Researchers have found a possible underlying genetic susceptibility to being dependent on UV tanning.
After interviewing young people about their indoor and outdoor tanning history and using questionnaires to classify people as being dependent on UV tanning or not, the investigators conducted a large scale scan of approximately 319,000 rare and common genetic variants in the participants' genomes.
"We observed that inherited variation in one gene - known as patched domain containing 2 (PTCHD2) - was significantly associated with whether or not young people, all of whom had previously sunbathed or indoor tanned, exhibited symptoms of tanning dependence," said Dr. Brenda Cartmel, lead author of the Experimental Dermatology study.
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Experimental Dermatology