To Tan or not to Tan…

by Rob on March 28, 2008 · 10 comments

in Medical

george400

Calling all dermatologists!  What’s the deal with tanning?  Should I put SPF 2000 on my kids whenever they go out, or should I let them look like George Hamilton?  He does look marvelous, doesn’t he?

Seriously, I am very much caught between the hype of the sun-screen addicts and the known risks of Melanoma.  Is the evidence iron-clad, or is it more hype than it deserves? 

I ask these, and more questions on MedPage.

toast

I actually look more like this guy than like George.

This material, written by me, is free to re-post and share under the Creative Commons agreement. In other words, use it all you want; just give me credit.
  • wolley

    I think the sun has a greater affect on you when you are young than at any other age.

    I don’t know about Melanoma, since I think people vary in the amount of rays they can absorb before cells turn cancerous.

    But the sun will make you look old. It will give you wrinkles. My advice would be to keep your kids out of direct sunlight as much as possible.

  • wolley

    I think the sun has a greater affect on you when you are young than at any other age.

    I don’t know about Melanoma, since I think people vary in the amount of rays they can absorb before cells turn cancerous.

    But the sun will make you look old. It will give you wrinkles. My advice would be to keep your kids out of direct sunlight as much as possible.

  • http://pearlsanddreams.blogspot.com/ Peggikaye

    don’t know what the derms would say … but ..as a 43 year old who’s already had to fight melanoma …
    I’d say… slather on the sunscreen!!

  • http://pearlsanddreams.blogspot.com Peggikaye

    don’t know what the derms would say … but ..as a 43 year old who’s already had to fight melanoma …
    I’d say… slather on the sunscreen!!

  • Rob

    So My kids swim in our pool daily during the summer. They never burn and have no marks on their skin. Negative FH for melanoma. We use sunscreen when we can, but they are often swimming before we can get to it. They get dark every summer and hair gets lighter. They don’t tan on purpose, they just like to be active and outside. We don’t want to prevent them from being outside (otherwise they are inside playing video games). Are they really at high risk?

  • Rob

    So My kids swim in our pool daily during the summer. They never burn and have no marks on their skin. Negative FH for melanoma. We use sunscreen when we can, but they are often swimming before we can get to it. They get dark every summer and hair gets lighter. They don’t tan on purpose, they just like to be active and outside. We don’t want to prevent them from being outside (otherwise they are inside playing video games). Are they really at high risk?

  • http://nobodyimportant-jmb.blogspot.com/ jmb

    The last three years have seen my husband reaping the rewards of his surfer dude past in Australia, with a malignant melanoma, two squamous cell carcinomas and several basal cell carcinomas. He left more than fifty years ago and has lived in the far northern climate ever since, so it took some time to catch up with him, but it did.

    Australia is known for the very high rate of melanomas and certainly people bake themselves there although their slip, slap, slop campaign (slip on a shirt, slap on a hat and slop on sunscreen) is helping.

  • http://nobodyimportant-jmb.blogspot.com/ jmb

    The last three years have seen my husband reaping the rewards of his surfer dude past in Australia, with a malignant melanoma, two squamous cell carcinomas and several basal cell carcinomas. He left more than fifty years ago and has lived in the far northern climate ever since, so it took some time to catch up with him, but it did.

    Australia is known for the very high rate of melanomas and certainly people bake themselves there although their slip, slap, slop campaign (slip on a shirt, slap on a hat and slop on sunscreen) is helping.

  • http://thedermblog.com/ DermDoc

    Excellent question. Thanks to you, I spent 8 hours this weekend writing a post in response to this. You can find it on my blog, today’s post (I don’t want to put the link here — blogspam).

    Thanks for the challenge. I hope I answered your question.
    Sincerely,
    Jeff

  • http://thedermblog.com DermDoc

    Excellent question. Thanks to you, I spent 8 hours this weekend writing a post in response to this. You can find it on my blog, today’s post (I don’t want to put the link here — blogspam).

    Thanks for the challenge. I hope I answered your question.
    Sincerely,
    Jeff

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