No Tan Is A Safe Tan

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People equate a tan with youth, vigor and health, but nothing could be further from the truth. The sun or tanning booth will age your skin, making you look older not younger. We've all seen a middleaged sun worshipper with leathery skin that looks like it would make a neat belt or a great pair of shoes.

When friends or family members return from a vacation spent broiling in the sun, we shouldn't tell them that they look great. Instead we should warn them that their newly-brown skin is evidence that they have exposed themselves to the risk of cancer.

"Evidence is accumulating that there is no such thing as a 'safe tan.'

Ultraviolet rays, no matter where you get them from, cause skin cancer, and the purported health benefits of UV rays, such as vitamin D production, are overstated, if not downright wrong.

So say a trio of papers published in the October issue of Pigment Cell & Melanoma Research." US News and World Report/Amanda Gardner

Bronze skin might get you a few looks from the opposite sex, but in a few years when your skin is wrinkled from the sun you won't get a second look.

And God forbid that you end up with melanoma, you will end up looking like John McCain. Although his skin cancer was probably caused by being forced to be out in the sun by his Vietnamese captors, and not by relaxing on the beach.

Don't be mislead by the advertisements for tanning beds, no tan is a safe tan. A tanning bed reminds me of a coffin, avoid a tanning bed as you would a coffin.

Robert Paul Reyes is a NewsBlaze writer on Politics, Pop Culture and Pointless Pontificating. Contact him by writing to NewsBlaze.