'No doubt' sunbeds cause cancer

[Heidi]

Source: BBC

There is no doubt using a sunbed or sunlamp will raise the risk of skin cancer, say international experts.

Previously, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) assessed sunbeds and sunlamps as "probably carcinogenic to humans".

But it now says their use is definitively "carcinogenic to humans".

<snip>

However, the Sunbed Association in the UK said there was no proven link between the responsible use of sunbeds and skin cancer.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8172690.stm

---

It seems that the Sunbed Association has taken media relations lessons from the tobacco industry. :eyes:

[hobbit709]

1. Either cancer or they'll make you look like John Boehner

The first one is treatable.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

40. Orange Dye #23 has not proven connection with GOPism or other mental

illnesses. Honestly.

[elleng]

2. I'm afraid so.

and my daughter uses them not just/mainly for tanning, but for feeling of well-being. Sent story to her.

[Heidi]

3. The myth when I was a teen was that they were "safer" than lying in the sun.

You're a good mom, elleng. I'm so fair complected that my mom would have killed me if I'd gone anywhere near a tanning bed -- and she was right.

[elleng]

4. I'm afraid daughter will be upset because she 'needs' it emotionally,

and she knows I'll be concerned. We're fair too, and she beaches when she can. So did I. Dad, at 95, has had some skin cancers removed; my mother and adopted mother both died from breast cancer.

ARE YOU IN SUISSE??? We're not THAT fair!

[Heidi]

5. I'm American.

Just live/work here. :) I'm the most pale person in my family, unfortunately. Red hair/blue-green eyes. It's just not safe for me to tan. I do regular regular stuff in the sun like gardening and hiking, but I wear a ton of sunscreen and build up gradually to a protective tan -- no burning, ever, though. I've been told by dermatologists that getting sunburns would increase my risk of skin cancer. So I'm careful. (Also, I don't want my face to look like a well-worn baseball glove when I'm older.)

:hi:

[JeanGrey]

21. Why doesn't she use the fake tan? They look just as nice

and are safe.

[TreeHugginHippie]

6. Don't tell John Boehner or Sarah Palin about this

Hey man, just make sure John Boehner or Sarah Palin don't find out about this, they might stop using the sunbeds, man!

[Heidi]

7. Welcome to DU, where we don't wish skin cancer on folks with whom we disagree. (nt)

[truthisfreedom]

9. To each his own!

[Sherman A1]

14. Agreed

[Terry in Austin]

33. Man, man!

That wishing a death trip on people, like, just ain't cool, man.

Just be groovy, dig?

[truthisfreedom]

8. I've always known those things were ridiculous.

Life is terminal, but sheesh, don't push it!

[DeSwiss]

10. Ya see?!?!

...there goes "THE MEDIA" again! Always makin' stuff up!!!!!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/15/palin-installed-tanning-b_n_126625.html">

K&R

[Danmel]

11. There is a tanning palce next to my office

And it is a revolving door of kids coming in- they all stand outside and smoke too. O can;t imagine wht they'll look like intheir 50s if they live that long

[Heidi]

12. My sister used to run a tanning salon.

I had to wince every time she told me about her golden tan, which she maintained year-round. :(

[Libertas1776]

13. Well

color me surprised.:sarcasm: Frankly, I never understood the need to look like a carrot in the dead of winter.

[tclambert]

15. "the Sunbed Association in the UK said there was no proven link

between the responsible use of sunbeds and skin cancer."

Any thoughts on that, Upton Sinclair? "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

[Rebubula]

16. Golly...

....is the Sun hot as well?

[sofa king]

17. Great. So I'm a liar.

Way back when, I worked for one day in a tanning salon. The first thing--the very first thing--I was taught was to make it clear to anyone who asked that our tanning beds were safe because they only put out UV-A radiation, not the more harmful UV-B and UV-C waves.

The next thing I learned was that everyone had to wear these little, totally opaque glasses, because the UV rays would bore straight through the eyelids and burn out your retina, or something.

I thought I smelled a rat that day.

