Tanning Beds – A High Risk Category Causing Cancer
Global cancer experts have enlisted tanning beds and other ultra-violet radiation sources among the top listing for cancer risk alongside known potent causes like tobacco, hepatitis B virus, chimney sweeping and considering sun beds as lethal as arsenic and mustard gas. Though, for many years, researchers have depicted tanning beds and UV radiation as likely carcinogens.
A latest study on twenty cases revealed that those under 30 individuals who start off using tanning beds increase their chances of getting skin cancer by 75%. Researchers have also uncovered that all forms of ultraviolet radiation lead to disturbing mutations among mice, that points directly to the carcinogenic nature of this radiation. Earlier just one form of ultraviolet radiation was believed to be harmful.
The experts at the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the cancer wing of the World Health Organization (WHO) have illustrated in their latest medical publication, Lancet Oncology, that the lights mainly used in tanning beds emit solely ultraviolet radiation that lead to skin and eye cancer. The publication cautions people of the hazards of using sunbeds, with an optimism that the existing culture would change so that teenagers don’t feel compelled to undertake such treatments.
This latest categorization of tanning beds in the hazardous bracket has been disputed by the chief executive of The Sunbed Association, Kathy Banks who states that majority users just opt for tanning beds lesser than 20 times in a year and the responsible use of tanning beds is deemed safe.
Past research has revealed that those who opt frequently for tanning beds are eight times more likely to get melanoma, the most awful form of skin cancer than those who never used them. Previously, the WHO has cautioned those individual below 18 years to steer clear from tanning beds. The American Cancer Society has recommended the use of bronzers or self-tanning creams as a safer alternative.
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