[HN Gopher] Current guidelines for sun exposure are unhealthy an...
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Current guidelines for sun exposure are unhealthy and unscientific
- research
Author : mmanfrin
Score : 295 points
Date : 2022-05-22 18:47 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.outsideonline.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.outsideonline.com)
| next_xibalba wrote:
| From the subtitle of the article:
|
| > and quite possibly even racist
|
| And I'm out.
|
| Does racism exist? Of course.
|
| Is everything everywhere always racism? Of course not.
| DantesKite wrote:
| I felt the same way. I don't like the disingenuous way the
| article starts, because it really does dilute the serious
| nature of racism. It shouldn't be something off-handedly used
| to get a few more clicks on an article or to signal to your in-
| group that you're virtuous.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Understandable, but I think you're missing out. Better to
| ignore that stuff here if it bothers you. Interesting article.
| twofornone wrote:
| I strongly disagree. These accusatory virtue signals are
| _everywhere_ , deliberate, and most importantly antithetical
| to reason. Ignoring this stuff is how we ended up with
| diversity quotas. We should all be pushing back at this
| point, meritocracy is literally at stake when people are
| hired for race/gender, and the dysfunction is already visible
| across many of our institutions.
|
| I came here to read an article about sunscreen, not be
| implicitly lectured with distilled identity politics.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| Filter out the chatter and follow the actual information.
| The article is on some online magazine site, who cares what
| they write. The original study says nothing about race
| whatsoever.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| I'm with you, but I take a different approach:
| mercilessly mock the chatter and noise, discuss the
| information. Encourage information, discourage senseless
| garbage.
| deanCommie wrote:
| Diversity quotas irrespective of skill, and those that
| denigrate meritocracy are antithetical to reason.
|
| But from where I sit I do not see any diversity quotas that
| choose race/gender over skill. There might be exceptions
| somewhere, I won't lie. I only know about my corner which
| is big tech hiring.
|
| What I see is an acknowledgement that much selection in our
| society (to universities, for jobs, etc) are subjective
| decisions that incorporate objective and subjective
| factors. Every student trying to get into Yale has perfect
| GPA, SATs, and a list of extra-curricular activities as
| long as my arm. So if they are equal on these measures, why
| not bring in slightly more folks from races that have been
| historically disadvantaged to offset past injustices? Is
| that fair to white students? No. But there is no "fair" way
| to make a choice like this.
|
| Big tech hiring focus on diversity is much the same - the
| bar is NOT lowered for women or anyone from a minority
| race. The last step of hiring before an offer is an
| objective test of programming ability. And nobody gets
| through those except on merit. But the FIRST step of hiring
| for multi-billion dollar companies is to sift through
| thousands of interview applicants, or contact thousands of
| applicants on LinkedIn with identical sounding resumes.
| These steps are HIGHLY subjective and unscientific -
| they're based on keywords, feel of recruiters, overindexing
| on past signals (other big tech companies, big
| universities, etc). The first "screen out" phase of hiring
| has NEVER been a meritocracy. It's always been a gut feel
| of who "feels" like they would be a successful candidate.
|
| This is where the diversity initiatives are focused - to
| try to shift the variables in a subjective non-meritocratic
| process to - again - offset past racial discriminations to
| try to even the playing field slightly.
|
| I ask you to have patience with "being lectured about
| identity politics". I ask you to wonder why you find virtue
| signals "accusatory" if they're not talking to you or about
| you. Don't discount those talking about this subject as
| "woke", or "virtue signalers" or "social justice warriors".
|
| Some of them are overly angry and vitriolic, yes. Some are
| tired of explaining concepts that are clear and for granted
| to them, thinking that at this point anyone that disagrees
| is simply an agitator. Not all show good faith. Some are in
| it for themselves, and the glory of being holier-than-thou.
| I'm not going to pretend that doesn't exist.
|
| But most of the concepts being discussed are sound. And
| there is a lot of fire behind the smoke. There is a lot of
| past, present, and future "racism" that still needs to be
| understood, and addressed.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| Shorter people (relative to their gender) systematically
| earn less. Yet we aren't in uproar about this, and they
| are still allowed to be the butt of many jokes.
|
| Introversion is still taken poorly, as if it is a sin.
| Despite introversion having almost no relation to job
| performance without further context.
|
| People who work better on different schedules are still
| funneled primarily into a 9-6 rhythm, being told to suck
| it up.
|
| "White students" from poor backgrounds now struggle to
| move up even more, as they are selected against for "not
| being diverse enough".
|
| Really, most companies with diversity quotas might not
| hire Joe, but they'll hire Juan who's basically the same
| as Joe except he's Mexican and loves Taco Tuesday more
| than Pizza Friday. It's diversity in the most superficial
| sense, looking for the same car with a different paint
| job. They're not in this to combat "racial injustices",
| they're in this to appease some crowd with too much money
| in an attempt to get more money out of them.
| twofornone wrote:
| I don't have space to respond to your whole commend but
| upon skimming these two points stood out:
|
| >Big tech hiring focus on diversity is much the same -
| the bar is NOT lowered for women or anyone from a
| minority race.
|
| When employers industry wide are tripping over themselves
| to hire minorities, then yes, the bar is absolutely lower
| and pay higher. Its a classic perverse incentive.
|
| >The last step of hiring before an offer is an objective
| test of programming ability.
|
| Having been on both ends, there is absolutely nothing
| objective about interviews, and its perfectly possible to
| even pass a hard leetcode interview while lacking
| hard/soft skills. This is the basis for the diversity
| overcorrection: the allegation was that the system was
| implicitly biased against minorities, and the solution
| was to apply bias in the other direction.
|
| Except the fundamental premise, all of the "proof" upon
| which the justification for racist/sexist hiring is a
| giant conflation; inequality of outcome is not strong
| evidence of discrimination. Especially when you have a
| glaring and obvious pipeline problem.
|
| You can't snap your fingers and decide that you're going
| to hire up a bunch of minorities to senior positions
| tomorrow when they don't even exist in college today
| without sacrificing merit. Statistics and the normal
| distribution guarantee that a smaller pool of candidates
| will have a disproportionately smaller pool of high
| achievers and once those are vacuumed by corps virtually
| signalling for ESG Goodboy points you are forced to
| either abandon quotas or draw from closer to the mean. It
| is a statistical inevitability that minority hiring
| quotas lead to reduced average competence.
|
| Something about the road to hell and pavement.
| postpawl wrote:
| "People of color rarely get melanoma. The rate is 26 per
| 100,000 in Caucasians, 5 per 100,000 in Hispanics, and 1 per
| 100,000 in African Americans. On the rare occasion when African
| Americans do get melanoma, it's particularly lethal--but it's
| mostly a kind that occurs on the palms, soles, or under the
| nails and is not caused by sun exposure."