[Heidi]

19. You weren't an intentional liar.

What you told the visitors was based on your training. You know better now.

My sister's tanning salon gave customers these faux-gold, self-adhesive eye covers called "Winkies" which were among the poorest excuses for eye protection I've ever seen -- so much so that I keep a pair of "Winkies" in my collage box. If I weren't so lazy, I'd take and post a photo of them. :hi:

[sofa king]

44. Oh, it was intentional enough, I think.

I'm sure I knew in the back of my mind even back then that thanks to our ozone layer, something like 95% of all the UV that reaches the Earth's surface is UVA. Exposure to those rays alone is the cause for millions of deaths each year.

I just didn't care that much. I had a gorgeous, rich, criminally insane girlfriend at the time who worked there, and the owner of the place--I kid you not about this--was the guitarist for the pseudo-Christian KISS knock-off band, Angel. The guy was named Punky Meadows.

That day, which I still remember fairly well, was a parade of hot girls set to my incompetent plinking around on Punky's unamplified guitar, which he kept behind the front desk. I don't think I cared too much about whether or not the tanning beds were dangerous. Maybe Punky didn't like me playing The Scorpions on his guitar, or maybe he was worried about me spending more time trying to tear one off with my girlfriend in one of the tanning rooms than actually watching the front desk and his guitar. Whatever the case, they didn't ask me back the next day.

[JayMusgrove]

37. You smelled the rat at the right moment! You quite after day 1!

Good for you!

[LeftishBrit]

18. I've never trusted the things...

and the Sunbed Association isn't exactly an unbiased source of info.

[JeanGrey]

20. I have a friend who starts out in tanning beds every year,

and then proceeds to burn herself to a crisp during the summer. Her skin is like leather and when I've tried to warn her she laughs it off. Some people just have a death wish.

[Jester Messiah]

22. I always figured that was a no-brainer.

Kinda like the people who use those things. Hey-o! :-)

[orbitalman]

23. Sounds Like a Tobacco DEFENSE...

If you ask me. How many people are so narcisstic, they would subject themselves to higher cancer risk?

[Zynx]

24. I think there's an argument to them being flatly illegal.

[winter999]

25. Speak up Folks who want to ban smokes.....

need I say more?

[bluescribbler]

26. Tanning beds will kill my wife.

There are other factors, as well, but the tanning beds played their part.

She didn't use them very often, but she did use them, mainly to get a head start on her summer tan.

Then, about 20 years ago, she became concerned about a mole on herr right shoulder. She went to a dermatologist, who excised it and sent it to a pathologist. The diagnosis was, "atypical cells, precancerous". We thought she had dodged a bullet.

Fast forward to winter of 1998. She discovered a lump under her right armpit. Long story short, the diagnosis was melanoma, stage III. She has since undergone numerous treatments, has fought this disease with everything she had. But it kept spreading. It spread to her breasts, and then to her lungs. Still, she kept on fighting.

Last November, we learned that the melanoma had sprad to her brain. She had surgery, then proton beam radiation. Still it spread. She had more proton beam radiation. Recently, the doctor told her that she had, "multiple new lesions", in her brain. Like, maybe twenty or so. So last week she completed 14 doses of whole brain radiation. The doctor won't even use the word, "cure", because she is incurable. The best they can do is to buy her some time.

If she makes it, she will be 52 years old next May. If she's lucky.

[Odin2005]

28. OMG, I'm so sorry.

:(

[glitch]

29. I know how hard it is to write matter of factly about something so horrific

:hug: I am so sorry for what you and your wife and family are going through.

[K8-EEE]

31. Oh I'm so sorry blue.

How awful for you both. I hope people take heed and stay away from the damn things!

[LeftishBrit]

35. I am so sorry. My very best thoughts to her.

[Odin2005]

27. A co-worker need to use tanning beds otherwise her Eczema breaks out.

I always tell her trying to keep her eczema away is going to kill her...

[dugaresa]

30. many years ago my child had an atypical mole removed

i have always put sunblock on my kids so when I saw this weird mole pop up out of nowhwere it concerned me. The pediatrician told me to go to a dermatologist.

