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Researchers caution that the roughly 1 million
Americans who seek a "safe" tan at their local tanning salon face
the same risk of skin cancer as sun-worshippers.
The bottom line would be that suntan salon exposure produces
cell damage in the skin -- the type of damage that potentially
can lead to skin cancer.
The researchers focused on 11 men and women with fair skin between the
ages of 18 and 50. All were in good health, and none had tanned within the
month prior to the study. Investigators exposed the participants to 10 full-body
tanning bed sessions over a 2-week period, using the same types of UV bulbs
most commonly found in US tanning salons.
The dose of UV exposure was incrementally increased at every session, with
a small portion of each participant's skin covered throughout the study
and another portion exposed only once at the last session.
The investigators compared skin and blood samples taken from the fully,
partially and unexposed skin areas. Investigators report that as
a result of the full exposure to the tanning bed's UV bulbs, the participants
had alterations in certain parts of their DNA and among certain skin proteins.
These molecular changes, the team determined, had the potential to increase
the bed-tanner's long-term risk of developing skin cancer -- a risk they
described as being similar to that associated with lying in the sun.
Suntan salons tend to like to make the claim that
their tan is safe -- and it is not.
The higher the number of exposures to a tanning bed the greater the chances
that an individual's skin may not be able to perfectly correct the damage
done each time -- placing the tanner at an increased risk of cancer.
Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology
May 2001;44:775-780
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