Banning tanning beds ‘would save lives and billions in medical costs’ by preventing up to 10MILLION cases of skin cancer in young people alive today, scientists say
- The research came from Australia, where indoor tanning beds are banned
- Experts say stopping young people using the machines would cut cancer rates
- More than 160,000 skin cancer cases are diagnosed every year in the UK
- In the US there are more than three million cases of skin cancer annually
Banning sunbeds could prevent 10million cases of skin cancer, saving people’s lives and avoiding billions of pounds in healthcare costs, a study has found.
Researchers estimated that number of cancer diagnoses could be avoided during the lifetimes of all people currently aged between 12 and 35.
Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer in the UK, with more than 160,000 cases diagnosed every year.
And numbers are expected to rise by nearly 10 per cent over the next 15 years.
Brazil, Iran and Australia are the only countries to have an outright ban on tanning beds, but other countries following suit could save their citizens’ lives.
The UV rays produced by the machines are extremely strong and close to the skin, and regularly exposing the body to them leads to burns and permanent skin damage.
Sunbeds are known to be damaging for the skin and researchers suggested banning them could save people’s lives by cutting skin cancer levels
The author of the research, Dr Louisa Gordon of the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Brisbane, Australia, said: ‘UV radiation emissions from indoor tanning devices are carcinogenic.
‘Banning indoor tanning may be associated with reduced skin cancer burden and health care costs.’
The team collected information on people aged 12 to 35 living in North America and Europe who frequently used indoor tanning beds.
They also considered current rates of skin cancer and looked at how many were linked to using sunbeds.
This allowed them to predict how the numbers would change in the future if tanning beds were banned and the young people didn’t use them.
Banning the beds would reduce the number of skin cancer cases in North America and Europe by around 10million, they estimated.
Non-melanoma skin cancers, the most common and least dangerous types, could be avoided in a staggering 9.7million cases within the lifetimes of under-35s alive today.
And 450,000 cases of melanoma, a more dangerous type of cancer which can spread through the body, could be stopped.
The ban could also save an estimated £4.4 billion in health costs and £30billion in lost work, the study predicted.
Dr Gordon said: ‘On the basis of recent international estimates of indoor tanning prevalence and burden of skin cancers, our findings suggest that regulating indoor tanning may be associated with decreases in public harm and the burden on health care systems.’
There are more than 7,000 sunbed salons in Britain, with some offering sessions for as little as 50p a minute.
Indoor tanning has decreased across Europe since 2009 by 20 per cent, whereas in North America it has remained constant.
Dr Gordon added: ‘In Australia and Brazil, buy-back schemes were implemented in which commercial operators received compensation from governments that enabled safe environmental disposal and minimised device transfer into private homes.’
The team hopes their findings will help shape future government policy and help people understand the risks they face.
The findings were published in the journal JAMA Dermatology.