Went to the dermatologist and they looked at it and said, "it meets many of the criteria for removal" they removed it and 2 weeks later were shocked themselves to tell me that my child had an atypical mole. Then they told me that for the rest of my child's life she would have to go for yearly mole checks and that there was to be no sunbathing at all for her. She was in elementary school when this happened.

Still going for checks every year and recently found out that her paternal grandmother has had all three types of skin cancers removed and is constantly having her skin checked. She told me that she fears that 50+ years of sunbathing is what has aggravated her situation.

[nolabels]

32. No doubt unnatural chemicals, contraptions, drugs and food stuffs are hazardous to one's health

Color me surprised :crazy:

[LeftishBrit]

34. Even natural ones - such as the sun - can be dangerous if treated incautiously.

[nolabels]

36. A little moderation here, and just about anything can be fatal in large enough quantities

One or more hours of sunshine does a lot for a human body. Spending hours bare skinned trying to change one's complexion or color tone probably is a little over the top.

There probably isn't much research on this as would be warranted because it doesn't look to make much of profit for corporations (after all, most sunshine is still free). But to think of all those hundreds millions of years the vertebrates have been adapting to the sun it's kind of a wonder. A wonder that people would call the sun friend or foe, it's just there, like cold, wind and rain.

(snip)
Sunlight in moderate amounts, however, is healthful, and may even be beneficial in cancer prevention. Research now suggests that judicious sun exposure and the production of vitamin D may also help to prevent certain types of cancer. Colon cancer is one of the malignancies that sunshine exposure may help to prevent. Researchers at the University of Washington studied cancer rates in nine different areas of the United States. They discovered that men from Southern states had much less colon cancer than Northerners.78 For example, when compared to men living in New Mexico, men in Michigan, Connecticut, and Washington had colon cancer rates 50 to 80 percent higher. The effect also seemed to hold true for women, although it was not as marked.

Another scientific article reviewed studies possibly linking cancer prevention with sunshine exposure. H.G. Ainsleigh, the author, pointed out that there is a long history of medical documentation suggesting that regular sun exposure substantially decreases the death rates from certain cancers.79 Like other researchers, Ainsleigh observed that the linkage between sun exposure and cancer prevention appears to be due to vitamin D. Vitamin D and related compounds appear able to suppress the abnormal growth of a variety of cancer cells. These include leukemia and lymphoma as well as cancers of the breast and colon.

Ainsleigh did not stop there. He went on to make some startling calculations; namely, that although frequent regular sun exposure statistically causes 2,000 U.S. cancer fatalities per year, it also acts to prevent another 138,000 U.S. annual cancer deaths—and could possibly prevent another 30,000 more if all Americans adopted the practice of regular, moderate sunning. He even raised the concern that blame for a 17 percent increase in breast cancer incidence during 1991 and 1992 may have been related to misplaced solar-phobia; with a “decade of pervasive anti-sun advisories from respected authorities, coinciding with effective sunscreen availability.” Sunscreen may induce otherwise cautious sunbathers to get overdoses of sun exposure
(snip)
http://www.lifestylelaboratory.com/articles/proof-positive/sunlight.html

[trotsky]

38. You do realize that changes to the ozone layer (due to human emissions)...

have increased the amount of harmful UV light reaching the surface, right? Today's conditions are quite different than the "hundreds millions of years the vertebrates have been adapting to the sun."

[arikara]

39. You still need vitamin D

and people in the US and Canada are generally very deficient. Moderate sun exposure is more healthy than smearing yourself with chemical "sunscreens" which are absorbed through your skin, and then baking.

[trotsky]

41. Very impressive, grasshopper.

A strawman AND false dichotomy united in one post!

Learning the art of DU argumentation well, you are.

[daleo]

42. I agree that Vitamin D seems to be very important

And moderate sun exposure is necessary for production of Vitamin D, which can be difficult in higher latitudes.

Still, if things were this simple, I would expect a very clear gradient in cancer rates by latitude (much higher as one moves away from the equator). I don't think that shows up in the data, at least not to the extent one would expect if Vitamin D made as much difference as is currently being speculated in some of the literature.

