Tanning bed and skin cancer

Convinced they could look better, half of young Americans aged 12 to 17 are trying to get a tan--much of the time in one of the ubiquitous tanning beds scattered around the country.

At least they're out of the sun, right? "What we've found is that people using tanning beds before the age of 20 are four times more likely to develop the more serious squamous-cell carcinoma cancer," says Dr. John Wolf, chairman of the department of dermatology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Squamous-cell carcinoma is one of the potentially fatal forms of skin cancer.

And even though skin cancer is renowned for showing up later in life, there's no ironclad guarantee that it won't affect your child much earlier. "It's no longer shocking for us to see teens developing skin cancer," Wolf says.

That message has been slow in reaching both teenagers and their parents because of a well-entrenched myth that says tanning bulbs are safe alternatives to the risky rays of old Sol. That myth arose, in large part, because of heavy marketing by the $5 billion tanning industry.

Tanning devices have been around for ages but they only began to explode in numbers relatively recently. There are about 50,000 businesses that own tanning beds--15 years ago, there were fewer than 10,000.

That rapid expansion was due, ironically, to the growing body of evidence that said overexposure to the sun could be a killer. The most dangerous part of sunlight, it was thought, was UVB rays, a type of ultraviolet radiation that can cause sunburn and skin cancer.

The tanning industry responded by creating bulbs that were touted as emitting only UVA rays, another type of ultraviolet light that was originally believed to safely turn skin brown. Unfortunately, that's now known to be a false premise.

"We're only recently aware of the fact that UVA can also increase the risk of skin cancer," Wolf says.

What's more, despite the claims, about 10 percent of the light emitted by tanning beds is the more dangerous UVB. That number skyrockets if the clear acrylic lining in the beds--which blocks UVB--is cracked.

All that creates a situation that can be perilous, particularly to teenagers. Their skin is more sensitive to both UV rays, says Dr. James Spencer, vice chairman of the department of dermatology at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York. In fact, it's been estimated that up to 80 percent of UV damage occurs before age 18.

Surveys show 80 percent of young people think they look better with a tan. So parents have an uphill battle keeping their children out of these salons. If laying down the law doesn't work, try these talking points.

* TANNING BEDS LEAD TO PREMATURE WRINKLING. The whole idea behind visiting a tanning salon is to look good. But how good will you look if your skin turns to parchment decades before it should? Skin damage, including lines and wrinkles, can actually start showing up in your 20s.

* PLAY UP THE "ICK" FACTOR. Tanning beds need to be sanitized with a special disinfectant after each use--and most aren't. That can leave your child stretching out in much more than just the previous person's sweat. A sampling of diseases that have been found on tanning beds: athlete's foot, lice, scabies (a flesh-burrowing mite), jock itch, impetigo (a nasty bacterial skin infection), and even herpes. Wiping the bed down yourself rarely helps: Without the right kind of sanitizer, you're just moving the microbes around.

* PRESENT AN ALTERNATIVE. Sunless tanners are lotions and creams you apply to create a nut-brown gloss nearly indistinguishable from the real thing. Take a look at the twins at the top of this story. One is using a sunless tanner--can you tell the difference? "It used to be that these creams gave a waxy yellow look," says Wolf. "But the products today are very realistic. And the chemicals they contain are quite safe."