COURTESY DIANA BYKHOVSKY
BY: Bianca Bykhovsky
Indoor tanning users are more likely to develop non-melanoma skin cancers, a new study from the British Medical Journal reports.
The Skin Cancer Foundation’s website reports that people who use tanning beds are 2.5 times more likely to develop squamous cell carcinoma and 1.5 times more likely to develop basal cell carcinoma.
Indoor tanning is worse for the skin than the sun, Ira Goldberg, a Russian trained dermatologist in Toronto told Humber News.
Tanning beds have a great amount of rays that penetrate into your skin at a fast rate, whereas the sun’s natural rays go through layers of air first, said Goldberg.
Goldberg added that indoor tanning could cause burns, discolorations, rough skin, wrinkles, premature aging, brown spots and other skin disorders. Sometimes the damage is irreversible.
Those with beauty marks and light pigmentation are at a greater risk of developing skin cancer, said Goldberg.
Steve Williams, owner of Classic Tan, which has branches in Etobicoke, Oakville and the Beaches said he doesn’t believe professionally- controlled indoor tanning is linked to causing cancer in people who do not have a higher-than normal risk of skin damage. These are people with Skin Type I, which is the lowest level of skin pigmentation, he said.
“These reports are all politics not science,” said Williams.
The tanning industry had attempted to meet the Skin Cancer Foundation and were rejected, said Williams.
He charged that the tanning industry received no answer to two registered letters this year to the Skin Cancer Foundation.