FAQ About Tanning Indoors
Q: Why is indoor tanning more responsible than outdoor tanning?
A: Indoor tanning, for individuals who can develop a tan, is a smart way to minimize the risk of contracting sunburn while maximizing the enjoyment and benefit of having a tan. In a professional indoor tanning facility, trained personnel teach tanners how their particular skin type reacts to sunlight and how to avoid sunburn—both outdoors as well as in the salon.
Tanning in a professional facility today minimizes the risk of overexposure
to UV light because tanning devices in Canada are regulated by the
Health Canada. In Canada, exposure times for tanning sessions are
derived from a schedule displayed on every piece of tanning equipment.
By taking into account the tanner’s skin type and the intensity of
the equipment, this schedule helps to deliver a dosage of UV light
that is designed to minimize the risk of sunburn. Regulated by Health
Canada, the schedule also takes into account how long an individual
has been tanning, increasing exposure times gradually to minimize
the possibility of burning. This kind of control is impossible outdoors,
where variables including seasonality, time of day, weather conditions,
reflective surfaces and altitude all make sunburn prevention more
difficult.
Q: Is tanning natural?
A: Yes. Tanning is your body’s natural protection against sunburn; it’s what your body is designed to do. Anti-tanning lobbyists falsely refer to this process as “damage” to your skin, but calling a tan “damage” is a dangerous oversimplification.
In fact, it’s much like calling exercise “damage to your muscles.” When you exercise, you are actually tearing tiny muscle fibers in your body. At first glance, when examined at the micro-level, this tearing could be called “damage.” But this damage on the micro-level is your body’s natural way of building stronger muscle tissue on the macro-level. So to call exercise “damaging” to muscles would be misleading. The same can be said of sun exposure: your body is designed to repair any damage to the skin caused by ultraviolet light exposure. Developing a tan is your body’s natural way of protecting against the dangers of sunburn and further exposure.
It is the professional indoor tanning industry’s position that sunburn prevention is a more effective message than total abstinence, which ultimately encourages abuse. We believe ours is a responsible, honest approach to the issue.
About the effects of UV
Q: Is moderate exposure to the sun or ultraviolet (UV) light good for your health?
A: Absolutely. There is a growing body of well-conducted, validated scientific research demonstrating that the production of the activated form of vitamin D is one of the most effective ways the body controls abnormal cell growth. Moderate exposure to sunlight is the only way for the body to manufacture the vitamin D necessary for producing activated vitamin D.
Q: How much vitamin D do you need?
A: A 1997 report by the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine recommends 200 IU/day of vitamin D for women aged 50 years or younger, 400 IU/day for those aged 51-70 and 600 IU/day for those older than 70 (1) years. However, leading experts believe these recommendations are inadequate for protecting the public’s health. According to these experts, the country faces an epidemic of vitamin D deficiency. New science strongly supports changing the current recommendation to 1000 IU/day for adults.
Q: What is the best way to help the body produce the activated form of vitamin D?
A: Moderate exposure to sunlight is the only way to help the body manufacture the vitamin D it needs. While eating salmon or mackerel and drinking fortified milk or juices is a step in the right direction, it is practically impossible to consume enough of these products each day to obtain the required amount of vitamin D through diet alone. For example, one would have to consume ten glasses of fortified juices or milk every day of the year to meet nutritional requirements without the benefit of sunlight.
Q: How does the skin make vitamin D and what limits its production?
A: Sun or UV light is the fuel that permits the body to manufacture vitamin D. But the amount of vitamin D formed in a given period of exposure depends on the color of your skin—that is, how rich your skin is in melanin. Melanin absorbs UV radiation. Therefore it diminishes the production of vitamin D.
The darker a person's skin, the longer he or she has to be in the sun or exposed to UVB radiation to form a significant amount of vitamin D (2). Like melanin, sunscreen also absorbs UV radiation and therefore greatly diminishes the skin’s vitamin D production. For example, sunscreen with a PDF of 8 diminishes a person’s ability to produce vitamin D by 95%. In addition, winter sunlight in the northern latitudes (Manitoba) does not have enough UVB radiation to produce vitamin D in the skin. This is why many Americans are at risk for vitamin D deficiency, especially in the winter (3). A national study showed that 42% of African-American women ages 15 to 49 were deficient in vitamin D by the end of winter. In addition, a recent study of young Caucasian women in Maine (ages 9-11) found that 48% of them were vitamin D deficient by the end of winter.
