Sarah Bellum says: 
I couldn’t resist passing on this potentially life saving skin care tip: According to ScienceDaily, new research shows that couples who examine each other’s skin on a regular basis could lower their risk of dying from malignant melanoma by almost 60%!
Aside from being a good reason to get naked, this makes good medical sense because when it comes to melanoma, an early diagnosis can dramatically improve your chance of survival. In the US, this disease causes 8,000 deaths a year and recently one of my favorite musicians, Danny Federici, (the key board player for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band), passed away from melanoma. And an estimated 62,000 new cases of melanoma are diagnosed each year!
The key finding of this study was that you shouldn’t let embarrassment about your body stop you from letting your lover check you out. (The study cites one woman who said she wouldn’t get naked because she didn’t want her husband to see her “cellulite and fat rolls.” That’s bad mojo, gals!) The study shows that couples who are comfortable with each other’s nakedness are 3 times more likely to perform mutual skin checks.
Plus, this isn’t all about all icky medical stuff – the skin exams have unexpected benefit because they may actually rev up your intimate relationship. If you want to learn more, check out the original article at ScienceDaily.
Loading ...
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m not entirely sure why people can’t check themselves out with a mirror. *shrug* You should be able to tell in the shower and whatnot if you’ve got a new bump someplace where there was no bump before.
I wonder if having someone else see it doesn’t also increase the chance of the other person bugging you to go to the doctor and get it looked at … It’s easier to stay in denial if you’re the only one who knows that the bump is there.
Thanks for posting this. My mother passed away from skin cancer (actually complications related to it), and everyone who finds that out says “I didn’t think people actually die from skin cancer.” Because it is one of less aggressive ones most people sort of disregard it.
Janis, it would work if you had a 360 degree mirror. But I don’t even have a full body mirror, for example (I put on stuff, climb on the toilet to see if the top matches the bottom, and pray for the best. It usually works, but sometimes I’ll catch a glimpse of myself and realize that what I have on doesn’t really go together). So I definitely look at my front side, but I’d never see a mole on my back.
In this day and age I’m still surprised to hear people not taking skin cancer seriously. There are more cases than ever before, so it’s not like we’ve really got a handle on the problem. I work with a plastic surgeon in Maryland and another sad fact is that fewer and fewer insurers are covering tumor removal. There are more cases every year, yet according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, tumor removal surgeries have fallen 16% since the year 2000. These people who are not able to afford initial treatment are very likely to have increased health concerns down the road.