|
| It's saying they're pushing sun screen for people who don't
| really need it.
| ProfessorLayton wrote:
| Avoiding cancer isn't the only reason one would want to wear
| sunscreen, PoC or not.
| amluto wrote:
| The article seems to be saying that excessive sunscreen usage
| and sun avoidance is bad for everyone and _especially_ for
| people with darker skin. The leap of logic from that to
| racism seems like a bit of a stretch.
|
| Maybe the world needs a variant of Hanlon's razor: never
| attribute to racism that which is adequate explained by
| stupidity (or incompetence or the desire to promote one's
| product or profession, etc.).
| seoaeu wrote:
| I mean, lots of folks use a simpler model: "never attribute
| anything to racism because talking about race makes me
| uncomfortable"
| sdenton4 wrote:
| And yet...
|
| The US tried /extremely/ hard to take 'color-blindness' as
| the solution to centuries of explicit racism. And it failed
| rather completely. There's two effects at play: a) the
| 'true' racists learned how to keep being horrible without
| ever explicitly talking about race, and b) we wound up with
| lots of 'data gaps' around race by ignoring real
| differences. This data gap is arguably at the root of
| what's called structural racism.
|
| (Incidentally, an incredibly similar dynamic has played out
| with the rights of women. I'm currently reading Caroline
| Criado-Perez's 'Invisible Women' which is about a huge
| range of areas where the 'default' is male, and the
| resulting gaps in data about women lead to poor outcomes.)
|
| So I'd say the article points to a particular kind of
| structural racism: That the medical advice for white people
| is assumed to also be good for people of color.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| If we read all the sentences around those you quoted, it
| presents a nuanced view. It takes some motivated reasoning to
| flatten both the relevant context here and the background
| that science, particularly the science of human health, is
| highly uncertain. And yet the author manages just that,
| flattening all the context and nuance into: sunscreen is
| racist.
| postpawl wrote:
| What missing context are you talking about?
|
| This is 2 paragraphs after the one I quoted and it says it
| even more clearly: "And yet they are being told a very
| different story, misled into believing that sunscreen can
| prevent their melanomas, which Weller finds exasperating.
| "The cosmetic industry is now trying to push sunscreen at
| dark-skinned people," he says. "At dermatology meetings,
| you get people standing up and saying, 'We have to adapt
| products for this market.' Well, no we don't. This is a
| marketing ploy.""
| next_xibalba wrote:
| > The American Academy of Dermatology recommends that all
| people, regardless of skin color, protect themselves from
| the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays by seeking shade,
| wearing protective clothing, and using a broad-spectrum,
| water-resistant sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher
|
| > "I think that sun-protection advice," [David Leffel,
| Yale] told me, "has always been directed at those most at
| risk"--people with fair skin or a family history of skin
| cancer. "While it is true that people with olive skin are
| at less risk, we do see an increasing number of people
| with that type of skin getting skin cancer. But skin
| cancer... is very rare in African Americans... and
| although they represent a spectrum of pigmentation,
| [they] are not at as much risk."
| postpawl wrote:
| Right, it's saying that race matters in this context
| because sun exposure skin cancer is rare in African
| Americans. The article is trying to make an argument that
| the American Academy of Dermatology needs to reconsider
| the opinion in your first quote.
|
| Your original comment was effectively 'why does
| everything have to be about race?' and it matters in this
| context.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| Discussing differences by race and implying racism are
| two quite different things. This article engaged in the
| latter, when only the former appears relevant in light of
| the facts.
| bccdee wrote:
| The article is making the case that black people are
| being given sun exposure advice catered to white people.
| That's a pretty basic example of systemic racism. It's
| not _vile bigotry,_ but it doesn 't need to be--it's just
| a bias grounded in race. Still racism. Let's not be
| afraid of using accurate language just because that
| language is politicized.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| Changing the definitions of words (it's "systemic racism"
| not "vile bigotry") is no different than changing the
| premises of a debate in order better favor your beliefs.
| It is the rhetorical equivalent of gerrymandering. Even
| worse is the insistence that these new words are as true
| and constant as natural laws like gravity, when in
| reality, these ideas are just made up by non-scientist
| academics and activists. No real science is performed to
| test their validity.
|
| You say "systemic racism", I say "the article cites one
| guy and gives his voice more weight than an entire
| industry body in order to contort this into a story about
| (maybe) racism".
|
| Science is messy. Doctors are very cautious by training
| and experience. So yes, they encourage everyone to use
| sunscreen until the preponderance of scientific evidence
| suggests otherwise. This is not racism in any form. To
| suggest otherwise is a slap in the face to people who
| have been subjected to real racism.
| hamburglar wrote:
| Recommending a product to a person who doesn't need it
| does not become racist just because the reason they don't
| need it is related to their race.
| mlazos wrote:
| This right is here is someone on HN being the paragon of
| objectivity. How about taking the opposing argument in good
| faith? He didn't even say anything about racism in the
| article and just gave evidence. The second someone mentions
| racism on HN this comment can be seen everywhere "wow and
| now X is racist?? So dumb!!" Relax it's just the internet
| and try to learn something.
| phillipcarter wrote:
| It sounds like you're just looking for an excuse to
| complain about something.
| [deleted]
| golemiprague wrote:
| hklgny wrote:
| Not sure why you're being downvoted for it. It's a useless
| addition to an otherwise interesting article.
| ghaff wrote:
| And it's very possible the author didn't write it but an
| editor did. I'm not sure where one gets "racist" from the
| content of the article. Maybe insofar as the medical
| community makes blanket recommendations that arguably don't
| apply to/don't help black people. But it's a stretch to go
| from there to racism.
| datameta wrote:
| Agreed... I didn't notice the mention of racism in the
| title. I only realized after reading the article and seeing
| people ignore the substance in lieu of attacking a
| perceived slighting.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Clickbait headlines have abounded over past decades from
| editors with SEO concerns dancing in their eyes. One would
| think those who are easily triggered by social justice
| invocations would be more attuned to it by now- they should
| view it as no different from any other form of attention
| grabbing, and no more indictment against the articles these
| titles disservice compared to headlines who incite other
| passions. How discriminating of these who see one
| subheading blurb and then refuse to read further.
| devmor wrote:
| You should read the entire article. The author discusses how
| pushing products meant for white skin towards dark skinned
| people despite negative detriment is common.
|
| That is racism.
| 10amxn10 wrote:
| kortilla wrote:
| Unless they are being targeted, it's absolutely not racism.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Lots of products target particular races. It's only racism
| if it's motivated by hate, bias, a desire to cause harm,
| etc.
| chmod600 wrote:
| It sounds more like they just want to sell more sunscreen.
| They don't really care what color your skin is as long as
| money is changing hands. Nothing racist about that.
