Addicted To Tanning

The NY Times explains that tanning changes the brain, which goes a bit of the way towards explaining Snooki and the Jersy Shore.  Their gist - exposure to UV lights up the same reward centers that respond to cocaine, booze and the like:

People who frequently use tanning beds experience changes in brain activity during their tanning sessions that mimic the patterns of drug addiction, new research shows.

...

What the researchers found was that several parts of the brain that play a role in addiction were activated when the subjects were exposed to UV rays. The findings, which appear in the coming issue of the journal Addiction Biology, may help explain why some people continue to tan often despite awareness about risks such as skin cancer, premature aging and wrinkles.

The test seems well-designed:

But Dr. Adinoff and his colleagues decided to go a step further. They recruited a small group of people from tanning salons who said that they liked to tan at least three times a week and that maintaining a tan was important to them. The frequent tanners agreed to be injected with a radioisotope that allowed researchers to monitor how tanning affected their brain activity.

On one occasion, the study subjects experienced a normal tanning session. But on another occasion, the researchers used a special filter that blocked only the UV light, although the tanners weren’t told of the change.

Brain images later showed that during regular tanning sessions, when the study subjects were exposed to UV rays, several key areas of the brain lighted up. Among those areas were the dorsal striatum, the left anterior insula and part of the orbitofrontal cortex – all areas that have been implicated in addiction. But when the UV light was filtered out, those areas of the brain showed far less activity.

And I found this fascinating:

The researchers also found evidence that the tanners appeared to know — on a subconscious level, at least — when they had undergone sham tanning sessions and not received their usual dose of UV rays. The tanners, questioned after each session, expressed less desire to tan after the real sessions, indicating they had gotten their fill. But on days when the tanners were unknowingly deprived of the UV rays, their desire to tan after the session remained as high as it was before the session began.

“They all liked the session where they got the real UV light,” said Dr. Adinoff. “There was some way people were able to tell when they were getting the real UV light and when they were not.”

I wonder what else we can sense without conscious awareness?

Comments

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

I've never used a tanning bed, but I do feel very relaxed when I'm out in the warm sun. I tan quickly and quite dark and the tan stays with me way into Dec and Jan. My son is the same way. We never burn. My husband and my daughter would burn within a few minutes of hot sun, peel, and be as white as ever. They never tanned. Neither got particular pleasure being out on a sunny day, whereas my son and I love being out in the sun and warm air.

So, do these results measuring the high of tanning in tanning beds apply to the rays of the real sun?

[matt]

gee, I guess that explains mad dogs and Englishmen.

[Ignatz]

--People who frequently use tanning beds experience changes in brain activity during their tanning sessions that mimic the patterns of drug addiction, new research shows.--

Is that what prompted Boehner to sponsor No Child Left Behind?

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

His was not a tanning bed tan. He got a spray on tan.

[Jack is Back! (literally)]

In Britaiin, you don't tan. You rust.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

LOL. JiB.

[Frau Roggenbrot]

"His was not a tanning bed tan. He got a spray on tan."
I'm sure you mean algore in his Reagan Alpha phase.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Frau: Sort of the color you get when you feed the baby too many strained carrots, if you know what I mean.

[Frau Roggenbrot]

Groovy UV for thee but not for me. I'll take the cloudy, gray skies of my forebears.

[Frau Roggenbrot]

One of my German nephews was given so much mashed carrots, he was actually orange. My child had the usual Rhenish pallor.

Who said Boehner was artificially tan? (besides Pres.A.D.Hominem)

[Gmax]

Well yesterday the airways were full of discussions about the weather in Dallas and how many more 100 degrees days to exceed the all time record of most 100 degree days in a row. A grim milestone to be sure. A funny thing happened on the way toward the forum, a mass of clouds ( what are those? ) formed and next thing you know the temperature dropped and the consecutive day streak was over.

And the moral of all that?

Dallas beat the Heat, again.

Sorry for those of you of limited sense of humor. I am certain Sue will get the joke and find it hilarious. Miami residents are known to be humor deficit as a rule anyway.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

I'm laughing, Gmax.

[Pops]

Just a side note since its bouncing around in my brain.

Liberals have gone off the deep end atempting to find 'Conservative Hypocrisy' such as politicians who request funding of projects in their districts when they oppose a given spending bill and now the attacks on Megan Kelly for supporting maternity leave.

First off, tell the liberals that you can support a policy without thinking it has to be a federal mandate. I can support my employer providing a hat rack for wet umbrellas but I don't have to support a federal law requiring it in every business.

I can support a busines like Fox giving maternity leave without also supporting a federal law mandating the requirement.

In just the same way I can oppose spending but still request spending in bills that go through the apropriate priotization process.

The idea that anything I think is good is then fine to be federally mandated in law is absolute rubbish and shows liberals have no substance left to their arguments.

[Gmax]

liberals have no substance left to their arguments.

that has been true for over 40 years. What is new?

[matt]

Gmax, great line....

[MarkO]

There's no tan like that the comes to those with the skill to haul bales of hay shirtless and in cut-off Levi's.

OK. So most of it is hay dust, but it looks good.

[Janet]

Their gist - exposure to UV lights up the same reward centers that respond to cocaine, booze and the like:

the like?...chocolate, a great steak, cigarettes, Corn Nuts,

Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess!...& I love having a good tan. :)

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

The closest I ever got to a tattoo was cutting my boyfriend's initials out of tin foil and gluing them to my back, then spending the whole day out on the lake in the canoe with the sun beating on my back all day. By the next day, I'd forgotten all about them. When I came down in my bathing suit and my Aunt saw those white initials in the middle of my very tan back, she nearly had a heart attack. I went around all day scared that God was going to strike me dead or something.

[Janet]

I remember Gov. Mark Sanford writing to his mistress - "...I love your tan lines."

In that case the tan actually caused brain activity in another person. weird.

[Ann]

I am not sure where to post this but I hope it is a photoshopped pic (only because she should know better). The Telegragh is reporting this pic from the Iowa State Fair:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyharnden/100100848/fried-food-and-retail-politics-at-the-iowa-state-fair/

Boy, is it going to get ugly. A premonition of things to come and a heads up on preparing for it.

**************

How do we get Pops a sit down with Boehner?

[Threadkiller]

--"I wonder what else we can sense without conscious awareness?"--

Apparently it is difficult to sense a cameraman in standing in front of the fried pecker stand.

[matt]

Howard Stern just changed his party affiliation.

[Threadkiller]

Hahahaha!

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

re: Howard Stern

I didn't know we had a terminally weird party.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Ann: ::rolling eyes::

[Frau Roggenbrot]

(TK, that might well be steamed.)

We've miiiiiiiiissssssed you, Ann. I keep thinking that fat little Barry wants to come out.

[jorod]

Can people sense when they are being ripped off by politicians?

[Captain Hate]

So has Boehner officially replaced George Hamilton as a go-to reference on any thread on tanning?

The Gong Show once had a contestant in a similar pose as Michele; prompting Jaye P Morgan to comment on skills which aided her career advancement in Hollywood.

[Captain Hate]

Can people sense when they are being ripped off by politicians?

Every April 15

[narciso]

Lol, that was unfortunate, she should have settled for the fried twinkie,

[Dave (in MA)]

|

[Captain Hate]

Perhaps I may have underestimated Michele's proclivity for unforced errors. At least people aren't concentrating on her "crazy eyes". Although Tina Brown is probably kicking herself for doing a cover photo on her a week too early.

[Threadkiller]

Fat Girls Break Hamburger Eating Record To Raise Money For The DNC!

”Devouring an astounding 175 Big Macs in under 15 minutes, the girls clinched the previous record by 46 hamburgers and cut the time to 13 minutes 17 seconds.

According to the girls, their entering the contest was to raise money for congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s re-election campaign and they hope the current DNC Chairwoman (Wasserman-Schultz) appreciates their efforts. They plan to enter a all-you-can-eat bagel contest in Wasserman-Schultz’s district even though the girls say they’re not Jewish and hate cream cheese.

According to Ellen Louise, who’s says she’s 27 and not married, “Debbie is hot and I’d share her foxhole anytime.”

Now that’s a joke.

[macphisto]

that Hillary picture on the right really belongs in the ice-cream-cone-eating scene from "Walk Hard."

[BR]

When God saw this thread, He was about to gag all over America. So, to quickly save the few civilized people who still reside there, I made up a joke instead.

Cannibal joke:
VOS = language structure of certain islands that used to have cannibals: verb object subject.

The first sentence that came to mind was:
Eat you I or Eat me you?

[Captain Hate]

Dear God, I get up to see the Perseid meteor shower (too many clouds) and instead am greeted with TK's unfortunate ability to post an image of two oinkers (apologies to pigs; intelligent animals that are hated by the moooooslims) who find Debbie ImnotEd-Schultz hot.

I'm going back to bed.

[daddy]

According to this new science story at the UK Telegraph those 2 sows pictured above must have healthy brains, because Dieting forces brain to eat itself, scientists claim.

[daddy]

Having problems posting this morning, so hope this isn't in triplicate.