Q: Is moderate exposure to UVB radiation associated with decreased rates of cancer and other disease?
A: Yes. In fact, the inaugural edition of The Journal of Cancer in 1941 reported that the increased risk of non-melanoma cancer was a trade-off for the decreased risk of internal cancer as result of moderate exposure to UVB light.
According to the nation’s leading expert in the field, Dr. Michael F. Holick, a professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics at the Boston University School of Medicine, relatively brief exposure to sunshine or its equivalent in tanning beds several times a week can help to ward off a host of debilitating and sometimes deadly diseases, including osteoporosis, hypertension, diabetes, depression (4), and cancer of the bladder, breast, colon, ovary, uterus, kidney, and prostate, as well as multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (5).
Q: How do the risks of moderate UV radiation exposure compare to the benefits?
A: The protective benefits of UV radiation are undeniable. Warnings about limited and sensible exposure to the sun or UV radiation are exaggerated.
Several researchers, most notably Dr. William Grant, have published peer-reviewed articles demonstrating that in America, for example, increased sun exposure would result in 185,000 fewer cases of internal cancer and 30,000 fewer deaths from cancer of the breast, ovaries, colon, prostate, bladder, uterus, esophagus, rectum and stomach (6). By comparison, about 7,500 people die each year from skin cancer. UV exposure also protects against the development of multiple sclerosis, a devastating autoimmune disease. During adolescence, higher sun exposure (average 2-3 hours or more per day in summer, during weekends and holidays) is associated with a 69% decreased risk of developing multiple sclerosis (7). Similar protective benefits of sun exposure and/or increase in the intake of vitamin D have been reported with other autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and Type 1 diabetes, which is usually diagnosed in children and young adults. In addition, studies have shown that sun exposure and/or increase in the intake of vitamin D can delay the onset of prostate cancer three to five years.
Q: What is moderate UV exposure?
A: Moderate exposure is the most responsible way to maximize the potential benefits of sun or UV exposure while minimizing the potential risks associated with either too much or too little sunlight. Avoiding sunburns is critical to moderation. Experiencing painful sunburns before the age of 20—not lifetime exposure to the sun—is the factor associated with an increased risk of malignant melanoma, the most serious type of skin cancer (8).
According to Dr. Holick, optimal sunlight exposure time—and, in turn, optimal vitamin D production—will vary according to skin color, location, and time of year. African-Americans, Hispanics and people with a Mediterranean heritage require more exposure. Blue-eyed, redheads from northern Europe require far less. The one basic rule that applies to everyone is: AVOID SUN BURN. It is the burning of the skin and chronic excessive exposures—not the limited, sensible exposure to ultraviolet light or sunlight—that creates the risk of skin cancer.
Q: Are tanning beds more intense than natural sunlight?
A: The amount of UV radiation that a person is exposed to depends on many factors including time of day, season and latitude. The spectrum of UV radiation from a tanning bed is similar to that of sunlight. It is less intense than being in the sun at the equator in June at noon, but more intense than being in the sun in Boston or San Francisco at the same time of year. Even with a tan of SPF 4 (a moderate tan), a person who would burn after being in the sun for 30 minutes can now be outside for 120 minutes before getting a sun burn. This highlights an important benefit of moderate tanning—it prevents burning.
Q: What about the increasing rates of skin cancer?
A: Skin cancer has a 20- to 30-year latency period. The rates of skin cancer we are seeing today are most likely the result of bad habits from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s that were based on ignorance and misinformation about sun tanning. In those days, many people still considered sunburns an inconvenient right of spring, a precursor to developing a summer tan. People believed that sunburns would “fade” into tans, and so tanners hit the beaches and blacktops with baby oil and reflectors. Severe burns were commonplace. Today we know how reckless and uninformed that approach was.
What’s more, the photobiology research community has determined that most skin cancers are related to a strong pattern of intermittent exposure to ultraviolet light in people who are genetically predisposed to skin cancer. These skin cancers are not simply the result of cumulative exposure. Once again, this suggests that heredity and a pattern of repeated sun burning are the primary factors associated with skin cancer.
