Tag Archives: sun exposure

Sunbeds kill

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SUNBEDS are responsible for almost 800 skin cancer deaths across Europe every year, it has emerged.

One in 20 cases of skin cancer is due to sunbed use, say experts. And the younger someone uses the fake tanning equipment, the greater their risk, they warn.

Indoor tanning increases the risk of melanoma, the most dangerous form of the disease, by 40 per cent in people under 35.

Despite on-going warnings about the health risks, around three million people in the UK still use sunbeds. And most of those who use them do so on a ?regular basis.

Dr Mathieu Boniol, of the International Prevention Research Institute in Lyon, has discovered people who use sunbeds are at least 20 per cent more likely to develop skin cancer than those who have never been exposed to them.

His study also highlights how the risk increases to 75 per cent in people who start using the beds before the age of 18.

Germany tops the table of sunbed-related skin cancer deaths, with 1,404 reported between 2005 and 2011. The UK is second with 444 deaths over the same time period. Countries with the next highest levels, in descending order, are the ?Netherlands, France, Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland.

Skin cancer

Skin cancer

Dr Boniol said: “Sunbed use has a plethora of negative health effects and is associated with a significant increase in the risk of melanoma.

“This risk increases with the number of sunbed sessions and with initial usage at a young age. The cancerous damage ?associated with sunbed use is substantial and could be avoided by strict regulations.”

Under-18s have been banned from using sunbeds in Scotland and the expert has called for other European countries to follow this lead. He also called for unsupervised salons to be banned to ensure youngsters have no access to the beds.


He studied cancer rates over six years and found around 64,000 people are diagnosed with melanoma each year in Europe, with an estimated 5.4 per cent related to sunbeds. Sun exposure is the most ?significant environmental cause of skin cancer, but sunbeds have become the main non-solar source of UV radiation in Western Europe. The study, published in the British Medical Journal, revealed women were twice as likely to contract and die from skin cancer than men.

The Scotsman yesterday revealed the number of people in Scotland in their 50s with malignant melanoma has tripled in the last 30 years.

NHS Tayside Consultant Dermatologist Dr Colin Fleming, said: “Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the UK but most cases could be prevented. The number of people getting it is rising each year at an alarming rate and it is predicted to rise faster than any other cancer in Scotland over the next 15 years.”

Excess vitamin D may be harmful

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Excess levels of vitamin D in the blood are linked with higher death rates, warn researchers.

They claim, in a ‘surprising’ finding, that too much of the sunshine vitamin may cause almost as much harm as too little.

A new study from Danish researchers found rates of death were 40 per cent up in people with very high levels of vitamin D.

The study from University of Copenhagen is based on blood samples from 247,574 patients having tests through their GPs.

But British experts said the UK had the reverse problem, with one in four people currently having low levels that put them at risk of deficiency.

The study is the largest of its kind using blood samples from the Copenhagen General Practitioners Laboratory.

It found a link between higher death rates when vitamin D levels fell to the lowest level – and when they soar to the highest level.

The findings show when blood contains less than 10 nanomol (nmol) of vitamin per liter of serum, mortality is more than doubled, being 2.31 times higher than the average.

However, if the blood contains more than 140 nmol of vitamin per liter of serum, mortality is higher by a factor of 1.42 – around 40 per cent higher.

The lowest mortality rate was at 50 nmol, says a report in the scientific Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Vitamin D is essential for the immune system, strong healthy bones and teeth, and the absorption of calcium..

Deficiency has been linked to cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, several cancers, and autoimmune conditions as well as osteomalacia, which is the painful manifestation of soft bones in adults.

Researcher Darshana Durup, of the university’s faculty of health and medical sciences, said ‘We found higher mortality in people with a low level of vitamin D in their blood, but to our surprise, we also found it in people with a high level of vitamin D.

‘We can draw a graph showing that perhaps it is harmful with too little and too much vitamin D.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D

‘It is important to conduct further studies in order to understand the relationship. A lot of research has been conducted on the risk of vitamin D deficiency.

‘However, there is no scientific evidence for a “more is better” argument for vitamin D, and our study does not support the argument either.


‘We have moved into a controversial area that stirs up strong feelings just like debates on global warming and research on nutrition. But our results are based on a quarter of a million blood tests and provide an interesting starting point for further research.’

She said ‘Our data material covers a wide age range. The people who participated had approached their own general practitioners for a variety of reasons and had had the vitamin D level in their bloodstream measured in that context.

‘This means that while the study can show a possible association between mortality and a high level of vitamin D, we cannot as yet explain the higher risk.’

Dr Carrie Ruxton from the UK Health Supplements Information Service said the findings were contradicted by other research, showing people with higher vitamin D levels had lower mortality rates.

Data from the UK’s national nutrition survey showed no Britons had levels of vitamin D as high as those found at the top end in the study, which may have been affected by the fish-rich diet enjoyed by many Danish people, she said.

‘The Danes actually get a lot more sun exposure than Britons and eat a lot of oily fish. Although this is healthy in moderation, oily fish also contains high levels of vitamin A which can be harmful and toxins which may have had an effect on people’s health.

‘One-quarter of Britons go into the summer with levels of vitamin D below the level for optimal health, we have the problem of too many people consuming too little of the vitamin’ she added.

In the UK, the Food Standards Agency does not recommend a specific daily dose of vitamin D unless you are elderly, pregnant, Asian, get little sun exposure and eat no meat or oily fish when 10mcg is advised.