Tanning salons became the main "non-sunny" cause of melanoma development
Last reviewed: 16.10.2021
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The exposure to sunlight is the main "natural" cause of skin cancer. In Western Europe, solariums have become the main "non-solar" source of ultraviolet radiation.
A study in 2005 found a 75 percent increase in the risk of developing melanoma if a person begins to visit a solarium during adolescence or in early youth. However, since then, no work has evaluated the effect of tanning beds on the incidence of melanoma in Western Europe. Scientists from the International Research Institute for Disease Prevention (France) and the European Institute of Oncology (Italy) eliminated this omission by analyzing the results of 27 studies on the relationship between skin cancer and artificial sunburn, conducted between 1981 and 2012 in the UK, France and Germany.
The total number of cases of skin cancer among respondents was 11,428. It turned out that the solarium increases the likelihood of melanoma development by 20%, and if a person starts sunbathing under the artificial sun before the age of 35, the figure grows to 87%. In addition, every additional session in the solarium increased the risk of the disease by 1.8%.
According to the authors of the study, of the 63,942 new cases of melanoma diagnosed annually in 18 countries of Western Europe, 3,438 cases and 794 deaths (498 women and 296 men) are caused by solariums. Scientists believe that previous studies underestimated the risk of sunbathing under artificial UV rays, as solariums have spread not so long ago. Prevent melanoma and other types of skin cancer associated with fashionable misfortune, it is very simple: you must stop going to such institutions. It is also useful to prohibit these cancer factories from serving clients under the age of 18 (such bans are currently in force in Australia, some European countries and only in one US state, California).
By the way, it is proved that amateur sunbathing in the solarium is led by an addictive neurological trigger of rewarding and reinforcement, that is, the love for such a tan is akin to drug addiction and alcoholism.