Cream Induced Tans Reduces Risk of Skin Cancer

New research from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute suggests that certain types of tanning cream could prevent skin cancer.

From Giz Magazine:
Findings from a study led by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Children’s Hospital in Boston have rewritten science’s understanding of the process of skin tanning – an insight that has enabled them to develop a promising way of protecting fair-skinned people from skin cancer caused by exposure to sunlight.

The study, to be published by the journal Nature in its Sept. 21 issue, involved giving tans to specially engineered mice, not by exposing them to ultraviolet rays in sunlight (the usual route to a tan), but by applying a cream that switched on the tanning machinery in their skin cells. Because people who tan easily, or have naturally dark skin, are far less likely to develop skin cancer than fair-skinned individuals – who tend to get sunburns rather than tan – the findings suggests that medicinally-induced tans can protect at-risk individuals from the disease.