For many athletes, the summer training and racing season is all but over, but all that outdoor exercise comes with a price.
A recent study found that young women are increasingly more likely to get a dangerous form of skin cancer.
The results of the study were reported in the Washington Post:
"An analysis of government cancer statistics from 1973 to 2004 found that the rate of new melanoma cases in younger women had jumped 50 percent since 1980 but did not increase for younger men in that period.
"It's worrying," said Mark Purdue, a research fellow at the National Cancer Institute,
who led the analysis published in the Journal of Investigative
Dermatology. "What we are seeing in young adults right now could
foretell a much larger number of melanoma cases in older women."
The new research did not examine the reasons for the trend, but Purdue
said it could be the result of such factors as women spending more time
outdoors and engaging in indoor tanning. Young women are much more
likely than young men to frequent tanning salons, Purdue and others
noted."
For young men, the rate of new melanoma cases rose from 4.7 cases per 100,000 per year in 1973 to 7.7 cases per 100,000 per year in 1980, but it then stopped rising.
For young women, the rate went from 5.5 cases per 100,000 per year in 1973 to 9.4 in 1980, and it kept rising to 13.9 in 2004.
You can read the entire story HERE.