Avoid Tanning Beds

Too much exposure to the sun is dangerous and is a leading precursor

to skin cancer. However, natural sunlight is far less dangerous than
tanning beds.
SHE WAS, BY her own admission, a sun worshipper for most of her
life—on the beach all summer, and a regular at tanning beds the rest of
the year.
“I was dark. I was very, very dark,” says Gayle. “I look back at it now
and say, ‘How vain.’” The radical change in Gayle’s perspective stems directly
from a checkup, and the rapid-fi re changes it unleashed in her life.
Sitting on an examination table, dressed in a paper gown and awaiting
her doctor, Gayle casually asked the nurse what she thought about a
mole high on Gayle’s right leg. The nurse strongly suggested she show
it to the doctor, who, in turn, sent Gayle to see a dermatologist. Immediately.
Gayle had stage-three melanoma, signifying a relatively thick melanoma
that had spread to the lymph nodes. Gayle had started down a
path that would lead to a pair of surgeries, the removal of fi fteen lymph
nodes from the right side of her body, and an anguished stretch of time
during which she was not sure she would survive.
Fortunately, her disease was caught in time, and doctors have now
given her a clean bill of health. “It was just so silly,” Gayle says as she
relives her days spent in tanning beds. “One thing the cancer has done for
me is help me realize the rest of my life will not be devoted to silliness.”
Doctors found that tanning beds expose the body to ten to fi fteen times
higher concentrations of dangerous ultraviolet rays than natural sunlight.
(Mount Sinai School of Medicine 2003)