When I was young, once I asked my sister why I have some little dots on my body, she answered those were unique marks let angels to recognize me. The more moles a person had, the greater chance he or she would be found by angels. Recently, experts from King’s College in London published an article in the British Journal of Dermatology, suggests that they have found a new way to predicts whether somebody is potential to develop melanoma: to counting moles on body such as arms. More than 30 percent of melanoma arises from pre-existing moles. Besides, having more than 100 moles on the body is a strong predicator of skin cancer. Wellcome Trust funded the study to analysis data from 3,549 female twins. Professional nurses from St Thomas’ hospital performed the counting on 17 areas of each person’s body. Scientists found that the number of moles on right arms is the most predictive for the total number of moles on entire body. Researchers demonstrated that if the number of moles on the arm is greater than 11, it has a significant risk of having more than 100 on the whole body. This is a strong predicator of risk for melanoma. The findings have a significant impact for people who worry about skin cancer. Counting moles can be a easy and directly way to predict. More patients at risk of getting melanoma can be targeted and monitored.
Some people may ask, what causes moles? Genes play a large role in it. Genetic scientists said that the number of moles and freckles are greatly decided by the genes we inherit from our parents. Besides, the amount of exposure to sun also decide the chance to have new moles. The more your skin stay under the sun, the more moles would likely to appear on your skin. I have a mole that lie on my sole, where is sun-protected area. It may occur because of my genes. According to Medicinenet, the total number of moles appear on a person’s body usually peaks on an average of 35. After 35, people would more likely to get freckles or seborrheic keratoses instead of moles.
However, is there a third variable that link to moles and skin cancer? Is it possible those people who have more than 11 moles on right arm have already got skin cancer but not detected by modern technologies yet? Or moles are not predicators for skin cancer, but both of them are created by some particular genes that have other characteristics such as skin type, hair or eye color? To find out, comparing the number of patients who get skin cancer among a large amount of variables is necessary needed.
Not all of the moles have the potential to cause cancer, the ones that is more likely to cause cancer is called dysplastic nevi, or atypical moles. And these moles are ones that may cause melanomas, which is a type of cancer that may be caused by UV lights and also caused by the bad immune function of a person. And they also have the characteristics of One or more moles 8 mm (1/3 inch) or larger in diameter
or One or more moles which are atypical.”“. But it is easily cured by remove the mole before cancer. And in my opinion, in order to prevent it, it may be also to improve the immune system by balancing more nutrition.
I found this post really interesting as I had never thought about the number of moles I have and what does it indicate. Correlation does not mean causation and number of moles you have on your right arm definitely would not be the cause of skim cancer. I think it may be because of genes, as you mentioned, that caused one’s skin to be more easily irritated by sun and also have more moles. Also, our skin change as we age. My mom use to have no moles on her faces but as she gets older she starts to have moles and freckles. Maybe as we age, our skin become more easily to be irritated by sun?
It may be possible that the reason that those who have at least 100 moles on their body are more likely to get skin cancer than those who don’t is because moles are a great breeding group for cancer to form, or moles may react worse to sunlight than regular skin does. The only thing I could find while researching is that sunlight can irritate moles , meaning that they are probably more prone into turning into cancer when irritated by sunlight. If you have more moles, you have more chances for one to get irritated by the sun and turn into cancer. This is most likely how the moles generate into a greater chance of cancer!
Immediately after reading this post I checked my right arm. I have never heard of this idea. A big big part in skin cancer is also exposure to the sun. The sun is an extremely strong element for one’s body. This is a great informative article on skin cancer and the sun.