Tanning Beds Pose Serious Health Risks

As the weather turns colder and the sunlight hours dwindle, more and more Americans flock to indoor tanning salons to get that much desired straight-from-the-beach bronze glow. In fact, nearly 30 million people in the United States tan in salons every year, most of them women between the ages of 16 and 49. But before you start baking under the lights, you might want to consider the numerous health risks associated with tanning bed use. Let’s begin with infections. If the surface of the tanning bed isn’t cleaned properly or if the towels you use aren’t washed in hot water, you can get infections like pubic lice (crabs) and warts caused by the human papillomavirus, or HPV. Tanning beds and exposure to UV rays can have a detrimental effect on your immune system as well because it reduces the activity level of natural killer cells and T cells. Share and Enjoy:

About 100,000 cancer cases each year due to obesity

This year, an estimated 1.47 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer, and more than 562,000 will die of it. Two major classes of factors influence the incidence of cancer: hereditary and environmental. Hereditary factors, such as inherited genetic mutations, come from our parents and account for about 5 percent of all cancers. Environmental factors, which include tobacco use, certain infectious agents, certain medical treatments, excessive sun exposure, and exposures to cancer-causing agents known as carcinogens that exist as pollutants in our air, food, water and soil, account for an estimated 75-80 percent of cancer cases and deaths. Obesity is also an environmental factor that is clearly associated with increased risk for developing many cancers, causing more than 100,000 cases of cancer in the U.S. each year, according to a recent study from researchers at the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR). Share and Enjoy:

Obesity: Will it become the leading cause of preventable cancer among women?

Obesity may have been the cause of over 124,000 cases of cancer diagnosed in Europe last year alone. In addition, obesity could become the leading preventable cause of cancer in women in Western countries within a decade. The number of estimated cases was based on information from a number of sources, including the World Health Organization and the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Researchers calculated the proportion of body weight related cancers in 30 European countries. The researchers examined the cancer risk among men and women having a body mass index (BMI) score greater than 25. BMI is a ratio of weight to height used to determine if an individual is overweight or obese. Statistics available from 2002 indicated that over 70,000 new cases out of a total of 2.2 million cancers could be attributed to being overweight or obese. By projecting these figures forward, an estimated 124,050 new cancers linked to body weight may have occurred in 2008, which would account for 3.2 percent of new cancers in men, and 8.6 percent in women. As the outbreak of obesity continues to spread, and with major cancer culprits such as smoking and hormone replacement therapy fading from the forefront, cancers linked to obesity could well become the leading preventable cause among women. Share and Enjoy: