Tanning beds are a popular way to "bronze up",
or to prepare yourself for some serious time in the Sun.
Yet the ultraviolet radiation they use can cause skin cancer.
Should you be worried?
Artificial tanning is big business.
In the US alone there around 30 million visits the tanning salons each year.
It's an easy way to get what some people consider
a healthy glow, rather than going to the trouble of exposing yourself
to the Sun itself, which can be fickle,
and harmful if you get too much of it, you simply spend some time sitting, standing,
or lying in front of Sun lamps.
These bathe you in ultraviolet light, or UV,
that stimulates your skin to produce the pigment melanin.
This is the stuff that's responsible for creating
darker skin tones. The only trouble is, as you tan yourself,
the same UV light that's darkening your skin is happily
ripping up your DNA. And that is not good news when it comes to cancer.
Each year, approximately five million people -
five million! - are treated for skin cancer in the US alone.
Not all at this is a result of using tanning beds of course, although it has
been estimated
that over 400,000 cases of skin cancer
each year in the United States are associated with artificial tanning.
The most common form of skin cancer is basal cell carcinoma - a cancer at the cells
at the base at the outermost layers of the skin.
Fortunately, basal cell carcinomas almost never spread,
and are readily treatable. The second most common form is squamous cell carcinoma.
Around 700,000 cases of squamous cell carcinoma
are diagnosed each year in the US. And in 2012 somewhere between
4,000 and 9,000 people are estimated to have died of the disease.
However, the most dangerous form of skin cancer is melanoma.
It's caused by intense occasional exposure to UV
such as, for instance, cooking yourself on the tanning bed for too long.
Melanoma kills nearly 10,000 people each year in the US.
Each of these cancers is associated with ultraviolet light exposure.
The more UV you are exposed to, the bigger the risk if you developing
skin cancer.
The chance is a greater still if you're young, or you're particularly
susceptible to skin damage from the Sun.
Because at this, there are national and international moves to restrict or ban
the use a tanning beds.
In 2009 for instance, Brazil became the first country in the world
to ban the use of indoor tanning for cosmetic use.
And in January 2015, it became
a civil offense in the Australian state of Victoria,
to run a commercial tanning business. Back in the US,
all states now regulate tanning facilities to some degree.
But these regulations vary widely in their effectiveness.
Young people are particularly at risk,
and most US states require parental consent or accompaniment when minors
use tanning beds.
Eleven states have actually banned the use of indoor tanning by minors
entirely, including California and Texas. However,
the are many other states where there is little protection against the dangers
for adults as well as miners. Given the very real risks involved,
professor Diana Bowman and her co authors at the University of Michigan,
recently argued for an immediate ban on minors using commercial indoor tanning
facilities in the US,
and an outright prohibition on cosmetic indoor tanning
over the next five years. You can read her article in the links below.
We don't yet know how effective such bans will be in, and of course,
if tanning is important to you, you may consider the risks to be worth it.
But whichever way you look at it, you can't escape the reality
that tanning beds cause cancer.