How Safe Are Sunbeds?

It has been known for many years that sunbeds aren't the healthiest of beauty treatments but recent research has just seriously upped the ante. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) who have previously stated a probable link between skin cancer and tanning beds, have now upgraded the severity of the connection to a definite link.

As more and more of the younger generation are striving for the perfect tan and the popularity of tanning salons has soared, the agency warns that teens are putting themselves at as much as a 75 percent greater risk of forming melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. In fact the agency now compares the use of sunbeds to heavy smoking or exposure to asbestos and warns that there could even be a possible connection to the development of eye cancer.

These days there are fantastic alternatives available in the form of spray tans and creams that simulate perfectly the deep glow of summer vacation so why are teenagers and adults still unnecessarily put themselves at risk?

As if that was incentive enough, overuse of sunbeds is also prematurely aging for the skin especially around the delicate eye area where crows feet can appear. Cosmetic surgeons regularly see women who's skin has been damaged by excessive exposure to UV light and for them the only solutions are procedures such as facial peels (like as the Rubicon Moulding Mask), botox injections or in more extreme cases eye lift and face lift surgery.

Cosmetic Surgery To Beat the Mid-Life Blues

In an age when it's common place to see a 50-year-old Madonna cavorting in a leotard and celebrity mum's like Jade Jagger and The Duchess of York hitting the town with their daughters, Times journalist Carole Midgley observes that cosmetic surgery is a part of this new female attitude.

The article titled "Tattoos, tummy tucks and miniskirts" details that like the traditional male stereotype of a mid-life crisis complete with sports car, leather pants and ponytail, middle-aged women are now having their own very public version of this rite of passage.

Migley's main point was that women shouldn't strive to emulate a male stereotype that has always been much maligned. However, Migley does concede that it is encouraging to find women able to express themselves in a way that may not have been possible 20 or so years ago.

For many women this increased confidence may be in part due to cosmetic surgery. Procedures such as the arm lift to reduce 'bingo wings', and the breast uplift which returns the breast to higher, firmer position, are just two such operations which can help to restore a more youthful appearance.

To read The Times article in full click here