Indoor tanning ups skin cancer risk

MINNEAPOLIS, May 29 (UPI) -- In a study of 2,268 people in Minnesota, researchers said indoor tanning devices increased the risk of melanoma.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health and Masonic Cancer Center said people, who use any type of tanning bed for any amount of time, are 74 percent more likely to develop melanoma -- the most dangerous type of skin cancer.

Principal investigator DeAnn Lazovich, University of Minnesota's School of Public Health and co-leader of the Masonic Cancer Center's Prevention and Etiology Research Program, said frequent users of indoor tanning beds -- used indoor tanning for 50 plus hours, more than 100 sessions, or for 10-plus years -- are 2.5 to 3 times more likely to develop melanoma than those who never used indoor tanning.

"We found that it didn't matter the type of tanning device used; there was no safe tanning device," Lazovich said in a statement. "We also found -- and this is new data -- that the risk of getting melanoma is associated more with how much a person tans and not the age at which a person starts using tanning devices."

The findings are published online in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.