Eating lots of citrus can heighten your chances of getting melanoma

Question

NBC news referenced sources that stated that because of a chemical compound that is found in citrus called furocoumarins which can make skin more sensitive to sunlight and psoralen eating too much citrus containing foods can create a higher risk for getting skin cancer. Both of these compounds interact with ultraviolet light to cause melonoma cells to multiply, and psoralen was used as a tanning activator in suntan lotion. In a study Willett and colleagues looked at more than 100,0000 Americans, 40,0000 men and 60,000 women. Both are complicated and detailed studies that have been going on for 25 years they asked questions about their diet, habits and other personal matters. And it was concluded that overall fewer than two precent of the people in the study got melanoma in 25 years but the risk was 36% higher when they drank 1.6 ounces of a citrus daily compared to those who consumed less. Grapefruit was the most concerning as that is a citrus that contained more psoralens and furocumarins.

Comments

Upon further research through other sources, I found that the statement that eating lots of citrus could put you at a higher risk of developing melanoma. On the website National Library of Medicine under an article titled "Citrus Consumption and Risk of Cutaneous Malignant Melanoma in the Women’s Health Initiative" they claim that "In our recent work we found that greater consumption of citrus products was associated with greater risk of incident basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) (8) as well as melanoma (9) among men and women of the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS) and the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS)." Given the fact that both this and your article are both reliable and credible, it is safe to say that the statement provided is a true fact.

Answer 1

This information seems to be true. Other resources, such as the National Library of Medicine, also have research supporting the claim that higher intakes of citrus create a higher risk of melanoma.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

Comments

Your link takes us to the home page of the website and not to any supporting document or article. This fact check would be a lot better if it had supporting evidence in the links provided.

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A strong fact-check includes relevant data, quotes, and information to support whether the claim is true, false, or other, as well as a list of sources and links.