50 years, we saw the emergence of tanning beds in the 1980s, and tanning – indoors or out – was a common activity for many years.”
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