Thursday, September 15, 2016

How Is It Even Possible to Get Melanoma in Norway

It doesn't seem skin cancer and particularly the worst kind in melanoma should even exist in Norway since the Sun only shines for, say, two days per year.  Yet Norwegians suffer roughly two thousand cases of melanoma in a year.  (Science Daily:  High factor sunscreen can decrease the risk of melanoma by 33%)

Sorry that this one comes from Advice You Already Got From Your Mother but skin cancer is a big deal here in the Rockhouse since, technically speaking, I'm crawling with it although not melanoma.

In previous articles, we've reviewed how 'God hates white people' in terms of the radically higher incidences of any kind of skin cancer observed in white people relative to people with darker skin tones.  On the other extreme, black people hardly ever get skin cancer.  After seven surgeries in six months for skin cancer, I can attest white people definitely do get a lot of skin cancer.  There's more over the longer term but lately it's decided to get festive.

With skin cancer, you're probably not croaked unless it's the melanoma variety and that case brings big trouble.  The most widely-known example is Jimmy Carter since it recently almost killed him.  Roll religion into that as you will since that man had nothing before him except a pine box and then suddenly he was in remission.  There's no comment to make on that.


The specific focus of the research was whether low-factor sunscreen (i.e. rated fifteen or less) is any more than nearly useless in preventing skin cancer, whether melanoma or other.  One of the reasons it's useless is people using the low-factor sunscreen probably aren't taking the threat of cancer seriously and that's confirmed by other high-risk behaviors in that same population such as the use of tanning beds.

My skin cancer risk is probably not the same as yours since I have been high risk in multiple ways:

- lived for years in Australia
- irresponsible attempts to get that cool Coppertone tan
- use of suntanning beds prior to holidays to prevent burns

Of those three, Australia was likely the least impactful since there was no attempt at 'getting a suntan' whereas it was deliberate later.

That Australia was not so much of an influence on skin cancer now may be supported to some extent by the current research which shows so much melanoma in Norway.  My image of Norway (never been there) is of fjords and snow, the Sun just isn't in it.  Nevertheless, a significant skin cancer risk exists.


Sure this is Advice You Already Got From Your Mother but it was good advice.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You leave out your single largest risk factor, go kart sunday! I never went racing without coming home sunburnt. With at least 14 hours pre sunscreen exposure, you feel like going back to parents,aka the vaccine commercials currently in vogue where the cancer sufferers regress to childhood to ask there parents why they were not vaccinated. Did you know mom, dad, did you know. Andy

Unknown said...

I never thought of that previously. I remember torching myself up with some premium sunburns in other ways but those skipped right past. I'm not really critical of them about skin cancer since there wasn't any awareness of it back then. Coppertone ads were all over the place with 'get all browned up, have a ball.' There wasn't a vaccination for chicken pox back then and I remember being rounded up so we all had it at once. What a maternal joy that must have been. It's long-since lost but I remember little books she kept with the vaccination records for each of us. Without kids, I didn't discover until recently they have a vaccine for chicken pox now.