|
| And doctors don't want to differentiate because it's safer to
| just say "sure, wear sunscreen all day and wear a helmet too,
| in case you get hit by a meteor". Nobody will blame a doctor
| for repeating the currently-accepted dogma. Maybe they'll
| blame sunscreen companies in ten years, but not the doctor.
| devmor wrote:
| If they are aware that doing so is putting people with
| darker skin at mortal risk, it's racism.
| Jommi wrote:
| You realize both can be true right?
|
| The can want to sell more suncreen, and the way they are
| achieving that might be racist. These two are not mutually-
| exclusive.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| People should read the study, it's interesting: https://sci-
| hub.st/10.1111/joim.12496
|
| There's nothing about race in there anyway. Don't get tricked
| into these identity discussions. Both ignoring anything that
| has race in it as well as getting angry when they bait you with
| it ultimately means they have control over you, because you're
| easily manipulated with a single word.
| hemreldop wrote:
| 867-5309 wrote:
| it's reversed here: the lighter your skin, the worse off you'll
| be
| bjt2n3904 wrote:
| Asterisk: They probably are using the "new" definition of
| racism, not the classical definition. The foundation of the
| "anti-racist" definition is that in any situation, a difference
| in outcomes has a single attribution: racism.
|
| As an example, if you give 100 children a math test -- no word
| problems, just algebra -- and find that there is any
| correlation between skin color and test performance, then the
| test itself must be racist, and perhaps even math itself.
| Similarly here, if there is a difference in how cancer affects
| people... what must be the cause? That's right! Racism(tm)!
|
| This is a patently absurd understanding of racism, but I've
| found it extremely helpful to start discussions like these by
| pointing out that if we don't have a common definition of what
| it means for something to be racist, then we can't have a
| discussion about it.
|
| PS: The classical definition of racism is the idea that skin
| color is indicative of performance. To look at the students
| _before or after_ the test takes place, and make the assumption
| that skin color will effect performance. The extremely fine
| point here is that *the skin color itself* is what will cause
| (or caused) the difference.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Not the test but the society that allows some groups to
| continue to be undereducated in mathematics. The fact that
| many people don't understand this and loudly proclaim their
| lack of understanding, typically of certain backgrounds who
| are not affected, is also not due to their race making their
| brains incapable of understanding but due to society allowing
| them to continue to be undereducated on this topic.
| polio wrote:
| The article isn't claiming that everything everywhere is always
| racism. It's claiming that there is the possibility of the
| recommendation being racist. Perhaps you should read the
| article to decide for yourself how fair that characterization
| is.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| I felt the same way when I read it, but decided to keep reading
| anyway. The only remotely racist thing referenced is the fact
| that marketing companies are trying to get black people to wear
| sunscreen even though they don't need it. I wouldn't call it
| racist per se, but it is a case of someone targeting a
| demographic for profit, regardless of the fact that they can't
| benefit from the product, with no concern whatsoever for any
| negative effects they could experience. Definitely shady and
| scummy.
| miked85 wrote:
| _Everything_ is blamed on racism the last couple of years. The
| word essentially means nothing at this point.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Everything.
| deanCommie wrote:
| Because in the last couple of years was the first time there
| has been an open and widespread discussion of various forms
| of race-based discrimination that we've just been ignoring
| for our entire history - or worse - thought that we left in
| the past, but are still relevant to people not of the
| dominant race in our societies.
|
| Has there been an overreaction? Are too many things being
| blamed on racism now? Possibly. But the motivation is good
| and clear about attempting to get to the root of how people
| treat one another in the world, and what structures we've
| created to reinforce tribal or instinctual prejudices and how
| they're not even obvious to most people going through their
| lives in the world today.
|
| This all has meaning. I urge you to not give up on the
| concept, to not discount those talking about it as "woke", or
| "virtue signalers" or "social justice warriors".
|
| Some of them are overly angry and vitriolic, yes. Some are
| tired of explaining concepts that are clear and for granted
| to them, thinking that at this point anyone that disagrees is
| simply an agitator. Not all show good faith. Some are in it
| for themselves, and the glory of being holier-than-thou. I'm
| not going to pretend that doesn't exist.
|
| But most of the concepts being discussed are sound. And there
| is a lot of fire behind the smoke. There is a lot of past,
| present, and future "racism" that still needs to be
| understood, and addressed.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Seems like an overreaction
| miked85 wrote:
| By who?
| SkittyDog wrote:
| By you. Some things are called "racism" unnecessarily,
| and that causes some harms... But there is still plenty
| of actual, bona fide Racism that causes _bigger_ harms.
|
| To disregard legitimate concerns about racism because
| you've grown frustrated with false positives is evidence
| of a weak morality. It's prioritizing our selfish
| frustrations over significant harms that other people
| (the victims of racism) are experiencing.
| miked85 wrote:
| I disagree. When you blame everything on "racism", then
| actual racism is ignored. Boy who cried wolf.
| worik wrote:
| By you. Duh!
| pkdpic wrote:
| > Melanoma? True, the sun worshippers had a higher incidence of
| it--but they were eight times less likely to die from it.
|
| > Over the 20 years of the study, sun avoiders were twice as
| likely to die as sun worshippers.
|
| > Avoidance of sun exposure is a risk factor of a similar
| magnitude as smoking, in terms of life expectancy.
|
| > Vitamin D now looks like the tip of the solar iceberg. Sunlight
| triggers the release of a number of other important compounds in
| the body, not only nitric oxide but also serotonin and
| endorphins. It reduces the risk of prostate, breast, colorectal,
| and pancreatic cancers. It improves circadian rhythms. It reduces
| inflammation and dampens autoimmune responses. It improves
| virtually every mental condition you can think of. And it's free.
|
| > the current U.S. sun-exposure guidelines were written for the
| whitest people on earth
|
| > People of color rarely get melanoma. The rate is 26 per 100,000
| in Caucasians, 5 per 100,000 in Hispanics, and 1 per 100,000 in
| African Americans.
|
| > Leffell, the Yale dermatologist, recommends what he calls a
| "sensible" approach. "I have always advised my patients that they
| don't need to crawl under a rock but should use common sense and
| be conscious of cumulative sun exposure and sunburns in
| particular,"
| tgv wrote:
| > Sunlight triggers the release of
|
| But how much of it? The amount that gives you skin cancer? The
| article mentions "30 minutes of summer sunlight", but not a
| study, let alone a replicated one. And it doesn't simply
| mention "30 minutes of summer sunlight", but "the equivalent of
| 30 minutes of summer sunlight". The other studies mentioned in
| the first part of the article (office workers, tanned Swedes,
| etc.) might be accidental correlations. And mentioning the
| neolithicum is utterly ridiculous.
|
| > It improves virtually every mental condition you can think
| of.
