Photo by curretett on Freeimages.com Young adults who use tanning beds may be aging their skin cells at a molecular level much faster than their chronological age suggests, according to a new study from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and Northwestern University. The research, published December 12 in Science Advances , reports that tanning bed users in their 30s and 40s harbour more mutations in their skin cells than nonusers who were in their 70s or 80s.

Risk of future melanoma can be estimated by evaluating accumulated sun damage-induced mutations in non-lesional skin, researchers report...