Tanning beds can ring up a steep bill — a whopping $343 million each year in medical costs in the US alone. 
 
 Indoor tanning has long been tied to skin cancer, the most common type of cancer in the US. It’s estimated that 30 million people — nearly 25 percent of whom are teenagers — head to tanning beds at least once a year. 
 
 And the health care costs of the habit can add up, health economists report in a new study published Tuesday in the Journal of Cancer Policy. 
 
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 Tanning beds emit UV-A rays, which can damage DNA, and UV-B rays, which can burn the skin and increase the risk of skin cancer. Research has shown that indoor tanning before age 35 raises the risk of melanoma up to 75 percent. 
 
 Health care researchers at the University of North Carolina focused on melanoma and two other types of skin cancer, basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma. 
 
 The researchers looked at all skin cancer cases in 2015, and then applied data on indoor tanning prevalence and relative risk of skin cancer after using a tanning bed to those numbers. They estimated that there were 263,600 cases of skin cancer in 2015 that could be attributed to the use of tanning beds. 
 
 The researchers then summed up the average annual cost of treating patients with each type of cancer, which totaled more than $343 million each year. 
 
 “Our findings highlight both the negative health and negative financial impacts associated with indoor tanning,” the authors wrote. 
 
 The Food and Drug Administration has taken steps in recent years to rein in use of tanning beds. In 2014, the agency announced that manufacturers would be required to put a black-box warning on tanning beds that states they shouldn’t be used by anyone under 18. The FDA also classified tanning beds as moderate-risk products in 2014, giving health officials the authority to review tanning beds for safety before they hit the market. 
 
 The Affordable Care Act aimed to reduce use of tanning beds, too, by implementing a 10 percent excise tax on indoor tanning services. 
 
 A couple caveats: The new numbers are just an estimation — it’s impossible to nail down the cause of each individual case of skin cancer. The results also don’t include costs associated with other health problems blamed on tanning beds, such as burns. 
 
 But the study’s authors said they are hopeful that putting an estimate on the social costs of indoor tanning will help reduce use of the devices. ||||| (Milt Savage/For The Washington Post) 
 
 Everyone knows, or should know, by now that tanning beds expose users to a lot of ultraviolet radiation, which can cause cancer. But according to a new study released Monday, indoor tanning also is responsible for an average of 3,234 injuries that result in visits to hospital emergency rooms each year. 
 
 That's nearly nine skin burns, fainting spells, eye injuries, lacerations, strains, sprains, bruises or dislocations every day that could have been avoided, since, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the practice also increases the risk of skin cancers, including melanoma. The CDC recommends against the use of tanning beds. 
 
 Gery P. Guy, a health economist who conducted the study for the CDC, said the true number of injuries is certainly greater. His data include only injuries treated in emergency rooms, but not those seen by private physicians, in urgent care facilities or treated at home. 
 
 Skin burns are the most common injury and women are more than four times as likely as men to get hurt, probably because they are, by far, the more common practitioners of "indoor tanning," according to the new research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Younger adults, aged 18-34, sustain well more than half the injuries, again because they are the most frequent users of tanning beds. One in three women between the ages of 16 and 25 uses a tanning bed at least once a year. 
 
 The acute injuries also increase the risk of long-term problems, Guy said. Skin burns raise the risk of later skin cancer, and eye burns increase the chances a person may develop ocular melanoma, he said. The study is the first to gather data on acute injuries from tanning on a national basis. 
 
 If there is ray of good news, it's that the number of injuries declined sharply during the period examined by the researchers, 2003 to 2012, probably because the overall use of tanning beds declined. More than 6,000 acute injuries were registered in 2003, a total that had dropped to 2,000 in 2012. 
 
 Guy said people are getting the message about the dangers of tanning beds and 11 states have banned indoor tanning by people under 18.
– Tanning beds have long been associated with skin cancer, and now researchers are quantifying just what that costs the US financially. Reporting in the Journal of Cancer Policy, they calculate that in 2015, the direct medical care for skin cancers resulting from tanning bed exposure totals $343.1 million. What's more, they figure that early deaths and loss of productivity in these cases add up to a $127.3 billion loss over the lifetime of individuals currently diagnosed. But those are just dollar signs: the human toll is large, too, with more than 263,000 cases of skin cancer attributed to tanning beds in 2015 alone. The researchers call tanning beds a "significant contributor to illness and premature mortality in the US." Reuters notes that some 30 million Americans use tanning beds every year. Tanning beds emit UV-A rays, which damage DNA, and UV-B rays, which can burn one's skin and also raise the risk of skin cancer. (The research did not calculate the medical cost of burns.) Previous research has found that indoor tanning bed exposure in people younger than 35 nearly doubles their risk of melanoma, reports STAT News, and Americans must now be 18 or older to use them in several states. "Women younger than 30 are six times more likely to develop melanoma if they tan indoors," says a University of Alabama researcher who wasn't involved in the study. "Even one indoor tanning session can increase users' risk of developing squamous cell carcinoma by 67% and basal cell carcinoma by 29%." (Australia has outright banned tanning beds.)