Skin Care: 4 Facts about Sun Beds

Personal care includes skin care as well as learning about unhealthy foods and eating right. Sun beds are criticized for contributing to the global rise in skin cancer.  These four important facts about sun beds will help you decide whether to use them.

Tanned Skin is Not Healthier Skin

Although pale skin often signals illness, deeply tanned skin is not healthy skin. The radiation that promotes tanning will cause wrinkling, dryness, and even melanoma—skin cancer spots.

Sun Beds Emit More UV Radiation than the Sun

Some sun beds emit 10 times as much UV radiation as the sun at noon. Twenty minutes in a sun bed can do more harm than a whole day outdoors without sunscreen.

You Won't Get More Vitamin D in a Sun Bed

The Vitamin D you get from half an hour in the sun is sufficient for your body most of the year. Take a Vitamin D supplement in winter instead of using a sun bed.

Sun Bed Tanning Induces Skin Cancer

Especially in people under age 30, using a sun bed weekly will increase your skin cancer risk by 75 percent. World Health Organization studies show that both short UVB rays and longer UVA rays can induce cancer growth.