Shots Health News – People who regularly use tanning beds are more likely to have DNA damage that can lead to melanoma across nearly the entire surface of their skin.
Hop onto TikTok and you’ll find lots of videos of young people — mostly women — fake baking under the glowing UV lights of a tanning bed.
Seattle dermatologist Heather Rogers says this is an alarming trend that comes after years of decline in indoor tanning in the U.S.
She points to a 2025 survey from the American Academy of Dermatology which found 20% of Gen Z respondents prioritize getting a tan over protecting their skin. And 25% say it’s worth looking great now even if it means looking worse later.
They feel like “it’s better to be tan than it is to worry about skin cancer,” Rogers says.
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A new study in the journal Science Advances reinforces just why they should worry.
Researchers found that tanning bed users were nearly three times as likely to develop melanoma — the deadliest form of skin cancer — compared to people who’d never tanned indoors.
They also had DNA damage that can lead to melanoma across nearly the entire surface of the skin.
“Even in skin cells that look normal, in tanning bed patients, you can find those precursor mutations” that lead to melanoma, says Dr. Pedram Gerami, one of the study’s authors and the IDP Foundation professor of skin cancer research at Northwestern University …
