FDA Warning Labels for Tanning Beds

The statistics are alarming:  32% of all 12th grade girls report using tanning beds. Because such exposure poses the highest risk for skin cancers for young persons under the age of 18, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has issued new guidelines for visible warnings on tanning beds and booths.

The FDA has reclassified the devices from ow-risk to moderate-risk devices and requires warnings that these devices put users at a greater risk of skin cancer.

Robert G. Tupac, DDS, FACP, Inc.,
 Diplomate, American Board of Prosthodontics
(661) 325-1275 | www.drtupac.com
5060 California Ave., #170, Bakersfield, CA 93309

Indoor Tanning Hazardous Especially For Young Ages

JAMA Dermatology just recently published a systematic review of the literature and meta-analysis, done by the University of California in San Francisco, to assess the international prevalence of exposure to indoor tanning among over 400,000 participants in Australia, Europe and the United States.  They studied the risk for both nonmelanoma skin cancer and for melanoma.

The World Health Organization rates indoor tanning as a group 1 carcinogen with malignant melanoma and nonmelanoma skin cancer.  The researchers found that the risk of all types of skin cancers was highest in those exposed at young ages, and because indoor tanning is still common among youth, determined indoor tanning to be a major public health issue.

For more detail, see: www.chemotherapyadvisor.com


Robert G. Tupac, DDS, FACP, Inc., Diplomate, American Board of Prosthodontics (661) 325-1275 | www.drtupac.com 5060 California Ave., #170, Bakersfield, CA 93309

Tanning Beds Increases Melanoma in Young Adults

Tanning beds are bad news for younger people, and still 40% of them do it!  In Mayo ClinicProceedings, a study reports that between the years 1970 and 2009 the incidence of melanoma increased eightfold among young women and fourfold among young men between the ages of 18 and 39.  Besides the tendency of younger skin to be vulnerable and younger people less likely to use sunscreen protection, the researchers linked the risk of melanoma to tanning-bed use.  Tanning beds can give seven times the dose of UV radiation as the sun.  In 2009, the International Agency of Researchon Cancer declared tanning beds a human carcinogen, moving them into the top cancer-risk category alongside cigarettes.  

Source: Time Magazine 

Robert G. Tupac, DDS, FACP, Inc., Diplomate, American Board of Prosthodontics (661) 325-1275 | www.drtupac.com 5060 California Ave., #170, Bakersfield, CA 93309