|
| It still does that with sun screen. But it improves mental
| health only a bit. I've never read that exposing patients to a
| bit of sun light solved their depression, ADHD or
| schizophrenia.
| gpt5 wrote:
| The article reads in such a dogmatic way that it raises all of
| my fake/misleading information flags.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "the thing that was really responsible for their good health
| --that big orange ball shining down from above."
|
| This was the alarm bell for me. They completely leave out
| that people who get sun exposure are typically doing
| something more active than sitting at a desk or watching TV.
| Maybe the physical activity explains a lot of the benefits
| (think there are studies supporting that).
|
| I might get a lot of hate for this, but I'm kind of tired
| about these articles. They claim things they can't possibly
| know about a topic that is largely irrelevant. It's like
| trying to argue about algorithmic time efficiencies without
| knowing the details of their use (in this case we're trying
| to biohack for lower mortality without knowing all the
| factors).
| wolverine876 wrote:
| While I find the article questionable, though interesting
| ...
|
| > They completely leave out that people who get sun
| exposure are typically doing something more active than
| sitting at a desk or watching TV.
|
| Did the research (not the article) leave that out?
| Researchers aren't idiots and spent 10,000x as long
| thinking about the issue as we did about these HN posts.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Did the research (not the article) leave that out?"
|
| The article didn't include links to the research, so who
| knows.
|
| On top of that, I'd imagine that it would be hard to
| control for the physiological and psychological benefits
| of being outside (nature, activity, etc; or detriments of
| being indoors like air quality) unless the subjects were
| in a controlled environment. It would be interesting to
| see how the research controlled for these, if they did at
| all. Many studies following large cohorts in real life
| are not looking at proving causation, but showing
| correlation because they can't fully control all the
| variables.
| LodeOfCode wrote:
| Hard to tell, since the article doesn't bother to cite
| any sources for most of its claims. Including this
| paragraph without a single source is just incredible to
| me
|
| >Meanwhile, that big picture just keeps getting more
| interesting. Vitamin D now looks like the tip of the
| solar iceberg. Sunlight triggers the release of a number
| of other important compounds in the body, not only nitric
| oxide but also serotonin and endorphins. It reduces the
| risk of prostate, breast, colorectal, and pancreatic
| cancers. It improves circadian rhythms. It reduces
| inflammation and dampens autoimmune responses. It
| improves virtually every mental condition you can think
| of. And it's free.
| jefftk wrote:
| This article is from 3 years ago, and talks about how there are
| upcoming studies that will give us more information. Is there a
| good summary of what we currently know?
| compiler-guy wrote:
| Those arguing that we can't conclude anything without a
| randomized, controlled trial need to reread [1].
|
| Yes, randomized, controlled trials are better, and the gold
| standard. No, they aren't always available and sometimes--even
| often--science can draw conclusions with evidence that came from
| other sources.
|
| [1] https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/363/bmj.k5094.full.pdf
| muhehe wrote:
| Many comments here say this article is bad. I thought so after
| reading perex saying sunscreen is racist. Can you even write
| article these days without calling something racist?
| kashunstva wrote:
| The published subtitle of the article seems deliberately click-
| baity/inflammatory. "quite possibly even racist"
|
| When there are so many places where systemic racism shows up in
| clear and demonstrable ways, why complicate your thesis with a
| completely unfounded assertion?
|
| In any case, like "code smell" this article has a "journalism
| smell." Hand-waving, breezy style; over-identification with
| certain groups of researchers. And of course, cursory treatment
| of the evidence. He points out the lack of improvement in certain
| end-points among subjects supplemented with vitamin D. Who were
| the subjects? Randomized? Matched controls? Matched how? We're
| _any_ outcomes positive? In other words are we seeing evidence
| cherry picking of evidence? In fact so little is mentioned in the
| article that he may as well have given a list of PubMed links and
| just directed the readers to figure it out for themselves. I
| don't know what the right answer is, but the only TL;DR from this
| piece is "There's some controversy here."
| carbocation wrote:
| This is a very interesting theory, but also low-quality evidence.
| It merits further study, but hard to say that it merits any
| change in behavior just yet.
|
| As far as I can tell, the "340 000" person study was finally
| published in 2020[1]. The study was an observational analysis of
| 342,000 dialysis patients. There was _no attempt to measure
| personal exposure to UV_ (FTA: "it was not feasible to determine
| personal exposures to UV radiation and temperature"). Rather,
| these exposures were approximated _by dialysis center zip code_.
|
| I can understand why David Fisher would say that he doesn't
| question the data, but doesn't agree with the implications.
|
| 1 = https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/JAHA.119.013837
| com2kid wrote:
| > FTA: "it was not feasible to determine personal exposures to
| UV radiation and temperature"
|
| Sadly no current consumer devices exist on market that can
| track these two numbers. The Microsoft Band used to have both
| needed sensors, but AFAIK no one else has tried to widely
| release a consumer product with a UV exposure sensor on it.
|
| FWIW that sensor was a major hassle, took up a lot of space,
| and finding a plastic cover for it that didn't also block UV
| was super hard.
| comicjk wrote:
| Couldn't you use the bleaching effect of UV to estimate
| exposure? It doesn't have to be an electronic UV sensor, just
| a spot of calibrated UV-sensitive dye.
| pigeonhole123 wrote:
| You want to avoid sunburn, while getting enough sun every
| day, so this wouldn't work if I understand your suggestion
| correctly.
| HPsquared wrote:
| That's similar in concept to the old style film badge
| dosimeters used to measure radiation exposure.
|
| Unlike a film badge, a calibrated dye could be visually
| interpreted against a colour scale by the user. Neat idea
| if it works!
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > no current consumer devices exist on market that can track
| these two numbers
|
| And if there were consumer devices, the next problem would be
| accuracy. Based on a bunch of reading I did several years ago
| (so maybe out of date), consumer excercise trackers were very
| innaccurate in many ways. Exercise misinformation devices.
| cfn wrote:
| There are other studies with interesting results in the article
| and it is good intuition that we survived for thousands of
| years stark naked without sunscreen and vitamin suplements.
|
| One interesting paragraph was:
|
| "When you spend much of your day treating patients with
| terrible melanomas, it's natural to focus on preventing them,
| but you need to keep the big picture in mind. Orthopedic
| surgeons, after all, don't advise their patients to avoid
| exercise in order to reduce the risk of knee injuries."
|
| We need to avoid tunnel vision when making health decisions.
| And this coming from someone (me) who had skin cancer in the
| past (not that it makes me a specialist).
| pilsetnieks wrote:
| I don't have a horse in the race either way but
|
| > it is good intuition that we survived for thousands of
| years stark naked without sunscreen and vitamin suplements
|
| That, as an argument, is completely worthless. You don't know
| how those people lived, how they died, what diseases they
| had, all you can deduce is that some of them managed to
| reproduce before keeling over.
