The Terrors of Tanorexia

A recent study of 421 college kids suggests that tanning beds might be addictive. It’s true. NY-based researchers, Catherine Mosher and Sharon Danoff-Burg, conducted a study geared to identifying addictions to alcohol and marijuana among college students. In the study, they inserted some questions regarding tanning, to see if there was any correlation with that activity. To their surprise, 40% of the students appeared to have addictions to tanning. They admitted to the same obsessive desire to tan as they did to regular ingestion of alcohol and weed. You can see the details of their research in the Archives of Dermatology Journal.

The recently-approved Health Care Bill includes a 10% tanning tax, as a substitute for the previous proposed tax on plastic surgery enhancements, which was called the “Botax.”  Once the Botax was defeated, the 10% tax on tanning was substituted. This is not a bad idea, considering a recent CNN story that shows tanning bed users have*three times the risk for skin cancer as non-users.*

So why the addiction to tanning beds? Is it just about looking good?

Apparently not. It’s all about the feel-good chemicals released from the habit. Nina Goad, of the British Association of Dermatologists, was quoted in the UK's Daily Mail newspaper that previous research suggests "feel-good" chemicals are released as a response to sunlight, and that this might clarify why tanning has become addictive for some people.

As a physician, I don’t regard this as a major study—after all, it’s only 421 college students, and there was no “control group,” which is a piece of every good study. Still, it focuses on the point that tanning can be bad for people from several angles. Here in our Delaware plastic surgery office, my staff and I see sun-damaged skin often. We use lasers to treat sun-damaged skin to improve the appearance of sun-damaged skin to eliminate the roughness, red and brown spots.

Remember, the skin is your body’s largest organ. If you aren’t sure about the level of your skin’s damage from sun worshipping or using tanning beds, come to our office for a skin review. Our professionally trained medical
aesthetician will analyze your skin to reveal any problems now, before they become bigger problems later! Laser treatments have been shown to offer tremendous aid to sun-damaged skin.



To your health & beauty,

Dr. Joe Danyo

Those with vitiligo may experience less skin cancer

How often have you heard the phrase, "Always wear sunscreen!"? Often, right? It's the mantra repeated by dermatologists, plastic surgeons and skincare experts all over the world. Well, in an interesting turn of events, a recent study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that people with vitiligo (a chronic skin problem that removes the pigmentation from patches of their skin) are a bit more immune to skin cancer than the rest of us.

The University of London study involved 4300 men and women, some of whom had vitiligo and some who did not, in an attempt to identify gene patterns to help them know who "might" get vitiligo based on their genetic makeup. What they found were 7 genes connected to vitiligo. There were 2 possible combinations of these 7 genes: one gene pattern for those who had vitiligo and another for those who did not. Oddly, all 4300 tested had one of the two combinations of these 7 genes. Those likely to develop vitiligo had a gene combination that simultaneously decreased their risk of skin cancer, while those with a gene combination that increased their risk of skin cancer also showed a decreased risk of vitiligo.

In laypersons' terms, it means that even if you have the genes most likely to develop vitiligo, that doesn't guarantee that you'll develop it. In fact, only about 1% of the world's population has vitiligo. It just means that you may be more susceptible to getting it--but at the same time, you still have a decreased likelihood of developing skin cancer.

This is important news for those with vitiligo, for whom few treatments really do much good, other than depigmenting the rest of the body to match those areas that have lost pigmentation. Narrow band light has shown to be of some help but other than blister treatments, tattooing and skin grafting, little help is available to most people with this skin disorder.

To your health & beauty,

Dr. Joe Danyo