The World Health Organization strongly does not recommend people under the age of 18 to use solariums, according to a statement published on the official website of the organization. This is due to the increased risk of developing skin cancer, to be more exact - one of the most malignant varieties of it, melanoma, among adolescents compared with the adult population.

According to WHO experts, more than 132 thousand cases of melanoma and about 66 thousand deaths from it or other types of skin cancer are registered annually. The incidence of these nosological forms is constantly growing, and most of all - in the northern countries. So, in Norway and Sweden over the past 45 years it has tripled, and in the United States for the past 30 years has doubled.

Experts attribute this growth to the ever-increasing use of tanning beds, both stationary and domestic.

WHO calls on governments of countries where the hobby of "tanning indoors" is the most common, take urgent measures to tighten requirements both for the equipment used in the tanning salons and for the contingent that is allowed in the solarium.

Age restrictions already exist in several countries, for example, in one of the sunniest states of the USA - California - adolescents under the age of 18 are not allowed to visit the solarium without a doctor's order.

The British Medical Association and the Cancer Research UK also have made an official ban on visiting tanning salons by teenagers under 16 years of age.

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