| slothtrop wrote:
| > You don't know how those people lived
|
| ... without sunscreen.
| clint wrote:
| How do you know they went out during the day and weren't
| completely or mostly nocturnal?
| throwaway202022 wrote:
| Our human ancestors were not nocturnal. Sleep patterns
| were probably different, sure, but they went out during
| the day to gather and hunt for food.
| guerrilla wrote:
| You realize hunter-gatherers exist today, right? They go
| out during the day and are not mostly nocturnal. They're
| found all over the world.
| bgandrew wrote:
| Because it's obvious to anybody. It's also obvious that
| modern humans are far less exposed to UV than our
| ancestors, who pretty much lived like current days hobos
| spending most of their time on fresh air.
| comicjk wrote:
| Within living memory, Americans wore hats pretty much
| whenever they were outside. If we decide to give up
| sunblock, we might want to reconsider the change in
| fashions that got rid of them.
| nostromo wrote:
| And white people that live in California or Florida should
| note that our complexion evolved in latitudes similar to
| Canada.
| robocat wrote:
| And if you are in the equivalent Southern latitude to
| Canada (e.g. New Zealand), you still sometimes need
| sunscreen to avoid the extra UV due to the ozone hole.
| Perhaps not as bad as it was, but cannot be ignored,
| although it is variable: https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/p
| rogrammes/ourchangingworld/a...
| flog wrote:
| The NZ sun is terrible. You feel the sun burning you as
| soon as you get outside. Burn time can be about 10
| minutes on a sunny day, and maybe 20 on a cloudy day in
| summer.
|
| In NZ we get about 4000 in-situ melanoma diagnosis a
| year. I was one of them a couple of years ago (at 37).
|
| Wear sunscreen!
| cge wrote:
| For that matter, that complexion also likely evolved with
| clothes, and people in a sufficiently distant past may
| have looked quite different. The idea of people looking
| just like us living without clothes or shelter,
| presumably like some depiction of Eden, is fanciful.
|
| I am reminded that, in addition to not going about stark
| naked, mesolithic humans in the British isles were dark
| skinned.
| cm2012 wrote:
| Look at pretty much any elder in today's tribal societies,
| they look like raisins at age 50. Most people would rather
| maintain some youthful looks which means protecting yourself
| from the sun.
| zokier wrote:
| > it is good intuition that we survived for thousands of
| years
|
| Well, all those people in the past are dead, so no, they did
| not survive.
| blenderdt wrote:
| According to this page we had skin cancer for thousands of
| years:
| https://www.jaad.org/article/S0190-9622(15)00240-6/fulltext
|
| We also completely changed our way of life. We don't live
| outside anymore so we have less pigment that protects us from
| UV.
| cpncrunch wrote:
| Have you looked at all the other studies, e.g. Lindqvist? [1]
|
| [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24697969/#:~:text=We%20foun
| d....
| scrozart wrote:
| To be expected from a _lifestyle magazine_. OO is an OK place
| to find your next camping destination, but it 's a terrible
| place to look for science. This nonsense made it to HN a year
| or so ago.
|
| If you're looking for sunblock that won't give you cancer or
| ruin the environment, check out EWG:
|
| https://www.ewg.org/sunscreen/
| cpncrunch wrote:
| Just because it isn't a scientific magazine, doesn't mean the
| science is junk. How exactly is it "nonsense"?
| nradov wrote:
| Do you have a scientific criticism of the article contents,
| or are you going to stick with a low-effort _ad hominem_
| attack?
| Gimpei wrote:
| This is why journalists need to learn some basic stats. The
| credulity with which he takes the pro-sun researchers claims,
| the ignorance he displays about the shortcomings of
| observational studies are as depressing as they are common. Not
| saying, by the way, that I don't believe the sun hypothesis, I
| just think this article displays false confidence. Science is
| hard; when you present the latest theory as The Truth, all you
| do is undermine long term faith in science. Sometimes these new
| discoveries bear out, but most of the time, they don't. See
| this pattern enough and it becomes reasonable to conclude that
| scientists are full of shit.
| guelo wrote:
| Why don't you demand as much strong evidence from the pro-
| sunscreen status quo?
| xpe wrote:
| Well said in many ways; however, it isn't clear that having
| more statistics savvy journalists would address the problems
| associated with media _economics_ and _incentives_.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Here's the fatal flaw in this article:
|
| > Wouldn't all those rays also raise rates of skin cancer? Yes,
| but skin cancer kills surprisingly few people: less than 3 per
| 100,000 in the U.S. each year
|
| This is like saying "Don't people who slather themselves in honey
| and walk bare naked to the woods get eaten by bears more? Sure,
| but bears kill surprisingly few people, just 59 out of 1,000,000
| yearly"
| sega_sai wrote:
| If honey and bare walk would prevent >59 deaths from other
| causes, that'd be still reasonable.
| [deleted]
| gandalfff wrote:
| I have sensitive skin that turns red easily in the sun,
| especially at the locations where I have scars from acne and
| other injuries. With my atrophic scars, we know that UV can
| reduce collagen levels which would reduce the healing potential
| at those sites. For these reasons, I avoid UV exposure to my face
| as much as possible.
|
| For fair-skinned people like me, I would recommend generously
| applying sunscreen to face and hands and leaving the other areas
| uncovered if you are out in the sun for less than an hour or so
| with moderate UV index, or less than 20 minutes or so with high
| UV index. Longer than that, consider applying sunscreen to the
| rest of your body as well. Of course, ymmv.
| CSSer wrote:
| There are other benefits to this approach too. You'll visibly
| age slower. I've yet to hear anyone say that your skin has to
| absorb vitamin D from your face or hands for it to be
| effective.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Based on my experience, most "sun damage" worry comes from
| aesthetic concerns. Personally, as someone who has already
| encountered much of that, I also find the whole explorer look
| neat, but I don't think the health effects are the prime movers
| here.
|
| Also, cannot discount innate bias: love sunshine to the degree I
| had these solar lamps for winter.
|
| But the fact that melanomas are less likely to be fatal overall
| amongst us outdoor weather-beaten folk is quite gratifying. I
| wonder if there are genetic markers.
| OJFord wrote:
| > love sunshine to the degree I had these solar lamps for
| winter.
|
| I can sort of imagine what that might be enough to think that
| Wikipedia's 'lamp with solar panels' article with that name is
| definitely not what you mean, but I can't see anything else on
| it, do you have a link or model number or something?
| renewiltord wrote:
| Sorry. Meant Seasonal Affective Disorder lamps. I've moved to
| California since and have a lot of sunshine but I'm told they
| have nice lamps now that collimate the beam so it looks like
| a bright window.
| devmunchies wrote:
| I've internalized the view of "your skin is your largest organ",
| so I treat as one. I don't generally put things on my skin I
| wouldn't put in my mouth.
