If you are referring to a tanning booth, then the general consensus in skin cancer prevention is do not use them.
There is a clear link to sunburn and incidence of skin cancer.
That link might be coincidental because if you are fair skinned and live on planet earth you are going to get sunburned at least a few times in the course of normal everyday living. Personally I have been 100's maybe even thousands of times.
Nevertheless it seems that we fair skinned people clearly get more skin cancers in the areas exposed to the sun regularly than the areas of our body that are normally protected by clothing.
Getting exposed to some UV rays is probably even a good idea because of the healthful vitamin D and other natural effects the sun has on us.
It's being exposed long enough to get even a slight burn which will give you a "TAN" that causes long term damage and makes that area prone to skin cancer. I don't believe in itself it is the cause, rather it weakens the resistance to whatever skin cancer is actually caused by( virus most likely )
It is unfortunate that being very pale is not a popular look but it is what we fair skinned people are and going to a tanning booth to "fit in" is just not a wise thing to do at this point in what we know about skin cancer.
There may come a time in the future when we understand what is causing these cancers and can stop them and not have to worry about getting sunburned and the resulting desired tan .. that, for me being in my 50's seems like such a natural and desirable thing to have. Unfortunately till then it's Sun hats, long sleeved, shirts and pants and sunblock.
BTW don't just trust sunblock. We just don't know enough about this and just because the sunblock prevents a burn doesn't mean it isn't allowing other rays that may be part of the damage that weakens our skin to be susceptible to skin cancer.
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Solarium?
Posted - 04/18/2008 : 11:42:45
