Indoor Tanning Will Preserve Your Summer Tan, but Increase Your Risk of Melanoma

Plainview, NY (PRWEB) December 22, 2011

Indoor tanning has been in the news recently with California signing a new law prohibiting teens from indoor tanning. While tanning can help preserve your summer tan, it can also increase your risk of developing melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, by as much as 75 percent, says George Hollenberg, MD., dermatopathologist and medical director of Acupath Laboratories in Long Island, New York.

Recent studies have led the World Health Organization, National Institutes of Health and other international health experts to rank indoor tanning among the top definite, undisputable causes of cancer. That means tanning beds are in the same category as tobacco, arsenic and mustard gas, said Dr. Hollenberg,. Theyre deadly and at all costs need to be avoided.

Yet according to the American Academy of Dermatology, an average of 1 million Americans each day tan at an indoor facility. Most of them are young, Caucasian women between 16 and 29 years old. Though as TV programs like Jersey Shore illustrate, the practice is popular with young men, too.

Most people tan to look goodfor aesthetics, Dr. Hollenberg added. But every time you put yourself in a tanning bed, you put yourself at risk for skin cancera risk that increases each time you do it. No matter what some companies purport, there are no safe tanning devices or safe number of times to tan indoors. Misinformation is a huge problem with this issue.

Indeed, medical experts cite indoor tanning as the primary reason for the whopping 50 percent increase in melanoma cases in women under 40 over the last 20 years. If left undiagnosed and not promptly and properly treated, melanoma can spread throughout the body and be fatal. The American Cancer Society blames melanoma for more than 70,000 new cancer cases, and as many as 8,400 cancer deaths, in the U.S. each year.

Also linked to ultraviolet exposure from tanning bedsas well as from spending prolonged, unprotected periods in the sunare basal and squamous cell cancer carcinomas, which annually affect more than 1 million Americans and lead to 2,000 cancer deaths. Skin cancer (melanoma, basal cell and squamous cell together) is the No. 1 cause of cancer in the United States, affecting more people than breast, lung, prostate, colon, uterine, ovarian and pancreatic cancer combined.

Because of the definitive connection between indoor tanning and skin cancer, 32 states now require tanning salons to receive in-person parental consent before a minor can tan. In New York, youths under 14 are prohibited from tanning at all.

Dr. Hollenberg is one of many medical expertsincluding members of a federal skin cancer advisory panellobbying the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to ban anyone under age 18 from using tanning beds. However, like the American Cancer Society, his preference is that people avoid tanning beds altogether.

There are many cancer risk factors we cant control, such as age and family history. But especially with skin cancer, there are many things we can control, Dr. Hollenberg said, including staying away from tanning beds.

Also, to protect skin from the suns ultraviolet rays, which even during fall and winter can burn and cause damage, Dr. Hollenberg recommends: