Miami Herald: Addicted to tanning? It's possible.

[Editor-in-Chief]

Addicted to tanning? It's possible

BY FRED TASKER

ftasker@MiamiHerald.com

So you're lying on the beach sipping a brewski and working on your tan, despite the U.S. Surgeon General's warnings about both practices.

Did it ever occur to you that the tanning, not just the beer, might be addictive?

Two new studies have come to that conclusion, at least tentatively.

One study, at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School, suggests that a protein called p53, which protects the body from cancer in several ways, also sets in motion a complex physiological process that ends up producing endorphins.

So in addition to that well-known ''runner's high,'' you can now get ``tanner's high.''

A second study gave 358 students at University of Washington in Seattle, where they crave the seldom-seen sun, a modified version of a questionnaire originally created to measure addiction to alcohol.

It scored students who tan on purpose -- especially those who use indoor tanning salons -- highest on the tanning addiction scale.

Even worse, it found that students with family histories of skin cancer were more likely to purposely tan than those with benign backgrounds.

The Boston study looked at tanning in both mice and humans and concluded that the p53 protein might underlie peoples' desire to spend time in the sun.

''These proteins may provide an explicit link between the regulation of tanning and of mood,'' said Dr. David E. Fisher, director of the Melanoma Program at Dana-Farmer, in a release on the center's website. His study was published in the March 8 issue of the dermatology journal Cell.

Fisher could not be reached Tuesday for further comment.

But Dr. Robert Kirsner, vice chairman of dermatology at the University of Miami School of Medicine, gave some backing to Fisher's idea.

``It's known that the [tanning] hormone has several parts, and that one of them is an opiate-like compound. So it does make sense. People get out in the sun and they feel good. It's a feeling of euphoria.''

The euphoria is the flip side of the melancholic problem Seasonal Affective Disorder, nicknamed SAD, that depresses people in northern climates during long, dark winters.

''And the treatment for SAD is sunlight,'' he said.

Does it mean tanning can be addictive?

''It seems to be an addictive behavior like alcohol or smoking, although I don't know if it's as strong,'' Kirsner said.

He stressed, however, that he doesn't approve of getting a tan either for cosmetic purposes or the attempt to feel good.

Whatever the reason, it increases the risk of melanoma, he says.

''We don't want anybody to get a tan,'' he says.

In the second study, researchers from the dermatology department at University of Washington studied 385 students and concluded that:
• 76 percent of female students and 59 percent of males purposely tanned their skin.
• 42 percent of females and 17 percent of males used indoor tanning devices.

To the tanning students they administered a modified version of the CAGE questionnaire, made up of ''cut-down, annoyed, guilty, eye-opener'' questions:
• Have you ever felt you ought to cut down on tanning?
• Have people annoyed you by criticizing your tanning?
• Have you ever felt guilty about your tanning?
• Have you ever thought about tanning first thing in the morning?

Students who said yes, thus replying in a defensive way to the questions, were said to be addicted to tanning, just as respondents who said yes to the same questions about alcohol would be considered addicted to it.

''We all see this in our dermatology practices,'' says Dr. Robin L. Hornung, the study's author. 'We tell our patients, `Please stop tanning. You're baked.' But they have a hard time quitting.''

Why the students with family histories of skin cancer were the most likely to keep tanning she could only speculate.

``It might be family influence. A family with skin cancer might be one that tans a lot. Or it might be genetic.''

A strong believer of the feel-good theory of tanning is Fabiola Trujillo, manager of SoBe Tan tanning salon at 940 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach. She used tanning beds for years.

''Oh, yes. Once you get into it, you feel so much better. There's something inside of you that feels good. You get that rush inside, just like you get with exercise,'' she says.

Trujillo doesn't use the tanning beds herself anymore, however. She sticks to her salon's other specialty -- spray-on tans.

''I'm in my 40s,'' she says. ``I have to take care of my skin.''

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