Just Like the Sun

A study recently published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology shows that women who use tanning beds in their youth are more likely to develop skin cancer than women who don't, Reuters reports. Researchers from the Harvard Medical School analyzed data from 730,000 nurses who were followed for 20 years, and found evidence of a dose-response relationship between tanning bed use and the risk for basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma and melanoma. In particular, "women who used tanning beds at least four times per year between high school and age 35 were 15 percent more likely to develop basal cell carcinoma than non-users," Reuters says. "Women who had used tanning beds at least seven times a year during high school and college were 73 percent more likely than non-users to eventually be diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma."