A new study led by researchers at UC San Francisco and Northwestern University has found that young people who use tanning beds experience genetic changes in their skin cells, making their skin appear decades older at a genetic level compared to non-users. The findings were published on December 12 in Science Advances.
“We found that tanning bed users in their 30s and 40s had even more mutations than people in the general population who were in their 70s and 80s,” said Bishal Tandukar, PhD, a UCSF postdoctoral scholar in Dermatology and co-first author of the study. “In other words, the skin of tanning bed users appeared decades older at the genetic level.”
The research highlights that these mutations can lead to skin cancer, which is the most common cancer in the United States. Melanoma, although accounting for only about 1% of skin cancers, causes most of the deaths from this disease. According to data from the American Cancer Society, approximately 11,000 Americans die each year from melanoma, mainly due to exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation.
UV radiation is present both in sunlight and artificial sources such as tanning beds. The study notes that melanoma rates have increased alongside greater use of tanning beds in recent years. Young women are particularly affected as they make up a large portion of tanning salon customers.
Despite numerous countries banning tanning beds and the World Health Organization classifying them as a group 1 carcinogen—placing them in the same risk category as tobacco smoke and asbestos—tanning beds remain legal and widely used across the United States.
Researchers analyzed medical records from over 32,000 dermatology patients, considering factors such as tanning bed usage, sunburn history, and family history of melanoma. They also collected skin samples from 26 donors for sequencing analysis across 182 cells.
The results showed that younger individuals who used tanning beds had more mutations than much older people who did not use them. These mutations were especially prevalent on areas like the lower back—a region less exposed to natural sunlight but commonly exposed during indoor tanning sessions.
“The skin of tanning bed users was riddled with the seeds of cancer — cells with mutations known to lead to melanoma,” said senior author A. Hunter Shain, PhD, associate professor at UCSF’s Department of Dermatology.
“We cannot reverse a mutation once it occurs, so it is essential to limit how many mutations accumulate in the first place,” Shain added. “One of the simplest ways to do that is to avoid exposure to artificial UV radiation.”
Authors from UCSF include Delahny Deivendran; Limin Chen, PhD; Jessica Tang, PhD; Tuyet Tan; Harsh Sharma, PhD; Aravind K. Bandari, PhD; Noel Cruz-Pacheco, MS; Darwin Chang; Annika L. Marty, MS; Adam Olshen, PhD; Natalia Faraj Murad, PhD; and Iwei Yeh, MD, PhD. Co-first author Pedram Gerami is affiliated with Northwestern University.
The research received funding support from several organizations including grants from federal agencies such as the National Cancer Institute and Department of Defense Melanoma Research Program.