[nolabels]

48. Again, moderation being the key word

Healthy nutritious food gives us energy to carry on our day while too much healthy nutritious food can be trouble.

(snip)
Our mood is influenced by a complex web of relationships among sunlight, melatonin (the sleep hormone) and serotonin (the hormone associated with wakefulness and elevated mood). As darkness falls, our melatonin levels naturally increase. And as the morning light emerges, melatonin levels decrease, according to WebMD medical news.

Serotonin levels increase when we are exposed to bright light -- a major reason why moods tend to be more elevated during the summer. It is known that bright-light therapy can bring benefits to people with SAD because light affects the melatonin-serotonin system and elevates mood. In fact, some researchers are concluding that light therapy may help to alleviate SAD symptoms faster than antidepressant drugs
(snip)
http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Sunlight-good-for-the-mood-as-well-as-health-3A-so-Bask-in-it-21-4999-1/

My body is very sensitive to this biological twist. Even on days that cloudy and rainy getting out into what sunshine there is seems to help for me

[bluescribbler]

47. Some things you neglect

As another poster mentioned, the thinning ozone layer is allowing more and more UV radiation to strike the surface of the Earth. This is occurring at a rate much higher than humans can adapt to it.

15 minutes of sun exposure per day provides 100% of the daily requirement.

You wrote: But to think of all those hundreds millions of years the vertebrates have been adapting to the sun it's kind of a wonder.

Here's the thing. Humans evolved to adapt to sunlight in different ways, depending on their typical exposure. Humans who evolved in equatorial latitudes evolved to produce more melanin in their skin, to protect them from the harsh sunlight found in their environment. Hence the darker skin found in aboriginal people of Africa, Latin America, South Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Humans who evolved in higher latitudes evolved to produce less melanin in their skin so that they would acquire sufficient Vitamin D. Where we run into trouble is when people from northern latitudes migrate to tropical or subtropical latitudes. Their skin has not adapted to the harsh sunlight they now encounter. This may be one reason why Australia is seeing some of the highest rates of melanoma. The people, who are mainly descendants of English, Irish and Scottish peoples cannot evolve quickly enough to adapt to the sunlight they encounter there.

In addition, there is research which indicates that melanoma is less prevalent in people whose work keeps them out of doors day in and day out. It is more prevalent among people who have indoor jobs, but who soak up the sun on weekends and week long vacations.

Tanning beds are like the latter group, except that they typically provide the equivalent of 8 hours of sun exposure in fifteen minutes. In addition, I have yet to see any research which shows that tanning beds provide any Vitamin D at all.

[Taverner]

43. Use the spray tan

And by that I mean use the PROFESSIONAL spray tan. The at home ones have mixed results

[Psephos]

45. All poisons are defined by dose. n/t

[bitchkitty]

46. They can cause cancer, but...

I wonder if it's not the "rush" tans that people try to get, that damage their skin. When I used to go to the tanning bed, my theory was not that UV rays caused cancer, but that getting BURNED by UV rays would cause cancer. I would start at two minutes in the bed, and work up one minute at a time to 5 minutes. I never stayed longer than 5 minutes in the bed. I also used an after-tan product that added a bit of a glow. It would take a couple of weeks to show color, but I didn't burn and the resulting tan was golden brown, not burned brown like so many people get.

I sit in the late afternoon sun every day. It feels FABULOUS!

[Bearware]

49. A bit of science about sun / sun lamp avoidance

http://www.ucsd.tv/search-details.aspx?showID=15773

and the site:
http://www.grassrootshealth.org/

[VenusRising]

50. I tried to use a tanning bed once.

It was "THE thing" to do before prom. I made an appointment, but when I actually got in there, I just couldn't bring myself to get into it. I wasn't claustrophobic or anything, my brain just kept shouting "NO!!!" at me. So, I put my clothes back on and left. Something about it seemed really wrong.

I'm fair skinned, and I actually prefer it.



:hi:, gf!!

:hug::*