Looking at articles online it seems to suggest that even using sunbeds in moderation is very dangerous and increases your risk of skin cancer. Is using sunbeds not comparable with living somewhere where you are exposed a lot of sunlight? If you live somewhere with limited sunlight but use sunbeds moderately, is this worse than living somewhere sunny?
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It’s all to do with the amount of exposure
If you are going in a sun bed regularly then your exposure is probably higher
First off, UV lights “breaks” down DNA in your skin cells, when the DNA gets broken, you have a “recovery” system to repair the DNA. Most of the time, this DNA repair system does its job well, but sometimes it left a mistake in the DNA here and there. Those mistakes can do nothing like they can give you cancer.
Each time you get exposed to a lot of UV, this happen. And when you get sunburned is when the superficial layer of your skin is dead because of UV exposure (sounds very dramatic but everyone get sunburned in their lifetime)
So now UV tanning bed.
It’s not that bad if you do it like once in a blue moon, you just get exposed to a fuck load of UV but as you said, if you were living in a place very sunny and were walking all day long under the sun in your undies it would be sort-of similar.
But doing it regularely can be very dangerous because the more you get exposed to UV lights, the more DNA damage you do, the higher the risk of you getting skin cancer.
Do people living in areas with a lot of sunlight have a higher prevalence of skin cancer ? I think so but I’m not 100% certain. But generally, people living there do not walk all day everyday under the sun in their undies. They protect themselves with clothing, stay in the shadows and avoid like going out at noon or in the early afternoon when it’s very very very sunny, so it’s not very much comparable to people getting tanning every few days or so.
UV light is divided into three components, UV-A, UV-B, and UV-C. UV-C is the most dangerous and is mostly filtered out by the atmosphere. UV-B is more dangerous than UV-A and causes the immediate sunburn that people get.
Sun beds typically only have UV-A rays. You can lie in them a long time and not get sunburnt, though you still get low level damage to your skin. UV-A also penetrates more deeply into the skin.
This is also why sunscreens are required to label whether they are broad-spectrum or not, since SPF rating only officially refers to UV-B protection.
Source: am dermatologist
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