Last night, my friend was leaving and when I asked her where she was going she said tanning. I simply said, “You know, tanning booths give you skin cancer.” She replied and said “don’t worry, it doesn’t matter.” So, I decided to take her up on her comment, and see if it’s really true!
According to Joshua M. Schulman and David E. Fisher, skin cancer is at higher risk than any other form of human malignancy and its root cause happens to be ultraviolet radiation. Studies from the past several years have shown a significant association between ever-use of an indoor tanning facility and an increased risk of melanoma. The association between indoor tanning and skin cancer is particularly likely among those who first used a tanning facility in early adulthood.
Additionally, a study done by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, evaluated the risk effect of tanning bed use on skin cancers among teenage and young adults. Researchers observed 73,494 female nurses for 20 years (1989-2009) in a large and well-characterized cohort in the United States and investigated whether frequency of tanning bed use during high school/college and at ages 25 to 35 years were associated with a risk of basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and melanoma. Researchers used Cox proportional hazards models and carefully adjusted for host risk factors, ultraviolet index of residence, and sun exposure behaviors at a young age.
The study’s results showed 5,506 nurses were diagnosed with BCC, 403 with SCC, and 349 with melanoma. Compared with tanning bed use at ages 25 to 35 years, they found a significantly higher risk of BCC for use during high school and or college.
This study is valid and doesn’t suffer from the file drawer problem. Additionally, the study shows the correlation between tanning and skin cancer. It is interesting that the study shows the many different kinds of cancer that can come with tanning to prove that the risk is not limited to one result, but in fact many results. It would be interesting to take a sample of college students and study how much they tan, to get a more scientific insight into the affect it has on skin cancer.
Overall, it is evident that tanning has an overall affect on your health and cause damage to your skin, causing cancer. In the future, it would interesting to see more studies done on this topic for example to do a randomized control trial to see if the effect varies from age to age as these studies have said they do.
Skin cancer runs in my family so I understand your frustration that you have with your friend going to use a tanning bed. Since skin cancer is genetic and my grandfather died of Melanoma, these risks are scarier to me than most. It is sad that kids now a days do not care about the repercussions of the things they do now for their future. My friends always say the same thing to me when I tell them to stop going to the tanning salon as often, but nobody seems to care about their future health because it is not inflicting pain on them in the present. Skin cancer is a very real and scary illness, and I think younger generations need to be more informed of the statistics you listed in your blog. There are also other negative repercussions from using tanning beds such as the possibility of contracting herpes. Doctors are warning people that tanning beds can spread herpes and other pathogens, because if someone who has the herpes virus uses the bed before you do, being that unlucky next person you will contract the virus too.
If you want to read more about the correlation between the herpes virus and tanning beds, click on the link below:
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2015/04/14/tanning-beds-can-spread-herpes-and-other-pathogens-doctors-warn/