WASHINGTON - Regularly baking to a golden tan under sun lamps can increase the risk of malignant melanoma, a sometimes fatal skin cancer, and the younger a woman starts the greater the risk, a study says.

The study, which analyzed the lifestyles and melanoma risks for women between the ages of 30 and 50, found what researchers said was the strongest evidence yet that artificial sun tanning can be dangerous to healthy skin.

Melanoma risk is highest among fair-skinned people in Australia, New Zealand, Europe and North America. Since the 1950s, the rate of skin cancer has tripled in Norway and Sweden, where light skin is common. About 50,000 cases of melanoma are diagnosed annually in the United States and about 7,500 people die of the disease each year, according to American Academy of Dermatology officials.

In the study, appearing this week in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, an international group of researchers analyzed data from the Women's Lifestyle and Health Cohort Study in Norway and Sweden. In 1991 and 1992, 106,379 women completed extensive questionnaires about their exposure to sunlight and to artificial tanning. In 1999, the researchers rechecked the women's cancer status using the national health registries in Norway and Sweden.

They found that women of any age or hair color who used tanning beds once or more per month increased their chance of developing melanoma by 55 percent.

The risk was highest for young adults. Compared with women who never used a solarium, women who reported using artificial tanning systems once or more per month when they were between the ages of 20 and 29 increased their risk of melanoma by about 150 percent.

"This is just one of many papers that have suggested a link between indoor tanning and the development of melanoma skin cancer," said Dr. James M. Spencer, vice chairman of dermatology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

Spencer said it is well known that ultraviolet light causes skin cancer.

"Whether you get it at the indoor tanning parlor or at the beach, (UV light) is a carcinogen," he said.

People may have good reasons to be in natural sunlight, where they can protect themselves with sun block, Spencer said. However, "There is no compelling reason to go to a tanning salon," he said. "It is just for a cosmetic tan that fades in a couple of weeks and can cause you a lifetime of trouble."

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