Frequent visitors of tanning booths show behavior similar to that of substance abusers, a new study suggests. Girls proudly showing off their smooth, tanned skin are just addicts looking for their next “UV shot”.

The grim picture may be true at least for students in the Northeastern United States, where the survey of potential “tanoholics” was done, says the paper published in the April issue of Archives of Dermatology, a journal of the American Medical Association. Study author Catherine Mosher, of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and her colleagues surveyed 421 undergraduates about their tanning habits.

The subjects were offered two questionnaires used for substance addiction screening, which had been reworded to use indoor tanning in place of booze, tobacco and marijuana. One is called CAGE and is meant to find alcohol addiction. The other questionnaire was derived from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

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About 56 per cent of the people reported frequently using tanning booths or beds, with an average 23 visits annually. Out of those, 30 per cent (70 individuals), met the criteria for addiction according to GAGE, and 39 per cent (90 individuals) met the criteria according to DSM.

Moreover, 42 per cent of the people considered addicts under both tests said they had used two or more addictive substances (excluding alcohol) in the past months, as compared to about 17 per cent of non-addicted tanners and 16 per cent of non-tanners reporting such behavior.

UV light is known to improve the mood by triggering the release of the chemical endorphin in humans. If further studies confirm that tanning is addictive, counseling may be required for the abuser wishing to get off the hook, just like drug addicts and alcoholics seek professional help.

Earlier, the International Agency for Research on Cancer warned that regular indoor tanning poses a risk of skin cancer.