A new study shines light on why more than a million Americans a day ignore skin-scorching warnings to hit tanning beds.
It’s nothing shocking: Artificially bronzing your skin can become a habit, and habits are hard to break.
Researchers found that some parts of the brain activate the same way they do when stimulated by other substances linked to addiction. Dr. Bryon Adinoff, a University of Texas-based psychiatry professor and an author of the study, told The New York Times that UV light affects people much like drugs and alcohol.
“[The brain] responds in areas that are associated with reward,” Adinoff told the newspaper.
That could explain why so much skin cancer awareness is simply that – awareness without follow-up. Nearly 30 million Americans use tanning beds every year, swelling the industry’s popularity to a point it’s never seen, according to skincancer.org.