From the CEO
Daniel Mulloy | CEO and Executive Director, ARTA
Your Health This Spring
As the season changes, so may some of your health and safety concerns.
With more hours of daylight and the temperature getting warmer as
winter turns into spring, many of us will start to spend more time outdoors.
Whether you work in the garden, or simply enjoy a walk around the block, it
is important that you know how to take care of yourself and your family.
Many older people seem to feel
that after navigating past decades
of life’s pitfalls, they can cast
caution to the wind — especially
when it comes to sun exposure.
The thinking may go like this:
“I’ve never had skin cancer. It
takes decades for skin cancer to
develop, so I’m never going to
get it.”
The flaw in that thinking is
that none of us know how long
we will live. Mickey Mantle, who
died of cancer at age sixty-three,
famously said, “If I knew I was
going to live this long, I’d have
taken better care of myself.” We
need to continue to take care of
ourselves to extend our lives and
to stay strong and healthy as long
as possible.
The average lifespan in the
industrial world has been
steadily rising. Epidemiological,
biological, and molecular data all
point to skin cancer as a disease
that predominantly affects the
elderly. A recent study revealed
6 | arta.net
that between 40% and 50% of
people who live to age sixty-five
will have skin cancer at least once.
Caucasian men over age sixty-five
have had a 5.1% annual increase
in melanoma incidence since 1975
— the highest annual increase of
any gender or age group. It has
also been reported that more than
half of skin cancer-related deaths
occur in persons more than
sixty-five years old. The longer
people live, the more likely they
are to develop skin cancer and
the greater their chances of dying
from it.
There are many reasons for
this development. First, most
skin cancers result from sun
damage over the course of a
lifetime, and seniors have lived
longer. During their lives, they
have had the most sun exposure
and sustained the most damage
from ultraviolet (UV) light. Both
sunburns and suntans damage
our skin’s DNA, breaking down
the skin’s tissues so that it ages
before its time, and producing
genetic defects that can lead to
skin cancer. Suffering just five
sunburns over your lifetime more
than doubles your chances of
developing melanoma, and each
successive tan or sunburn raises
the risks further. We never know
exactly how much damage will
trigger a skin cancer, but studies
show that one bad burn in later
life may be the proverbial straw
that breaks the camel’s back.
Making matters worse, as the
damage mounts, our ability to
stave it off keeps diminishing.
As we age, our skin undergoes
changes that weaken our
defenses against skin disease:
reduced immune systems, poorer
healing capacity, thinner skin,
and damage from bodily assaults
such as smoking and pollution.
These changes all contribute
to accelerated skin ageing and
increase our risk for skin cancer.
Since we know that UV
exposure is its primary cause,