The sun is getting hotter, and basking in the sun is bound to be more popular with each week. Good time to check the right way to use sun cream – you don’t want to do it carelessly, getting sunburns which increase skin cancer risk. The British Association of Dermatologists issued a warning pointing out that burning can make the risk twice as high.
Moreover, it emerged from a recent poll that 58% of those polled regularly omit to apply protective cream onto “sun terraces” (places like the nose, the soles and even the shoulders). Other areas which are often left unattended are the ears, the tops of the feet and the nape. See if you remembered to treat the middle of the back, the eye lids, the toes, and the top of the head.
Sadly, the poll (conducted by Nivea) shows that people tend to ignore the threat: 30% admitted that they get burned every time they are out in the sunshine, and it happens at home as well as abroad.
Then, over 30% get burned because they forget to take sun screens along. Only a third of the 2,000 Brits polled said they protect their skin properly and don’t get sunburnt.
The reasons why so many people endanger their skin? More than 27% just forget about protecting themselves; 20% forget to reapply their cream. About the same number of people burned because they misjudged the intensity of the sun, while about 15% used an insufficient amount of protection.
The highest risk run the 4% of those who never applied protection wanting to get a tan and the almost 2% of those who deemed their holiday to be too short to use cream at all.
Nivea completed the poll with a video which reveals effects of overexposure to the sun – unfortunately, they can’t be seen with a naked eye. Some people on an Australian beach volunteered to have their skin checked by a UV camera. They seem to have healthy skin when examined in normal light – but the UV camera shows white patches and freckles covering their skin, a clear sign of too much sun.
According to studies, getting a sunburn every other year means three times the normal risk of contracting skin cancer. The World Health Organization’s statistics say that there has been a remarkable increase of both types of skin cancer (melanoma and non-melanoma) since the beginning of the century. The yearly toll comes to over 130,000 melanoma skin cancers and over 2 million of the melanoma kind throughout the world.
Every third cancer diagnosed in the world is one of the two types of skin cancer. Skin Cancer Foundation statistics warn that 20% of Americans are likely to contract skin cancer sooner or later.
Malignant melanoma, the worst of the two, occurs five times as much as it used to in the 1970s in the UK. It brings about 13,000 and more cases every year with the death rate of 2,000.
Non-melanoma skin cancer is more widespread; it is the one that comes from overexposure to the sun, and it gives 250,000 cases per year – the number that is growing. Although it yields to treatment better, it causes over 500 deaths every year and disfigures yet more people.