|
| Most sun exposure is on the nose, ears, arms. If some sun
| exposure is healthy, then the best way to do it is to be
| completely naked and only be in the sun for 10 minutes. By
| exposing more surface area, you can get as much sun in 10 minutes
| as you would by just exposing you face for 2 hours. No burns. In
| engineering terms, it's like load balancing the sun across
| several body parts.
|
| There was just an article I saw last year about a sunscreen
| recall because it contained ingredients that caused leukemia or
| something. Not to mention some of the mental health benefits of
| sun.
|
| If you want to reduce sun exposure, probably better to shade
| yourself with clothes or umbrellas than put chemicals on your
| skin, or use something natural like zinc on sensitive areas like
| nose and ears.
|
| Also, there is more red light around sunrise/sunset. That's
| healthier light. You want to avoid blue light (UV), which is
| magnified (like a magnifying glass on the atmosphere) in the
| middle of the day.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I've never heard of this 'load balancing' being a thing. You
| can get totally sunburned on an exposed spot. Or do you mean in
| terms of vitamin D generation?
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| I think the point is that you can get the same vitamin D dose
| from a gentle exposure of a lot of skin, or a massive and
| damaging over-exposure of a small part of your skin, or a
| spectrum in between.
|
| The same general idea that you could light a room with a
| single LED die overdriven to thermal death in minutes, or
| many adequately-cooled underdriven ones virtually
| indefinitely.
|
| Or maybe more similarly, cooking with a 10kW cutting laser
| rather than an electric stovetop would make a huge mess of
| your cookware.
| devmunchies wrote:
| exactly. One solar panel pummeled in the sun for 6 hours vs
| 6 solar panels in the sun for only one hour. Similar amount
| of energy absorbed.
| dinkleberg wrote:
| I read this article a couple years ago and it definitely
| influenced my thoughts on the matter.
|
| I think this is yet another case of us collectively ignoring
| common sense. We know that UV radiation is damaging to the skin
| and can cause skin cancer. Instead of rubbing chemicals on our
| skin to negate these effects, it is better to avoid being out in
| direct sunlight when the UV index is high, especially if you're
| super pale. If you have to go out at mid day for a decent length
| of time, wear a big hat and clothes that cover you up.
|
| I'm on the pale end of the spectrum and if I go out at say 2pm
| when the UV index is at 10 it'll be physically painful within a
| few minutes.
|
| However, when I go for my daily walks earlier in the day or later
| in the afternoon when the UV index is say 3-4, I go without
| sunscreen and feel great. And even though I supplement vitamin D,
| the effects of sunlight is clearly better.
|
| Also I think it is safe to imagine that most of our ancient
| ancestors weren't going out in the most intense sunlight and
| stripping close to naked for hours to develop a nice tan.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| Our ancient ancestors such as those in Egypt would use the sun
| to fight off bilirubin with newborns by rotating them next to a
| sun-lit window. So yeah, common sense.
| thyrox wrote:
| One thing i learned from this article is if you have low vitamin
| D it's better to not eat any d supplements - as that is equal to
| putting little chips of ice on a thermometer to get it down to
| 98.4 when you are trying to measure your fever.
|
| Those vit d supplements will only skew the one thing that
| actually tells you how much deficiencient you are in getting
| enough sunlight as it correlates quite directly with it (most
| other things look more long term).
| [deleted]
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| I could not get past that fist paragraph:
|
| "Although they are a $30-plus billion market in the United States
| alone, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium, beta-carotene,
| glucosamine, chondroitin, and fish oil have now flopped in study
| after study."
|
| What? Fish oil flopped? They did every study combination they
| could on Fish Oil and Omega 3? They even filtered out for
| genetics? They are just starting, it is no where near finished!
|
| FADS1 and FADS2 Gene Polymorphisms Modulate the Relationship of
| Omega-3 and Omega-6 Fatty Acid Plasma Concentrations in
| Gestational Weight Gain: A NISAMI Cohort Study
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8912382/
|
| Give vitamin B6 to someone who is deficient and guess what, it
| will not flop. But I would bet none of you have had a B6 test,
| correct?
|
| The studies did not flop. They are still showing casualty but
| more work needs to be down on who they might help. Yet he talks
| about vitamin D like it has somehow escaped these problems?
| Because on guy said something?
|
| That guy suffered from "my supplement is the best supplement and
| only supplement that effects health" disorder.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| the title reminded me of Noel Coward's ditty 'Mad Dogs and
| English Men'from the film "A Night On The Town":
| https://youtu.be/pzcAjd1vO4k
| IshKebab wrote:
| Mmm yeah I'd take a look at this photo before deciding to skip
| the sun cream.
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trucker-accumulates-skin-damage...
| danielovichdk wrote:
| I read this while listening to "Here comes the Rain again".
|
| Great piece. Makes sense. Sun is pretty good with everything it
| shines on. And you can definitely feel it has a positive effect
| on your mood and your skin.
| qqtt wrote:
| I found this quote particularly telling:
|
| > "I don't argue with their data," says David Fisher, chair of
| the dermatology department at Massachusetts General Hospital.
| "But I do disagree with the implications." The risks of skin
| cancer, he believes, far outweigh the benefits of sun exposure.
| "Somebody might take these conclusions to mean that the skin-
| cancer risk is worth it to lower all-cause mortality or to get a
| benefit in blood pressure," he says. "I strongly disagree with
| that." It is not worth it, he says, unless all other options for
| lowering blood pressure are exhausted. Instead he recommends
| vitamin D pills and hypertension drugs as safer approaches.
|
| To paraphrase "the data isn't wrong, but it contradicts
| dogmatically held beliefs, and so a strict regime of pills and
| treatments are required first before indulging in this heresy".
|
| It takes a lot to break persistent medical dogmas, and these
| platitudes of "avoid sun exposure at all costs because skin
| cancer" are starting to become generational sayings that are
| ingrained in prevalent thinking.
|
| Also just want to point out what is touched on in the article -
| melanoma (skin cancer caused by UV) in the USA kills about
| 7000-8000, with that trend line decreasing. Heart disease kills
| around 700,000 people a year in the USA alone.
|
| Food for thought.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| This is why we need the phrase "evidence-based medicine": the
| prevalence of the alternative. Doctors aren't automatically
| scientists or critical thinkers.
| [deleted]
| 6510 wrote:
| > Also just want to point out what is touched on in the article
| - melanoma (skin cancer caused by UV) in the USA kills about
| 7000-8000, with that trend line decreasing. Heart disease kills
| around 700,000 people a year in the USA alone.
|
| This is actually borderline nonsensical in the context:
|
| > People with low levels of vitamin D in their blood have
| significantly higher rates of virtually every disease and
| disorder you can think of: cancer, diabetes, obesity,
| osteoporosis, heart attack, stroke, depression, cognitive
| impairment, autoimmune conditions, and more.
