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Tanning Bed, Vitamin D -- the Good and Bad News

Come summer and you'd see nearly everyone heading to the beach or the pool to soak up the sun's rays and get a tan. But this practice has the disapproval of dermatologists because of the risk of skin cancer. Instead, many of them recommend the tanning bed- vitamin D combination. Advocates say you'll get less of the health risks associated with prolonged exposure to sunlight and more of the vitamin D that the body needs to stay healthy and ward off disease.

This is not to say that using a tanning bed automatically reduces your cancer risk to zero, but many believe that the tanning bed-vitamin D relationship is much better than the sunlight-vitamin D one. In fact, some tanning salons claim that their tanning beds are more effective than natural sunlight in manufacturing vitamin D, which the body needs to absorb and maintain calcium. This is why a number of doctors prescribe tanning beds to help prevent osteoporosis.

The controversy seems to center around whether or not exposure to ultraviolet rays from tanning beds is less harmful than UV exposure from sunlight. Both UVA rays and UVB rays can contribute to several forms of skin cancer, whether the rays come from natural or artificial light. Proponents of UV therapy claim that used properly and at appropriate dosages, UV rays coming from tanning not only provide much-needed vitamin D, but are also safe for public consumption. They point out that tanning machines are in compliance with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) guidelines for safe exposure times. As long as these guidelines are adhered to, indoor tanning is safe for almost everyone.

For a number of people, getting an indoor tan is not advisable. For instance, those who are on photosensitizing drugs should avoid both outdoor and indoor tanning. Pregnant women should avoid tanning beds not because of the ultraviolet rays, but because of the heat they emit. And people who never tan under the sun will not get a tan either from tanning lamps. This is because these lamps emit the same tanning UV rays that the sun does; the difference is that the strength and length of exposure can be controlled.

The tanning bed-vitamin D relationship is still fraught with uncertainty. If you are considering going to a tanning salon to get skin that looks sun-kissed but without the sun, educate yourself about the pros and cons. Information from resources such as the UV Foundation and the American Academy of Dermatology is plentiful and should be of help.