It wasn't Global Warming!

This BBC Science story tells us that a huge Manhattan sized iceberg that broke off of Antarctica last May was the result of the 9.0 Japanese Earthquake. Satellite photos show huge icebergs were created when the tsunami hit West Antarctica's Sulzberger Ice Shelf.

"The waves generated by the 9.0 Magnitude earthquake in Japan travelled about 13,000km across the Pacific Ocean before reaching the Sulzenberger Ice Shelf, causing ice to break off and float into the sea."

[Pops]

I would have hit the press pretty hard for the Bachmann question about being submissive to her husband. The media, including the conservatrives claim this is perfectly appropriate.

But as far as I can tell every male politicians on that stage also swore to God they would OBEY their wives, and yet not a single reporter has ever questioned whether a male candidate will OBEY his wife when it comes to deciding policy?

I mean how can we trust any man that swore before God that he would obey his wife??

If it is an appropriate question for Bachmann, why has it never in history been appropriate to ask any man???

[Extraneus]

For the men, it was "Love, honor and cherish" where I grew up, Pops. (Catholic.)

[Clarice]

TK, thanks a lot. I woke up this morning feeling like those girls look. I really didn't need that

[Janet]

...may help explain why some people continue to tan often despite awareness about risks such as skin cancer, premature aging and wrinkles.

That's the sentence that makes me leery of the intentions of this research. I've probably gotten overly paranoid.

[MarkO]

TK, oink.

[narciso]

Clearly Ensign, Sanford, Craig, weren't honoring their vows, so there is that.

[Jim Miller]

"[W]hat else we can sense without conscious awareness?"

A lot. And this gives me the chance to pass on one of the weirdest results I have ever heard of. (I found it an a collection of articles by some respectable guy. Harold Morowitz? Lewis Thomas?)

Researchers hypnotized a small group of subjects and told them, under hypnosis, that they would lose all the moles on one side of their body. Most of the subjects did,within a week or two, except for one or two who lost moles on the other side of their body. (Some people, even adults, have trouble telling right from left.)

You would really, really like to see a result that weird replicated, of course, but the author did get it from some respectable, or semi-respectable, journal, as I recall.

On a more mundane level, cravings for unusual foods are sometimes connected to dietary deficiencies.

[Bargis Tryhol]

If you like the Fat Girl series, here's another.....

http://satireworld.com/us-news-headlines/201105200615/fat-girl-tells-jerry-springer-my-husband-wants-me-to-roll-in-flour-before-lovemaking/

[Janet]

I've got to show up whenever chausses & lutes are mentioned...poor Barqis has to show up whenever fat girls are mentioned. He must stay busy...

[Tanning]

Maybe the answer to the addiction among tanners to tanning simply lays in the fact that they subconsciously are aware of the fact that they need UV-light to be more healthy?

This is not more sensational than to discover that we are all addicted also to air and water.

The human body actually needs UV light much more than it needs to be without. Statistic shows that the health-risks of having too little sunlight by far outweighs the risks of having too much. Furthermore, the risks of having too much can easily be avoided.

If you are serious about public health, go to the sources of the so called research on the danger of tanning beds and you will find why they have been dubbed scientific fraud by the real experts on UV and vitamin d. You will then also find proof of the dependence of the main researchers behind those dubious report from financial support from manufacturers of sun-protection lotions.

I see this article with its lack of depth and sensation-creation, as just another input to the 30-year old sun-scare propaganda that was created with the sole purpose for large cosmetic companies to sell more of their sun-protection products. Look up sun-scare on Google and see my video there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_CrPZLbkE8

[Extraneus]

Why not just peruse http://PeopleOfWalmart.com ? Lots of fat people there. This dude, for example.

[Bargis Tryhol]

Did someone say Catholic????

http://satireworld.com/world-news-headlines/201103180859/pope-benedict-goes-to-mount-olive-popeye-almost-kills-him/

[Bargis Tryhol]

Tanning beds are a slow trip to skin cancer. Hope younger folks wise up and see the dangers.

[Pigilito]

The study "seems well-designed"?

A few things make me leery: An N = seven does not in itself inspire confidence, and the subjects were asked to rate their reactions verbally. An analog scale is generally preferred to verbal answers.

Finally, there might well have been investigator bias as the abstract states that while the subjects were blinded as to what they received, the investigators were not. Failing to blind the investigators can undermine even otherwise carefully designed studies.

[cathyf]

Yeah, a rather other obvious thing to check -- vitamin D levels -- didn't seem to have occurred to them, either. I would certainly be interested in knowing whether people with low levels and high levels reacted differently to the UV light.