Whatever skin you’re in, cover up
All South Africans regardless of their skin color, should take heed this summer when spending long periods of time in the sun.
Skin cancer, which is caused by prolonged exposure to ultraviolet (UV) rays, is becoming more of a problem as the hole in the ozone layer (which filters out harmful ultraviolet rays) grows larger. As a result, people who spend long hours in the sun are becoming more susceptible to skin cancer.
The three main types of skin cancer are basal cell carcinoma, which develops near the base of the epidermis (outer layer of skin), squamous cell carcinoma, which lies closer to the epidermis, and malignant melanoma, which occurs in the cells that produce melanin, a protective pigment. Melanoma is the least common, but the most deadly of these.
Recent statistics published by the Skin Cancer Foundation show that one in 45 white males and one in 56 white females had a lifetime risk of developing melanoma. By contrast the lifetime risks in black males and females are one in 909 and one in 796 respectively. Despite this lower incidence, skin cancer, especially melanoma, is still a danger for the black population.
According to Ayesha Sasman, information specialist with the Cancer Association of South Africa (Cansa) “malignant melanoma is definitely the biggest problem for black skin.” And according to the Cansa, blacks with melanoma are more likely than whites to have advanced disease. This is because the most common type of melanoma among blacks is acral lentiginous melanoma (ALM), which tends to be more aggressive than the types most commonly found in whites.
Black patients’ susceptibility to ALM means that their chances of long-term survival with melanoma are typically much lower on the average.
The darkness of black skin, due to an abundance of melanin, does not mean that whole body is protected. According to Ayesha Sasman, melanoma is often found in black patients in areas of light skin “such as under souls of feet, palms of hands and under fingernails.”
According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, there are several simple ways to prevent skin cancer:
- Avoid unnecessary sun exposure, especially between 10:00am and 4:00pm,the peak hours for harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation)
- When exposed to sunlight, wear protective clothing such as long pants, long-sleeved shirts, broad-brimmed hats, and UV-protective sunglasses
- Stay away from artificial tanning devices.
- Examine your skin head to toe at least once every three months.
Also, one other important way to prevent skin cancer is the simple way of remembering to use sunscreen whenever going out into the sun. According to Sasman, “Using sunscreen with an SPF of 15 on black skin is the equivalent of using an SPF of 45 on pale white skin.”
-Health-e News Service
Author
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Unless otherwise noted, you can republish our articles for free under a Creative Commons license. Here’s what you need to know:
-
You have to credit Health-e News. In the byline, we prefer “Author Name, Publication.” At the top of the text of your story, include a line that reads: “This story was originally published by Health-e News.” You must link the word “Health-e News” to the original URL of the story.
-
You must include all of the links from our story, including our newsletter sign up link.
-
If you use canonical metadata, please use the Health-e News URL. For more information about canonical metadata, click here.
-
You can’t edit our material, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. (For example, “yesterday” can be changed to “last week”)
-
You have no rights to sell, license, syndicate, or otherwise represent yourself as the authorized owner of our material to any third parties. This means that you cannot actively publish or submit our work for syndication to third party platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. Health-e News understands that publishers cannot fully control when certain third parties automatically summarise or crawl content from publishers’ own sites.
-
You can’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually.
-
If you share republished stories on social media, we’d appreciate being tagged in your posts. You can find us on Twitter @HealthENews, Instagram @healthenews, and Facebook Health-e News Service.
You can grab HTML code for our stories easily. Click on the Creative Commons logo on our stories. You’ll find it with the other share buttons.
If you have any other questions, contact info@health-e.org.za.
Whatever skin you’re in, cover up
by , Health-e News
December 7, 2001