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No Tan Is a Safe Tan
Trio of studies finds UV rays from tanning beds no better than sun itself
By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter
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THURSDAY, Sept. 18 (HealthDay News) -- Evidence is accumulating that there is no such thing as a "safe tan."
Ultraviolet rays, no matter where you get them from, cause skin cancer, and the purported health benefits of UV rays, such as vitamin D production, are overstated, if not downright wrong.
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So say a trio of papers published in the October issue of Pigment Cell & Melanoma Research.
"There's a lot of money to be made, and the tanning industry has been quite successful even in places like New Mexico and South America selling tanning as a safe alternative to outdoor sun. We're trying to point out that it's not the case," said Marianne Berwick, author of one of the papers and a professor of internal medicine at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center in Albuquerque.
"We wanted to counter the marketing and a response to the misperception of the true cost/benefit analysis of UV radiation," said Dr. David Fisher, director of the Melanoma Program in Medical Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, president of the Society of Melanoma Research, and author of one of the other papers in the journal.
Skin cancer is the most common malignancy in the United States, with 1 million new cases in 2008, and an estimated one in five people developing some type of skin cancer during their lifetime. Ultraviolet radiation is a major risk factor for all types of skin cancer.
Yet, the tanning industry continues to grow, with revenues increasing fivefold since 1992, according to background information in the journal.
But there is rampant evidence that tanning of any kind is not safe and carries few, if any, health benefits.
"The first step [to both skin cancer and a tan] is DNA damage. That tells us that there's one common initiating event, and it is a carcinogenic event through which you get your tan, so the concept of a safe tan becomes essentially impossible," Fisher said.
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Copyright © 2008 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.
Last updated 9/18/2008
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SOURCES: David Fisher, M.D., Ph.D., chief, department of dermatology, director, Melanoma Program in Medical Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, and professor, pediatric hematology/oncology, Harvard Medical School, Boston; Marianne Berwick, Ph.D., M.P.H., professor, internal medicine, University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, and associate director, population science, Cancer Research and Treatment Center, University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, Albuquerque; John Overstreet, executive director, Indoor Tanning Association; October 2008, Pigment Cell & Melanoma Research
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