Are tanning beds safe?

Are tanning beds safe?

The short answer is NO.  There are an incredible number of women who want to “look healthy”, and subject their skin to UV radiation in tanning beds.

A study has just been published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (the journal published by the American Society of Clinical Oncology), which substantiates this position. The authors followed more than 70,000 white North American women for 20 years. They found an increase in all varieties of skin cancers. This was linked to how many times a year they went to a tanning booth, and how young they were when they started. And it was equally harmful to women with low or high pigment scores, whether they were prone to burning or not.

 Rates of Basal cell carcinoma, which is the most common skin cancer in North American Caucasians, went up 15 % with 4 or more visits a year. Malignant Melanoma, which is the deadliest skin cancer, was previously not seen to have this association. But this study showed an 11 % increase in melanoma as well.

There was also a belief, that the newer tanning booths were safer. This has been busted by this study as well. They looked at the old and the new ones over the course of 20 years, and found no difference. In fact, the newer tanning lamps emit more UV radiation, in a stronger spectrum, to mimic a “natural” tan.

So, tanning is not the way to looking good, or good health.   Getting skin cancer is no fun. It may even be deadly.