Lifestyle Choices

It is truly more dangerous now than even a few years ago to expose yourself to the sun! Scientists have noted a substantial decrease in the ozone layer above the earth’s atmosphere. This is the layer that acts as a protective filter to save us from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays.

Measurements in the late fall, winter, and early spring showed a reduction of 5 percent as opposed to the previous decade. Calibrations initially focused on the seasonal “hole” in the ozone layer, as tall as Mount Everest and as wide as the United States, which occurs over the Antarctic each September and October. Later studies by the US Environmental Program (USEP) reported that the earth’s protective ozone layer has shrunk worldwide by about 4 percent in winter and 1 percent in summer.

Part of this ozone depletion may be due to the release into the atmosphere of chemical chlorofluorocarbons from refrigerants and aerosol sprays (where they persist for over 90 years). Worldwide legislation is now severely limiting this modern hazard. A great part of the decrease in ozone may be as a result of natural cyclical variations in the earth’s atmosphere, caused primarily by the sun’s gaseous emissions.

Whatever the causes, real or imagined, of the measurable decrease in the earth’s ozone shield, the consequences to our skin are very real. The most dramatic effect is the marked increase in skin cancer. The number of skin cancers has doubled in each decade for the past 50 years. Also the number of deaths due to skin cancer have increased more than deaths due to any other cancer. One in six Americans will develop a skin cancer in his or her lifetime, and one in every three cancers diagnosed is skin cancer!

It is both encouraging, but also frustrating, that to a large extent this increase in skin cancer results from our voluntary behaviour and can thus easily be slowed and even reversed! Although there is depletion of the protective ozone layer and a consequent increase in the amount of UV radiation getting through to us, most of the increase in skin cancer actually results from our own changing lifestyles.

Everyone now has more leisure time to spend on outdoor activities both at home and away. People can be exposed to the sun in all seasons.

They can go skiing in winter (with extra reflection of sun from snow) and do outdoor sports such as tennis and golf in the spring and summer. Increased wealth and the accessibility of air travel allows us to move easily from northern regions to sunny climates for bursts of sun exposure, and today people are also more likely to take their children along.

In the course of just a two-week vacation in a sunny location, a northern European who works indoors doubles his or her annual dose of UVB radiation. To approximate to this doubling of UV exposure, were this same individual to forego the sun-filled vacation, the ozone layer would have to have been depleted by 50 percent! The good news is that only minor changes in our leisure habits can lead to major improvements in the health of our skin!

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