Medscape (5/5, Brooks) reports that according to research presented at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting, “high school students who frequent the tanning salon may actually be depressed and at risk for suicidal thoughts and behavior.” The study “found that excessive indoor tanning, defined as tanning 40 times or more in 12 months, was associated with a greater than two-fold increased odds of depressive symptoms and suicidal thoughts and a greater than four-fold likelihood of suicide attempt.” In arriving at the study’s conclusion, researchers analyzed data from the biennial Youth Risk Behavior Survey “to study the relationship between excessive indoor tanning with depression, defined as 2 weeks of sadness, and suicide ideation, plan, attempt, and treatment.”
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