sunburn question

[farmkid]

As a rather fair-skinned individual who grew up working outdoors I'm no stranger to sunburn. I tan, but only in spots (i.e. lots of freckles). So today at work, I get the monthly wellness newsletter from the HR department and there's a short little article about sunburn that catches my attention as one who burns easily.

Contrary to popular belief, the majority of sun damage to your skin does not occur before your 18th birthday. Only about 23% of lifetime sun exposure occurs by age 18. A person's risk for melanoma (the most dangerous type of skin cancer) doubles if he or she has had five or more sunburns at any age.

Then there's the obligatory admonishment to wear sunscreen.

I know a little something about melanoma. For my Ph.D., I studied a gene that is very important in melanocytes and is used as a marker of melanoma; I've published and reviewed scholarly articles for scientific journals focused on pigment cell biology and melanoma. So, I have a good idea how bad melanoma really is. But, I've never heard that 5 sunburns in a lifetime doubles one's risk for melanoma. Surely the number has to be higher than that.

I have to wonder--how was such a study even done? Where did they find a control group who has had less than 5 sunburns in a lifetime? I think I'm already up to three or four good ones this year and it's barely June.

So, how many sunburns have you had in your lifetime? Is it a regular occurrence for you, or am I just exceptional in that way?


After I finished graduate school, I moved out of the pigment cell biology field. Maybe I need to go back into it and find a cure for melanoma before I die of it.

 

[Kestra]

I've never had a sunburn.

 

[Vulcan Princess]

That statistic sounds fishy to me, too. I usually get one really bad sunburn per year and a few minor ones. (This is even after wearing high SPF sunscreen and hats. I'm a redhead.) One time, I even got sunburned through a t-shirt.

I know melanoma is bad, but I find it hard to believe that 5 sunburns is enough to double risk.

 

[auntiehill]

How many sunburns have I had? More than I can even remember. Probably somewhere in the 30s or more.

And I had my first pre-cancerous growth removed this year. I now have to go back to the dermatologist every few months until the day I die.

But I am the WHITEST non-albino you'll ever see, and my mother lost part of her leg to skin cancer, so I take it very seriously. I now wear sunblock all the time, or just stay out of the sun completely. Not good for the Vitamin D levels, but there you are.

 

[Canadave]

Yeah, my ancestory is Scots-Welsh, so I tan about as well as you would expect from that. I used to get a lot of sunburns when I was younger because I was stupid about putting on sunscreen, but now I'm much better at avoiding them. Still, in my 23 years, I've still had more than my fair share of sunburns.

 

[nevermore]

I have to wonder--how was such a study even done? Where did they find a control group who has had less than 5 sunburns in a lifetime?

I think that's a very relevant question. The control group with fewer than 5 sunburns probably have darker skin pigmentations and therefore may be less prone to melanoma for other genetic reasons. You would know more about that than I; does the source journal article mention anything about the methodology for choosing the control group?

So, how many sunburns have you had in your lifetime? Is it a regular occurrence for you, or am I just exceptional in that way?

I have light olive skin and do not burn at all under normal circumstances. I've had 3, all of which resulted from truly excessive sun exposure and were water proximal (meaning a double dose of sun). One was when I was about 9 (pre-sunscreen days), and spent a week in a pool in Orlando in February. One was in high school during a week-long camping trip on Assategue Island (a barrier island off the Atlantic coast of MD, with no shade cover). And one was last summer while sailing for 14 hours in July; I was not wearing sunscreen at all, as I don't normally burn and just didn't think about it (lesson learned).

I do have at least 3 see-through friends under 30 who have had pre-cancerous moles removed, though, so whities beware!

 

[farmkid]

I have to wonder--how was such a study even done? Where did they find a control group who has had less than 5 sunburns in a lifetime?

I think that's a very relevant question. The control group with fewer than 5 sunburns probably have darker skin pigmentations and therefore may be less prone to melanoma for other genetic reasons. You would know more about that than I; does the source journal article mention anything about the methodology for choosing the control group?

There wasn't any source article mentioned. This was a monthly newsletter with lots of short little bits of advice in it. The source for this particular bit was listed as The Skin Cancer Foundation. I haven't bothered to go look for the information there to see where this actually came from.

And yeah, the questions you raised went through my mind as well. I have to wonder if whoever did the study controlled for skin tone, age, etc. To be published, I would think they would have had to, but it seems to me that any group with 5 sunburns or less would have to be either fairly dark-skinned or too young to have any appreciable rate of melanoma.

I have light olive skin and do not burn at all under normal circumstances. I've had 3, all of which resulted from truly excessive sun exposure and were water proximal (meaning a double dose of sun). One was when I was about 9 (pre-sunscreen days), and spent a week in a pool in Orlando in February. One was in high school during a week-long camping trip on Assategue Island (a barrier island off the Atlantic coast of MD, with no shade cover). And one was last summer while sailing for 14 hours in July; I was not wearing sunscreen at all, as I don't normally burn and just didn't think about it (lesson learned).

I do have at least 3 see-through friends under 30 who have had pre-cancerous moles removed, though, so whities beware!

Wow, you can remember and count all of your sunburns. I've already lost track for this year, let alone the previous few dozen. I did notice, however, that when I was living in California, I could stay outside for an hour or two before getting any significant sunburn, compared to when I lived in the mountain west (above 5000 feet) when it only took about 15 minutes.

