Cheap breaks and tanning obsession leading to huge increase in skin cancer cases for older people
'Sun, sea and sangria generation' will stop at nothing to come home with a holiday glow, 'even at the expense of sunburn'
DEADLY skin cancer among the “sun, sea and sangria” generation is soaring, a charity has warned.
Its figures show that for the first time in a single year, more than 10,000 people aged 55 and over were diagnosed with malignant melanoma.
Cancer Research UK said that cheap package holidays were partly to blame.
Sarah Williams said: “The ‘sun, sea and sangria’ generation in the package holiday boom dating from the 1960s had the desire to have tanned skin even at the expense of sunburn.”
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Melanoma is the UK’s fifth most common cancer with more than 15,000 new cases each year.
Among 55-and-overs, there were 10,583 diagnoses in 2014 — the most recent figures available — compared with about 3,100 cases 20 years ago.
Retired teacher Sue Deans, 70, of Croydon, South London, was first diagnosed with malignant melanoma in 2000.
She said: “I loved working on my tan but did get sunburnt quite a bit. I don’t think people understood the impact too much sun can have.”
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