I rarely post anything regarding tanning salons anymore because most of the articles I read offer little new information that most of us don't already know. This article ("Tan is artificial; threat is genuine - Experts fear salons are no safer than sun, but level of risk is unclear") in today's Dallas Morning News though is the best one I've read in a long time on tanning salons and it's actually well-balanced. The article admits that it's difficult to determine how dangerous tanning salons actually are.
The Dallas Morning News has one of these unfortunate newspaper sites that requires you to register to read articles. If you don't feel like registering to read one story in a newspaper you'll probably never read again, go to www.bugmenot.com and enter www.dallasmorningnews.com and you'll usually get a working login you can use.
From the Dallas Morning News:
The World Health Organization recently stated that artificial tanning "may provide the ideal setting for the development of malignant skin cancer" because users get periodic bursts of intense radiation. In addition, people in tanning beds often place their whole bodies under the ultraviolet light, leaving about twice the surface area exposed to direct rays.
Some doctors even suspect that tanning bed popularity may be one reason why younger people appear to be getting skin cancer with increasing frequency.
However, even in issuing its opinion, the health organization acknowledged that research so far has not provided consistent results.
"There are different arguments as to how much risk there actually is," said Dr. Martin Weinstock of Brown University. This month, Dr. Weinstock attended an international gathering of experts the World Health Organization invited to France to evaluate artificial tanning risks.
One of the difficulties in studying tanning device hazards, scientists say, is that cancer patients who have spent time in tanning beds have also tended to love the sun, making it difficult to tease out whether their risk came from natural or artificial light. Cancer usually smolders for decades before it flares up on the skin, so most studies must rely on asking patients about sunning habits they had years before. And because cancers like melanoma are deadly but not among the most common malignancies, the studies up to now have been small.
One thing has not been in dispute. That lovely bronze is a response to radiation. "UV light clearly causes DNA damage," said Dr. Patrick Hwu, the chairman of melanoma medical oncology at the University of Texas-M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. If indoor tanning is doing its job by UV light, he said, "I think it's not safe."
But how unsafe is it?
You'll need to read the article to find out...
Actually, while you're there, checkout this article ("Skin cancer seeps into a younger crowd - Melanoma affects a growing number of patients - even kids") on melanoma and kids.
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