This was from the excellent NHS "Behind the Headlines" website: a thoughtful analysis of the recent claims that tanning beds may be habit-forming.  So what did NHS conclude?  They may very well be addictive.

Today we opened the first sunscreen of the summer a Neutrogena stick containing titanium dioxide and zinc sulfate. Total cost for a small small stick: $7. Ouch! The California Baby version is $15! This works out to something like $1 an ounce or more. I personally am trying to avoid using the "synthetic" sunscreens on kids out of concern for estrogen-like effects. I haven't seen correlations with health outcomes per se but I would rather not add risk especially in my daughter where I don't need to. The titanium based sunscreens do not appear to have a hormonal effect on biology.

Women who spend time tanning have about 1/3 less chance of developing blood clots according to a study published in a hematology journal this month. It's nice to see something reduce the risk of blood clots for a change! Looks like vitamin D is the reason for this phenomenon though the study did not measure vitamin D levels. Vitamin D supplements are trendy these days since we learned a few years ago that up to 80% of our patients are deficient in this vitamin. Chalk it up to spending more time indoors and putting on sunscreen at the beach.