| tremon wrote:
| _Instead he recommends vitamin D pills and hypertension drugs
| as safer approaches._
|
| I suspect anybody who recommends medication over natural
| resources has a bridge to sell.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Especially more statins. They won't give up until they're
| adding them to the water.
| treis wrote:
| I suspect there is a happy medium of sun exposure that gets you
| nearly all the benefits without much increase in skin cancer.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| I'd say you're probably right, but then things like the hole
| in, or the thickness of, the ozone layer would make a
| difference between pre- and post-industrial sun exposure.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| My Apple Watch needs a UV sensor that accumulates UV
| exposure levels and can tell me when it's time to come
| inside.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| That would actually be pretty cool
| s3p wrote:
| It upsets me that no one mentions the link between sun exposure
| and aging. The people who seem to not age are commonly those
| who use sunscreen or protect their face/neck from the sun.
| Without sun exposure, the skin naturally heals and replaces
| scarring. This is why people with post-acne hyperpigmentation
| will often need to wear sunscreen for a long time while using a
| topical retinoid-- to both increase the rate of skin cell
| turnover and to make sure the new skin is adequately healed.
| scandox wrote:
| Why does it upset you? I like the weatherbeaten look. I'm
| sort of hoping to acquire it over the next 25 years or so.
| polio wrote:
| Everybody ages at the same rate. I'd argue that society
| should care less about the superficial dermatological
| implications of sun exposure, if sun exposure is actually as
| good as this article claims.
| smeej wrote:
| Everybody gets chronologically older at the same rate, but
| people's bodies break down at a wide variety of different
| rates.
| astura wrote:
| No, we know that people age at drastically different rates.
| I can even see this among my peer group.
|
| https://www.techtimes.com/articles/67285/20150711/not-
| everyo...
|
| >They found that the "biological age" of the participants
| in 2011, when they were 38 -- as exhibited by the state of
| their organs, their immune systems, their heart health and
| their chromosomes -- ranged from as young as 30 to as old
| as 60.
| nradov wrote:
| That article is mostly pseudoscience. There are no
| reliable biological markers of aging.
|
| https://peterattiamd.com/ama35/
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| Is your hypothesis that avoiding sun exposure slows aging
| generally, or just that it makes the skin look younger? I'm
| worried about many of the effects of aging, but don't care a
| whole lot about how my skin looks.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| Skin is the largest organ of the body. It is an indicator
| of the inner health as well even though the main function
| of the skin is to protect the tissue/fat and other layers.
| so you should care about how your skin looks. You can
| protect your skin from excessive sun exposure, but if your
| diet isnt adequate or healthy, it will show through your
| skin.
| shrimpx wrote:
| It's just aesthetic. Heavy sun exposure throughout life
| leads to wrinkles and sun spots/splotchy skin later in
| life. White collar workers likely needn't worry, though.
| That advice is more for people who spend their working
| hours in the sun.
| dougmsmith wrote:
| > White collar workers likely needn't worry, though.
|
| Have to disagree with this one, everyone who can't escape
| sunlight and likes to go outside at all is affected.
| People in the American southwest from all walks of life
| age shockingly faster (in appearance) than their northern
| state counterparts. I'd meet women who were 25 and looked
| 35 (by northern expectations), and it only accelerates
| from there (35 looking like 50, 50 looking like 70).
| retcon wrote:
| Anecdotally I've never seen anyone who has acne and a tan.
| astura wrote:
| It might feel that way because acne is just much less
| noticable on darker skin. Acne effects skin of all colors.
| The one year I was tan was also my year I had my bad bacne
| episode.
|
| Even my cat had an episode of acne.
| pault wrote:
| Counter anecdote: I lived in the tropics for 10 years and
| met many people with tans and acne.
| croes wrote:
| >melanoma (skin cancer caused by UV) in the USA kills about
| 7000-8000
|
| How many need treatment? Can skin cancer be cured better than
| heart diseases?
|
| And heart disease is a pretty broad term, if you say heart
| diseases you should say cancer not just skin cancer. And cancer
| killes 600,000 a year.
| nradov wrote:
| The most common hypertension drugs are statins. While those can
| be necessary for some patients, they come with a long list of
| negative side effects. Recommending them as a first line
| therapy before moderate UV light exposure is medical
| malpractice.
|
| https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-blood-ch...
| NonNefarious wrote:
| I found this quote particularly undermining of his credibility:
|
| "It's entirely intuitive," he responded. "Homo sapiens have
| been around for 200,000 years. Until the industrial revolution,
| we lived outside. How did we get through the Neolithic Era
| without sunscreen?"
|
| By boning each other at the earliest possible age and
| procreating before we could die of cancer. DUH. The guy's a
| scientist but can't logically filter out causes of mortality
| that don't typically transpire until after child-bearing age?
| chasebank wrote:
| Makes me wonder about melanoma rates within outdoor working
| populations, like construction workers. Do we see more or less
| the same ratios in their population?
| pilsetnieks wrote:
| From this very article:
|
| > And perplexingly, outdoor workers have half the melanoma
| rate of indoor workers. Tanned people have lower rates in
| general. "The risk factor for melanoma appears to be
| intermittent sunshine and sunburn, especially when you're
| young," says Weller. "But there's evidence that long-term sun
| exposure associates with less melanoma."
| [deleted]
| PKop wrote:
| Read the article.
| mint2 wrote:
| >" To paraphrase "the data isn't wrong, but it contradicts
| dogmatically held beliefs, and so a strict regime of pills and
| treatments are required first before indulging in this
| heresy"."
|
| That rephrasing in itself can be describe as a dogmatic belief
| that supplements are bad/conspiracy. It's a dogmatism pile.
|
| Eat sun exposed mushrooms if vitamin d pills aren't ones cup of
| tea, but in northern climes relying on sun for vitamin d is not
| realistic much of the year.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| There is no empirical evidence the pills do anything. Did you
| read the article? It's likely one of those spurious
| correlation type of situations. Being outdoors or having sun
| exposure, maybe living healthier lifestyles... whatever it is
| it corresponds with higher vitamin D levels, that's all.
|
| It's a bit much claiming those suspicious of pill pushing are
| part of the actual cult. If someone thinks taking vitamin D
| pills is necessary they're the one who has to provide the
| evidence, not the other way around.
| astrange wrote:
| The issue described in the article seems to be that sunlight
| does a lot more than produce Vitamin D - thinking a natural
| process is the same as taking exactly one chemical by mouth
| is the kind of modernist nutrition science that gets
| overturned later.
| purple_ferret wrote:
| Well he's a dermatologist. His bias is towards fighting skin
| cancer. He looks at it through the lens of somebody who
| regularly deals with people who are dying from melanoma.
