Forget skin cancer - new research reveals that women who tan live longer than those who stay in the shadows.
While sun exposure does increase the risk of skin cancer, new research from the Karolinska Institute revealed that Swedish women with active sun exposure habits were less likely to develop cardiovascular problems and die from non-cancerous diseases.
The study involved 29,518 Swedish women who were randomly selected from the South Swedish Health Care Region population registry. Researchers noted that the women were followed for 20 years and were aged 25 to 64 at the start of the study.
"We obtained detailed information at baseline on sun exposure habits and potential confounders. The data were analyzed using modern survival statistics," researchers wrote in the study.
Study results revealed that women in the highest sun exposure group lived on average 0.6 to 2.1 years longer than those who avoided the sun.
"Women with active sun exposure habits were mainly at a lower risk of cardiovascular disease and noncancer/ non- cardiovascular disease death as compared to those who avoided sun exposure. As a result of their increased survival, the relative contribution of cancer death increased in these women," wrote lead researcher Pelle Lindqvist of the Karolinska Institute and his team.
"Compared to the highest sun exposure group, life expectancy of avoiders of sun exposure was reduced by 0.6-2.1 years," the researchers added.
Researchers said the latest study also reveals evidence that avoiding the sun might be as bad as smoking when it comes to shortening lifespan.
"We found smokers in the highest sun exposure group were at a similar risk as non-smokers avoiding sun exposure, indicating avoidance of sun exposure to be a risk factor of the same magnitude as smoking," Lindqvist said in a news release.
While the study did link sun exposure to higher risk of dying from cancer, researcher said that this could be the rise in cancer rates could be explained by the natural consequences of extended life expectancy.
"In this competing risk scenario, we determined that the shorter life expectancy of women who avoided sun exposure was mainly due to a dose-dependent significantly increased risk of cardiovascular disease and noncancer/non- cardiovascular disease deaths, as compared to the moderate and high sun exposure groups. We conclusively showed that as the risk of dying in the cardiovascular disease and noncancer/non- cardiovascular disease groups decreased with increasing sun exposure, the relative contribution of death due to cancer increased, probably as a result of extended life expectancy," Lindqvist and his team concluded.
The findings were published in the Journal of Internal Medicine.
