Tanning bed users are at higher risk for skin cancer : Shots

Go to TikTok and you'll find plenty of videos of young people – mostly women – pretending to bake under the glowing UV lamps of tanning beds. Seattle Dermatologist Heather Rogers says it's a troubling trend that comes after years of decline in tanning bed use in the United States.

She points to a 2025 survey conducted by American Academy of Dermatology which was found by 20% of Gen Z respondents give priority to tanning overprotecting your skin. And 25% say it's worth looking great now, even if it means you'll look worse later.

They feel like “it's better to be tan than worry about skin cancer,” Rogers says.

A new research in the magazine Achievements of science confirms why they should worry.

Researchers have found that tanning bed users are nearly three times more likely to develop melanoma. deadliest form of skin cancer — compared to people who never tanned indoors. They also had DNA damage that can lead to melanoma over almost the entire surface of the skin.

“Even in skin cells that look normal, you can find precursor mutations in tanning bed patients” that lead to melanoma, he says. Dr. Pedram Geramione of the study's authors and the IDP Foundation Professor of Skin Cancer Research at Northwestern University.

Gerami and his colleagues compared the medical records of nearly 3,000 patients who used tanning beds with an age-matched control group who did not tan indoors. They found that the more people use tanning salons, the higher their risk of developing melanoma.

“If they used a tanning salon 10 to 50 times, their risk was twice that of the control group,” Gerami says. If they had more than 200 tanning bed visits, their risk was more than eight times higher.

“If you think about it, 200 tanning sessions can happen very quickly. If you go once a week for four years, that’s it,” he says.

The researchers also genetically sequenced normal skin cells from tanning bed users. Most were younger women, according to the study's co-author, which makes sense since studies have shown that young women in their teens to 20s are most likely to use indoor tanning. Hunter ShaneAssistant Professor, Department of Dermatology, University of California, San Francisco.

Shane says that when the researchers compared these skin samples to normal skin cells from the general population, who were twice as old as indoor tanning users, they were “stunned” by what they found.

“Women in their 30s and 40s had more mutations than people in their 70s and 80s in the general population,” says Shane, whose research focuses on the biology of skin cancer. “They were somehow able to offset the damage caused by ultraviolet radiation for two lives in 30 years.”

Dr. Heather Rogers, who was not involved in the study, notes that tanning beds can emit ultraviolet radiation, which is 10-15 times stronger than what you will receive from the Sun. She says tanning beds are often promoted as safer than the sun, but this study shows how wrong those claims are.

Dr. Pedram Gerami says many of the patients he sees at the high-risk melanoma clinic are women who began tanning indoors as teenagers, wanting to look their best for events like homecoming or prom.

“Now, as young adults, they have to deal with frequent skin exams, frequent doctor visits, frequent biopsies, intense anxiety and the emotional burden associated with a cancer diagnosis at a young age,” Gharami says. “So they will have to deal with a lot of hardship.”

He says some of these patients have decided to donate skin samples for research in the hope of helping other young people avoid the same fate.