There was this lady who started going to the tanning salon across the street from my place. In 4-5 months her skin had turned from pale white into tanned leather. It was shocking watching this happen.
I think people way over cook themselves. The economics and amplified power of tanning beds at salons push people to highly overdose.
I estimated that 1 minute of artificial tanning is comparable to the 10-15 minutes of sun a day that is recommended. But has the benefit of the whole body's largest organ kicking in for the health benefits. So I tan at home for 1 minute a couple times a week. You can't do this economically with a salon.
I don't really get tan, just a little more color. But when I do get any lengthy sun time due to outdoor activities, I tan quickly instead of burn.
I live in Ireland, there's practically 0 opportunity to get exposed to the sun unless you work outdoors, and even then only your face and hands and perhaps forearms get exposed. I just take vitamin D tablets.
Also I know UV goes through clouds, but when its raining all the time you tend to stay indoors and only go outside with raincoat / umbrella.
After workout, i sit in the mild sun each morning before having my breakfast and have done so for many years now. I live near Himalayas and sun is always there, except for some weeks of winter.
Excessive UV exposure in general not a great time, tanning is just a way of speedrunning damage unless done in very short intervals.
I'll never understand some people's fetishization with getting darker via tanning though. Theres nothing wrong with light skin, its only a few western countries that seem to have a weird fetishization with cooking your skin longterm to get darker short term.
Meanwhile most other countries and peoples are willing to damage their skin in whole other ways trying to get the opposite.
If you travel around you can see with your own eyes that countries that have both A) more sun and B) culture of intentional exposure (e.g. at the beach) people by the age they're 40 have on average noticeably worse skin. More wrinkles, more dark patches etc.
In my experience, people who tan know this but the argument is always they don’t care it’s part of life and it’s better to just enjoy now than spend time worrying about looking wrinkly in the future, because what’s the point of being old and having smooth perfect skin?
Fucking stupid, there is nothing better in life than looking young and beautiful forever IMO.
The UVB portion of sunlight indirectly increases dopamine levels. You find it mainly near noon-day sunlight, and tanning beds. So the feel-good effects may encourage users to come back for more.
There's a history of finding really strong correlations between vitamin D levels and (many kinds of) health, and then disappointing results for RCTs of vitamin D supplementation. There are lots of possible explanations of this, but it seems like a plausible one is that there are some good things sunlight does for you other than produce vitamin D. So I'm a little nervous about everyone eliminating all sun exposure and then taking vitamin D geltabs to compensate, even though sunlight carries some risks. (But obviously too much ionizing radiation is also a problem, and it sounds like most users of tanning beds are getting a lot of intense exposure)
There is probably stuff we don’t know. For example, some people sneeze when they look or are exposed to the sun (for me, usually in the morning). There is still no scientific explanation for why it happens.
There are no devices that can produce a full-spectrum light like the one you get from the sun. So my suggestion would be to go outside and breathe instead of sitting in a box.
Today is the first time in December my town gets any sunlight and boy am I excited. Not because we are that far north, it's still the height of the winter after all, it was just shit weather.
Funny timing, I just went to a tanning salon for the first time yesterday. I asked for the weakest bed (level 1), which has the most UVB (for vitamin D production). They were shocked that I wanted to use level 1, apparently no one uses it. They also suggested starting at 5 mins instead of the 1-2 minutes I wanted to do. The machine itself has a notice saying not to go over 3 mins for the first week.
I was following the protocol from this paper, which started people at 2 mins and used low wattage UVB-heavy bulbs.
Sunbeds with UVB radiation can produce physiological levels of serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D in healthy volunteers
Unfortunately the Science Advances paper being discussed is epidemiological and doesn't distinguish between the type of bulb, length of time, and other parameters used while tanning. However it is safe to say that the average tanner cares more about getting dark than anything else.
I think there would actually be a market for vitamin D centered "healthy tanning" where only low wattage, high-UVB bulbs are used particularly in cloudy areas or where the winter is long. I'm that guessing the operating costs for that kind of business would be cheaper than your average tanning salon, too.
