Tanning is a Natural Body Process – It is Not Damage

Tanning is your body’s natural protection against sunburn — it is what your body is designed to do. Many have referred to this process as “damage” to your skin, but calling a tan “damage” is a dangerous oversimplification. Here is why:

• Calling a tan damage to your skin is like calling exercise damage to your muscles. Consider, when one exercises you are actually tearing tiny muscle fibers in your body. On the surface, examined at the micro-level, that could be called “damage.” But that damage on the micro-level is your body’s natural way on the macro-level of building stronger muscle tissue. So to call exercise “damaging” to muscles would be terribly deceiving. 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 its natural way to protect against the dangers of sunburn and further exposure.
• Saying that any ultraviolet light exposure causes skin damage is a dangerous oversimplification. It would be like saying that since water causes drowning, humans should avoid all water. Yes, water causes drowning, but our bodies also need water; we would die without it. Similarly, we need sun exposure; we would die without it.

It is the professional indoor tanning industry’s position that sunburn prevention is a more effective message than sun avoidance, which ultimately encourages abuse. It is a responsible, honest approach to the issue.

But What About Skin Cancer?

There arguably is more misinformation about skin cancer than any other form of cancer, and most of it involves distorting the nature of skin cancer’s complex relationship with sun exposure. Consider:

• Melanoma skin cancer is most common in people who work indoors – not in those who work outdoors.
• Melanoma skin cancer occurs most often on parts of the body that are not regularly exposed to the sun.
• 18 of 22 studies examining melanoma and indoor tanning have shown no statistically significant association, including the most recent and largest study, which showed no connection at all. The four older studies that alleged a connection did not adequately control for important confounding variables such as the subjects’ outdoor exposure to sunlight, childhood sunburns, type of tanning equipment utilized (many of which were unsupervised home units) and duration and quantity of exposures.
• Melanoma mortality rates in the United States are not rising among young women, but are increasing dramatically among older men, according to National Cancer Institute data. (In Canada, melanoma rates for women under 50 have actually declined in the past 20 years). Yet the majority of the marketing message about this disease is directed at young women, who are the highest consumers of dermatological services.
• The photobiology research community has determined that most skin cancers are most likely related to a strong pattern of burning and intermittent sun exposure in those people who are genetically predisposed to skin cancer and not simply to cumulative exposure. That suggests that a pattern of repeated sunburning is what we need to prevent. And that kind of prevention is exactly what the indoor tanning industry is doing effectively.
• Skin cancer generally has a 20- to 30-year latency period. The rates of skin cancer we are seeing today in older individuals mostly are a function of the ignorant misbehavior of the 1970s and early 1980s. Recall: Society used to view sunburns as an inconvenient right of spring, or as a “precursor” to developing a summer tan. Severe burns were commonplace. Today we know how reckless that approach was, and the incidence rates of skin cancer today in those over 50 years of age reflect that ignorance.

The indoor tanning industry believes that our role in teaching sunburn prevention will help to reverse the increases that largely are a result of misbehavior that took place years ago before the professional tanning industry existed and before we were organized to teach sunburn prevention.

How Do You Define Moderate Tanning?

The term “moderate tanning” means something different for every different individual, and that is an important point. The bottom line is what we call “The Golden Rule of Smart Tanning” – Don’t EVER sunburn. A fair-skinned, red-headed, green-eyed person may not have the ability to develop a tan without sunburning. This person should not attempt to tan then. On the other hand, most of us have the ability to develop a tan, and the majority of us tan very easily. Moderation, in our view, means avoiding sunburn at all costs. Going about that agenda will mean something different to every different person.

What About Teenage Tanning?

In the past few years the dermatology industry’s lobbyists have argued that teenagers should be totally prohibited from tanning in salons despite having no solid evidence that tanning in a non-burning fashion results in any significant risk. In fact, such prohibitions would likely do more harm than good. Consider:

1. Studies have shown that teens who tan in salons are less likely to sunburn outdoors compared to non-tanners.
2. 83 percent of teenagers who tan indoors prior to taking sunny vacations report that their indoor tan, combined with the proper use of sunscreen, helped them to prevent sunburn.
3. Further, 72 percent of teenagers who currently tan indoors say they would simply tan more aggressively outdoors or purchase home tanning units – both of which are more likely to produce sunburns – if they were unable to utilize indoor tanning salons. If teenagers are unable to tan in salons, sunburn incidence actually will increase, and it is likely that total UV exposure in this age group will increase. This would be hurting people, not helping them.
4. There is no data to suggest that tanning is more dangerous for any specific age group. Photobiology suggests that burning (not tanning) at an early age could increase risk later in life. As we just discussed, it appears that indoor tanners sunburn less than non-tanners, including teen-agers who tan outdoors.
5. Indoor tanning facilities today are at the forefront in teaching teenagers outdoor sunburn prevention, including the proper use of sunscreens to prevent sunburn outdoors. If teenagers are denied access to indoor tanning, sunburn incidence will increase.

The tanning industry supports existing laws requiring parental consent for minors who wish to tan in salons, and would support constructive efforts to bolster enforcement of this standard.

Are All Dermatologists Against Indoor Tanning?

While most of the dermatology profession has an inexplicably myopic view about tanning, some enlightened dermatologists have broken ranks with their peers in recent years, urging their profession to re-think its one-sided dogma about sun exposure. Two of the most recent:

• Research dermatologist Dr. Sam Shuster, professor emeritus to the Department of Dermatology at Newcastle University in northern England, challenged his peers to quantify the alleged increase in skin cancer incidence, which is not based on actual numbers but only estimates. In the book, “Panic Nation: Unpicking the Myths We’re Told About Food and Health” Shuster calls his peers to acknowledge that a tan is the body’s natural protection against sunburn – a reality that has been all but stampeded under the establishment’s rhetoric. “Unfortunately our attitude to sun and ultra-violet (UV) light is subject to much perverse and dubious technical ‘advice’, which society has passively accepted without questioning its provenance,” Shuster writes.
• Boston University Professor Dr. Michael Holick – the scientist who was involved in the discovery of the active form of vitamin D in the early 1970s – wrote the book “The UV Advantage” in 2004, urging people to embrace moderate exposure to ultraviolet light as the body’s natural way to produce Vitamin D. Holick is one of the world’s leading authorities on vitamin D production. “Since some exposure to sunlight is beneficial to your health, it is reasonable that if you wish to be exposed to sunlight, that you can do so with relative safety if you make sure that you do not receive a sunburn,” Holick says.
• Many rank-and-file dermatologists have more moderate views about sensible sun exposure, but have been intimidated by their peers not to discuss these views publicly. Indeed, upon publishing “The UV Advantage” in 2004, Holick was forced to resign his post at Boston University as a professor of dermatology, with the chair of that department calling his work “schlock science.” In spite of such rhetoric, in the two years since publishing his book, most of Holick’s positions have become mainstream thinking.