The indoor tanning industry is dedicated to teaching sunburn prevention to the public. In doing so, we believe that we will help to reverse the increased incidence of skin cancer, which is largely the result of misguided behavior that occurred years before the professional tanning industry existed and was organized to teach sunburn prevention.
Q: I have never tanned indoors. What is it like?
A: To begin with, your first tan at South Beach Sun Tan Studios is complimentary. This way, you can try us out before making a purchase. The certified staff at South Beach Sun Tan Studios will do a skin analysis to determine your exposure time and recommended schedule. They will explain how UV light works and how your skin tans.
Footnotes:
1. Malabanan AO, Holick MF. vitamin D and bone health in postmenopausal women. J Womens Health (Larchmt). 2003 Mar;12(2):151-6.
2. Clemens TL, Adams JS, Henderson SL, Holick MF. Increased skin pigment reduces the capacity of skin to synthesise vitamin D3. Lancet.
1982 Jan 9;1(8263):74-6.
3. Nesby-O'Dell S, Scanlon KS, Cogswell ME, et al. Hypovitaminosis D prevalence and determinants among African American and white women of reproductive age: third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1988-1994. Am J Clin Nutr. 2002 Jul;76(1):187-92.
4. Brody, J. A Second Opinion on Sunshine: It Can Be Good Medicine After All. The New York Times. June 17, 2003.
5. Grant WB. Ecologic studies of solar UV-B radiation and cancer mortality rates. Recent Results Cancer Res. 2003;164:371-7.
6. Grant WB. An estimate of premature cancer mortality in the U.S. due to inadequate doses of solar ultraviolet-B radiation. Cancer. 2002 Mar 15;94(6):1867-75.
7. van der Mei IA, Ponsonby AL, Dwyer T, et al. Past exposure to sun, skin phenotype, and risk of multiple sclerosis: case-control study. BMJ.
2003 Aug 9;327(7410):316.
8. Kennedy C, Bajdik CD, Willemze R, De Gruijl FR, Bouwes Bavinck JN; Leiden Skin Cancer Study. The influence of painful sunburns and lifetime sun exposure on the risk of actinic keratoses, seborrheic warts, melanocytic nevi, atypical nevi, and skin cancer. J Invest Dermatol. 2003 Jun;120(6):1087-93.
9. American Academy of Dermatology website. www.aad.org/ Accessed July 28, 2003.
10. National Cancer Institute website, www.cancer.gov/cancerinfo/ Accessed July 30, 2003.
11. American Cancer Society. Skin Cancer: Melanoma. Available online at: http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/CRI_2_1x.asp?dt=39. Accessed August 13, 2003.
12. Swerdlow AJ, Weinstock MA. Do tanning lamps cause melanoma? An epidemiologic assessment. J Am Acad Dermatol. 1998 Jan;38(1):89-98.
13. Garland FC, White MR, Garland CF, Shaw E, Gorham ED. Occupational sunlight exposure and melanoma in the U.S. Navy. Arch Environ Health.
1990 Sep-Oct;45(5):261-7.
Sources:
Malabanan AO, Holick MF. vitamin D and bone health in postmenopausal women. J Womens Health (Larchmt). 2003 Mar12 (2):151-6.
Clemens TL, Adams JS, Henderson SL, Holick MF. Increased skin pigment reduces the capacity of skin to synthesize vitamin D3. Lancet.
1982 Jan 9; 1 (8263):74-6.
Nesby-O'Dell S, Scanlon KS, Cogswell ME, et al. Hypovitaminosis D prevalence and determinants among African
American and white women of reproductive age: third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1988-1994. Am J Clin Nutr.
2002 Jul;76(1):187-92.
Brody, J. A Second Opinion on Sunshine: It Can Be Good Medicine After All. The New York Times. June 17, 2003.
Grant WB. Ecologic studies of solar UV-B radiation and cancer mortality rates. Recent Results Cancer Res. 2003;164:371-7.
Grant WB. An estimate of premature cancer mortality in the U.S. due to inadequate doses of solar ultraviolet-B radiation. Cancer.
2002 Mar 15;94(6):1867-75.
van der Mei IA, Ponsonby AL, Dwyer T, et al. Past exposure to sun, skin phenotype, and risk of multiple sclerosis: case-control study. BMJ.
2003 Aug 9;327(7410):316.
