Some scientific studies find the strangest correlations.
And this one may have just found one of the strangest ones yet.
A study by Stanford University set out to find the correlation between indoor tanning, skin cancer, and sexuality, and what they found was pretty shocking.
First, while there’s no direct correlation between indoor tanning and skin cancer, indoor tanning is linked to about 400,000 cases of skin cancer every year.
This new study took data from a national health survey across five years, with a combined amount of data from 78,000 heterosexual men, 108,000 heterosexual women, 3,100 gay and bisexual men, and 3,000 lesbian and bisexual women.
What they found is that gay and bisexual men were up to six time more likely to use indoor tanning devices and develop skin cancer than straight men were, and lesbian and bisexual women were half as likely to use them and develop cancer than straight women were.
The prevalence of skin cancer among gay and bisexual men came in between 4 and 7 percent, where with straight men there was only a 3 percent prevalence.
Lesbians and bisexual women were less than half as likely to indoor tan than their heterosexual counterparts, and they only had a bit over half as many reported cases of skin cancers.
The researchers aren’t sure why this difference is so defined, and believe that they need to figure this out before they do any targeted interventions.
They also acknowleged that some factors that went unmeasured may have swayed results, like outdoor tanning and history of skin cancer screenings.
In the meantime, there's no reason to self-tan. There are plenty of bronzers out there they can do the job just fine without subjecting yourself to skin cancer, no matter what your sexual orientation.
