Exposure to ultraviolet rays, no matter where you get them from, is not good for you. At least this is what cancer experts and scientists are trying to demonstrate. Ultraviolet rays cause DNN damage, photoaging and skin cancer. Moreover, researchers have said that exposure to ultraviolet rays is the most avoidable cause of skin cancer.  

Although some campaigns advise people to “get a tan,” saying that moderate tanning is completely safe because exposure to ultraviolet provides the necessary quantity of vitamin D for the body, scientists say the assertion is completely false. The authors of three papers published in the journal Pigment Cell and Melanoma Research suggest that a “safe tan” is physically impossible. They call for a ban on publicity that claims tanning bed are safe. The World Health Organization has also called for a ban on sunbed use by young people, as UV rays may have negative effects in the long run.

“We wanted to counter the marketing and a response to the misperception of the true cost/benefit analysis of UV radiation,” said Dr. David Fisher, director of the Melanoma Program in Medical Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, president of the Society of Melanoma Research, and author of one of the other papers published in the October issue of Pigment Cell & Melanoma Research.

“Efforts to confuse the public, particularly for the purposes of economic gain by the indoor tanning industry, should be vigorously combatted for the public health,” Fisher said.

Doctors say people can get the necessary quantity of vitamin D from food, without being necessary to expose their bodies under direct sunlight, or in tanning salons. They say skin cancer rates are rising day by day. More than a million Americans develop skin cancer every year in the United States and an estimated one in five people develop a form of skin cancer during their lifetime. Ultraviolet radiation is a major risk factor for all types of skin cancer.

Studies found a 50 percent increase in the annual incidence of melanoma, which is the deadliest form of skin cancer, since 1980, a trend that might have a lot to do with the use of tanning salons and exposure to the sun’s damaging rays. According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, about 90 percent of non-melanoma skin cancers are linked to exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun.

“The first step [to both skin cancer and a tan] is DNA damage. That tells us that there’s one common initiating event, and it is a carcinogenic event through which you get your tan, so the concept of a safe tan becomes essentially impossible,” the study’s authors said. “There is no controversy whatsoever about the presence of UV signature mutations in squamous cell carcinoma. You can see that the genes have been mutated in a way that UV directly caused it,” Fisher explained.

The ultraviolet rays are made of both UVA and UVB rays. Even though it is only the UVB rays that are responsible for sunburns, recent studies have shown that both types can cause skin cancer.

“[Ultraviolet radiation] exposure represents one of the most avoidable causes of cancer risk and mortality in man,” the study’s authors concluded.