Question

Is there any healthy way to get a tan?


Asked by: Anonymous

Answers (3)

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1
August 8, 2007

Here is a very important thing about tanning booths: if you go to a tanning booth and tan in there for ten minutes between one and ten times in a calendar year, your risk of malignant melanoma goes up 400 percent. If you go between ten and 20 times in a calendar year, your risk of developing malignant melanoma goes up 800 percent. You’re basically buying yourself malignant melanoma going to a tanning booth.

When they say non UVA, non UVB, non ultraviolet tanning booth, blah blah blah, that’s just senseless. The reason you tan is your skin perceives a harmful stimulus coming, a harmful radiation that it changes color to protect itself from. The melanin activation is in response to injury, a radiation photon injury. That’s what it’s for. There aren’t any of those different flavors, if you will, of tanning rays not associated with developing cancer.

Young people go in there now. You think of these kids 14, 15 years old going to tanning booths, and they are so dark, and it’s so important to them. If you start at 15 and go regularly until you are 25, it’s just a matter of time before you develop a malignant melanoma. That’s a bad actor! Malignant melanoma is very bad.

I don’t know why parents get so adamant about other things but they don’t care about tanning booths and malignant melanoma, since it’s such a sure thing.

2
August 8, 2007

Stop using tanning booths! End this myth about a healthy tan, and focus on preserving your youth and God-given assets.

3
July 31, 2007
David Goldberg, M.D.
David Goldberg, M.D.
Board Certified
Dermatologist

I see many patients who think getting tan by using sunscreens is a healthy approach. I’m sorry to say that it’s not! When selecting a sunscreen, it is important to look for a product that contains both UVA and UVB.

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