HHS HealthBeat (October 31, 2012)

More tanning bed cancers

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Tanning beds can raise your risk of the deadly skin cancer, melanoma – and, researchers now say, your risk of other forms of skin cancer – not as often deadly, but damaging to your looks.

At the University of California, San Francisco, Eleni Linos reviewed data from articles involving about 80,000 people. She says indoor tanning accounts for about 170,000 new cases a year of these non-melanoma skin cancers. And she says the risk is higher among people under 25.

“I’d recommend that people avoid indoor tanning salons entirely. They’re dangerous, and we now have evidence that they cause all types of skin cancer, and to a significant degree.”

The study in the British journal BMJ was supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at healthfinder.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: October 30, 2012