While a lot of Americans may have resorted to artificial tanning to avoid to risks of melanoma from tanning under the sun, tanning beds may be just as dangerous.
A study that measures the prevalence of indoor tanning in young adults, who are most susceptible to skin cancer, revealed that there are more cases of indoor tanning-caused skin cancer compared to cases of smoking-caused lung cancer in Western countries alone.
The study, published in the online journal JAMA Dermatology, said that indoor tanning "highlight a major public health issue."
The researchers analyzed data from 88 different previous studies done from 1986 to 2012. These 88 studies covered about half a million participants and respondents from the U.S., Australia and 14 countries in Eastern and Western Europe. The collated analyses said that over 35 percent of American adults, 59 percent of college students, and 17 percent of teens reported having used a tanning bed. In the previous year alone, 13 percent of adults, 43 percent of college students and 10 percent of teens have admitted to using a tanning bed. Based on an analysis of past research, more than a third of adults in Western countries have used indoor tanning methods at some point.
The researchers also estimated that each year, about about 419,000 cases of basal and squamous cell carcinoma and almost 11,000 cases of melanoma are directly caused by indoor tanning.
This prevalence of indoor tanning is not new. A previous study showed that in a sample population of 10,000 women, 24 of them who regularly used tanning beds developed melanoma, a form of skin cancer. In 2007, the World Health Organization has already revealed that people who used tanning beds before they turned 30 were 75 percent more likely to get skin cancer. These data prompted WHO to classify, in 2009, artificial tanning devices as high-level carcinogens and a threat to public health.
The American Cancer Society has reported in 1992 that cases of melanoma has risen by 3 percent in women aged 15 to 39. The Food and Drug Administration also said that up to 30 million Americans, including 2.3 million teens, use indoor tanning beds each year. This is despite the fact that in about 33 U.S. states, and the District of Columbia, legislations are already in place to regulate the use of tanning facilities by minors.
"What we knew is that indoor tanning is linked to skin cancer," said Dr. Eleni Linos, the study's senior author and a dermatologist at the University of California, San Francisco. "What we wanted to find out is how common is exposure in the United States and internationally."