The UV damage from tanning beds has been well documented for decades, but what's novel here is the genetic methylation analysis showing accelerated aging at the DNA level.
What's wild to me is the economics. Tanning salons charge $30-50/month to give you skin cancer. Meanwhile vitamin D supplements cost $10/year and achieve the same health benefit people claim to seek from tanning.
The only rational argument I've heard for controlled UV exposure is building a base tan before vacation to prevent burning. But even then, 1-2 minutes in a low-wattage bed would suffice - not the 20+ minute sessions people actually do.
"The young tanning bed users had more skin mutations than people twice their age, especially in their lower backs, an area that does not get much damage from sunlight but has a great deal of exposure from tanning beds."
So in other areas than the lower back, everyone - tan bed users or not - have these supposed seeds of melanoma as well? And that is for a much larger area of the skin than the one mentioned.
Also I wonder about the quote that a mutated cell can never go back. The immune system could kill the mutated cells and thereby promote the unmutated ones. Though nothing is perfect of course. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2020/jan/analysis-protective-lung...
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 51.5 ms ] threadI estimated that 1 minute of artificial tanning is comparable to the 10-15 minutes of sun a day that is recommended. But has the benefit of the whole body's largest organ kicking in for the health benefits. So I tan at home for 1 minute a couple times a week. You can't do this economically with a salon.
I don't really get tan, just a little more color. But when I do get any lengthy sun time due to outdoor activities, I tan quickly instead of burn.
Also I know UV goes through clouds, but when its raining all the time you tend to stay indoors and only go outside with raincoat / umbrella.
I'll never understand some people's fetishization with getting darker via tanning though. Theres nothing wrong with light skin, its only a few western countries that seem to have a weird fetishization with cooking your skin longterm to get darker short term. Meanwhile most other countries and peoples are willing to damage their skin in whole other ways trying to get the opposite.
Blond hair with a tan or black hair with white skin are more contrasting so look more striking.
Just visit New Mexico (;->
Fucking stupid, there is nothing better in life than looking young and beautiful forever IMO.
There are no devices that can produce a full-spectrum light like the one you get from the sun. So my suggestion would be to go outside and breathe instead of sitting in a box.
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https://statecancerprofiles.cancer.gov/incidencerates/index....
Skin damage, and skin cancer, is not just about the sun. It is about genetics and nutrition as well.
I was following the protocol from this paper, which started people at 2 mins and used low wattage UVB-heavy bulbs.
Sunbeds with UVB radiation can produce physiological levels of serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D in healthy volunteers
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5821157/
Unfortunately the Science Advances paper being discussed is epidemiological and doesn't distinguish between the type of bulb, length of time, and other parameters used while tanning. However it is safe to say that the average tanner cares more about getting dark than anything else.
I think there would actually be a market for vitamin D centered "healthy tanning" where only low wattage, high-UVB bulbs are used particularly in cloudy areas or where the winter is long. I'm that guessing the operating costs for that kind of business would be cheaper than your average tanning salon, too.
What's wild to me is the economics. Tanning salons charge $30-50/month to give you skin cancer. Meanwhile vitamin D supplements cost $10/year and achieve the same health benefit people claim to seek from tanning.
The only rational argument I've heard for controlled UV exposure is building a base tan before vacation to prevent burning. But even then, 1-2 minutes in a low-wattage bed would suffice - not the 20+ minute sessions people actually do.
Wouldn't anything that moves/vibrates molecules faster, accelerate aging in general?
[0] https://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/26/justice/new-jersey-tannin...
So in other areas than the lower back, everyone - tan bed users or not - have these supposed seeds of melanoma as well? And that is for a much larger area of the skin than the one mentioned.
Also I wonder about the quote that a mutated cell can never go back. The immune system could kill the mutated cells and thereby promote the unmutated ones. Though nothing is perfect of course. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2020/jan/analysis-protective-lung...