 

[Marie1]

I've had a handful... it's rare, and it takes a llloootttt for me to get one... like if I go vacation near the equator during winter, and wander around sleeveless in mid-day for hours.

 

[Holdfast]

I'm naturally moderately dark-skinned and never burnt as a kid. But in my teens I got burned a fair bit when on holiday in Turkey in the low 40sC heat, then again in the Florida Keys in the high 30sC (that sunburn was pretty damn brutal) in my twenties. I think that's about it, though I might have had one or two more milder episodes I can't recall, I guess. Both of the times I mentioned were as a result of messing around in the water on day one of a holiday and not bothering to put on any sunblock. I've learned to be wiser since and if it's seriously bright and sunny, esp. if I'm near water or it's the first few days of a holiday, I'll put sunblock on.

 

[Tora Ziyal]

Even w/ light olive skin that doesn't burn too easily, I have had far more than five sunburns in my life, mostly decades ago. I also have a family history of melanoma. So if you want to go work at curing melanoma, I'll be the first to cheer you on!

 

[M'Sharak]

So, how many sunburns have you had in your lifetime? Is it a regular occurrence for you, or am I just exceptional in that way?

I'm somewhere in between fair-skinned and Mediterranean complexion; I generally tan pretty well but am by no means immune to burning. How many real sunburns have I had? Couldn't tell you with any great accuracy, but it's a lot more than five.

 

[Chaos Descending]

http://www.skincancer.org/Skin-Cancer-Facts/One

One blistering sunburn in childhood or adolescence more than doubles a person's chances of developing melanoma later in life.4

4. Lew RA, Sober AJ, Cook N, Marvell R, Fitzpatrick TB. Sun exposure habits in patients with cutaneous melanoma: a case study. J Dermatol Surg Oncol, 1983; 12:981-6.


A person's risk for melanoma doubles if he or she has had five or more sunburns at any age.5

5. Pfahlberg A, Kolmel KF, Gefeller O. Timing of excessive ultraviolet radiation and melanoma: epidemiology does not support the existence of a critical period of high susceptibility to solar ultraviolet radiation-induced melanoma. British Journal of Dermatology, March 2001; 144; 3:471.



Enjoy!

 

[Kestra]

I wouldn't be surprised if they were comparing people with widely varying skin pigmentation, based on those statements. It would make those statements more plausible at the very least. I wouldn't think that habits alone could account for differences like that.

 

[RoJoHen]

I haven't had a sunburn in about 3 years. It always rains on my days off.

 

[NCC1701]

Though I'm fairly dark skinned for a Dutch guy, I still sunburn pretty easily over here, but that probably has more to do with the hole in the ozone layer around these parts. Even though I work outside a lot, I haven't had a serious sun burn in years, luckily, only a slightly burnt face or neck, which tends to happen even while wearing sunblock, you really have to reapply it regularly in New Zealand.

 

[WillsBabe]

I had sunburn as a child. Quite a few of them if I remember rightly. I haven't had sunburn since then. As an adult I wear appropriate clothes and wear lots of sunscreen. I was feeling quite saintly about this until I read an article the other day which said that some woman is dying because of her sunscreen protection.

 

[Mary Ann]

My ancestry is Dutch so I'm very pale and burn easily. I can remember one very bad burn in my preteen years but I know I've burned more than that. I'm now so sun and heat sensitive that I can't be in direct sunlight during late spring and summer, and I can't handle temperatures over 25 degrees. My mother died of secondary cancer linked to malignant melanoma but the scary thing is that the first cancerous mole she had removed was, erm, in an area that had never, ever been exposed to the sun (in her own words, "a place where only the doctor and God could see it"). So her cancer may have been genetic, and I have no idea if I've inherited this gene and passed it on to my kids.

 

[B.J.]

I'm curious, what are they classifying as a sunburn? Because I'll bet the definition will vary from one person to the next.

 

[propita]

When I was young, I'd get those light burns that would peel a layer of skin.

In 1986, I went to Hawaii with my parents and didn't use enough sunblock. I got burned across the top of my back, from shoulder to shoulder. I was standing in the water, so you get the idea of the area affected.

My parents took me to Kaiser there. They were happy it was confined to a relatively small area, but said it was the worst sunburn they had seen. And this was Hawaii! They heavily lathered the area in a sulfa-drug (I'm now allergic to sulfa drugs). They used about 20 of those sterile gauze bandages and then at least 4 of those rolls of gauze to wrap everything up. I looked like a linebacker.

The blisters were HUGE! The front of each shoulder had a blister over 3 inches long, almost 2 inches wide, and 1 inch high. When I got home 5 days later and could shower and get everything off, I had lost so many layers of skin, it was all cottage-cheesey and any blood was clear.

No real pain and the area is long healed with no scars. Its sensitivity to touch is normal, not overly sensitive or just dead. Oh, and Dad had 3 kinds of skin cancer. My skin and eyes are much lighter than his were.

Now, I'm out of the sun so much that my vitamin D level is sucking the ground and I have to wear a hat or I'll get a headache and be a bit out of it after just 15 minutes or so.

 

[mari]

I have very fair skin and used to get a peeling burn at least once a summer. It takes me about 15 minutes to turn pink, even up here in New England. The worst I ever had was across my chest and the tops of my feet (combination of clothes and sitting position was odd I guess), painful tiny blisters that lasted at least four or five days. I was probably 15 or 16 at the time. My chest is still a darker color than the rest of my skin from that burn.