|
| He's tasked with fighting a battle, not winning a war.
|
| As an anecdotal aside, I always read about people who treat
| cancers as being more militant in their beliefs, but they're
| also dealt with tough hands.
| version_five wrote:
| Right. The road to hell is paved with the good intentions
| (and myopia) of narrow specialists who want others to
| prioritize the thing they worry about. Technicians of all
| kinds need to realize their most helpful role is to provide
| inputs so people can make their own decisions, not to
| actually recommend (or recently mandate) what people decide
| to do.
| throwaway4220 wrote:
| Recently mandating not coughing on others to stop a
| (initially scary) pandemic is not the same as recommending
| less sun exposure. The road to slippery slopes is itself a
| slippery slope.
|
| Go tell your doctor You smoke two packs a day they'll say
| stop smoking. If smoking two packs means you won't kill
| yourself then they will weigh that. Then there are bad
| doctors too of course
| scoopertrooper wrote:
| If you think of UV light exposure as a therapy of sorts,
| then it's fair to weigh its benefits and risks against
| alternative treatments.
|
| If the supposed benefits of UV light exposure can be
| achieved through an alternative treatment that poses a
| lower risk of skin cancer, then why wouldn't that be the
| superior treatment?
| nradov wrote:
| That is an entirely pointless hypothetical. The medical
| reality is that alternative treatments can only deliver a
| subset of the benefits of UV light exposure.
| version_five wrote:
| Because real people like to go to the beach or go running
| or a million other outdoor activities. And some people
| even like the look of a tan, or want to show off their
| bodies. Or people don't want to spend their time thinking
| about that stuff and have other priorities. That is my
| point about the narrow advice. People have diverse goals,
| and there is a lot more to going out in the sun than
| optimizing your vitamin d levels. Treating people like
| we're all farm animals that need some standard, dictated
| care formula works for nobody
| scoopertrooper wrote:
| It sounds like your argument is now: "I like the look of
| being tanned and don't want to be burdened by the need to
| regularly apply lotion while living my outdoor
| lifestyle".
|
| Okay, well that's your choice; but don't latch on to some
| argument about it being healthy, unless you're willing to
| endure scrutiny.
| guelo wrote:
| I laughed when the Dr in the article recommended
| sunscreen plus blood pressure pills. The confidence in
| narrow pharmaceutical interventions is absurd when we
| keep realizing that we don't understand how all the
| systems in the body are interconnected.
| 6510 wrote:
| He probably doesn't get out much.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Especially given that the very first paragraph of the
| article says that most vitamin supplements appear to be
| ineffective.
| scoopertrooper wrote:
| Sure, the article does say that and it even provides a
| paper to backup its claim.
|
| However, subsequently a meta-analysis (including that
| same paper) was published that found:
|
| "Vitamin D [supplementation] was associated with
| significant reduction of cancer-related mortality
| compared with placebo [...]. Compared with placebo,
| Vitamin D was not associated with significant reduction
| of cancer incidence [...]".
|
| https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/20009666.2019
| .17...
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| According to the article the alternative treatment is
| ineffective (vitamin D supplements) and increases risk
| factors for higher mortality rate diseases. I'd say
| that's pretty far from the superior treatment.
| nostromo wrote:
| And the author is writing an article for _Outside_ , which
| also has a clear bias in presenting a one-sided argument.
| mgh2 wrote:
| Take this with a grain of salt, doubt its monetary
| motivation: sell Outside+ subscriptions
| ziftface wrote:
| I think you're reading too much into that quote. I think they
| just meant that they acknowledge that there are benefits to sun
| exposure but in his opinion it's not worth the risk of getting
| skin cancer. Even if turns out to be misguided, that's not
| dogma.
| bricemo wrote:
| People have such a hard time with the concept of a trade-off.
| Life is not a video game where there is an optimal single answer
| for everyone every time. It's complicated, especially with
| something like biology. So place your bets: do you want possibly
| better blood pressure, higher incidence of melanoma, and faster
| aging of skin? Or do you want benefits of more sun exposure and
| greater risk of cancer?
|
| The answer is: it depends on your family history, your lifestyle,
| and a bunch of other things.
|
| I know that organizations like American Dermatology or Outdoor
| magazine have to water down their message so it's digestible, but
| it annoys me when people expect "The Answer". Science is
| constantly updating.
| xorfish wrote:
| I find the advice 'all sun exposure is bad' pretty unhelpful.
| It is on the same level as teaching abstinence as sex
| education.
|
| Our bodies deal with some form of damage all the time.
|
| Is there really evidence that someone that slowly builds up a
| tan during spring has a higher risk of skin cancer than someone
| who doesn't?
|
| I can't really imagine how you could study that in a controlled
| way.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| in my lifetime western medicine "discovered" a casual link
| between sun burn during your mid-teens, and real serious skin
| cancers decades later. Other random factoids - skin varies a
| lot with genetics.. a lot, a lot.. and your resistance to
| aggressive cancer has to do with overall health and nutrition
| at any time in your life. .. no simple "this or that" cause
| and effect, even with good nutrition, skin care and
| moderation.
| ip26 wrote:
| "all sun exposure is bad" suggests we should spend our lives
| in the basement, but we also know human eyes do not shape
| properly without the bright light of the sun.
| bccdee wrote:
| > it annoys me when people expect "The Answer"
|
| I don't think it's unreasonable that people expect clear public
| health guidelines. I don't want to trudge through a thousand
| pages of research, I want the department of health to say "well
| we had some experts read the papers, and if you do X and Y and
| Z you'll probably be fine." I'd appreciate more details beyond
| that, of course, especially if it's an area of particular
| interest to me. But I can't be that interested in everything,
| and sometimes it's good just to put out a guideline.
| [deleted]
| colechristensen wrote:
| People are trained to expect _the Answer_ during their
| education which focuses for a very long time on presenting
| things as Truth with uncertainty coming in far too late.
| [deleted]
| nabla9 wrote:
| The studies quoted don't provide any strong evidence to support
| the claim.
| civilized wrote:
| "Stay out of the sun and if your blood pressure gets bad, just
| take hypertension drugs". What a creepy position from the anti-
| sunlight crowd.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Right? It's just like my doctors telling me it's ok to be
| homeless, just take your medications top deal with the stress!
| rsanek wrote:
| By the way, this is from (2019)
| donsupreme wrote:
| I know so many parents who would slather thick layer of suncreen
| for their kids to play in their backyard ... even when it's not
| sunny.
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| Clouds reduce UV, but it still penetrates (also, apparently, it
| can actually enhance UV at times [0]). In my country (New
| Zealand), in summer you can get sunburned in about 10 - 20
| minutes on a cloudy day, compared to 5 - 10 minutes on a clear
| day. But then, we tend to have much thinner ozone above us in
| our summer than countries in the Northern Hemisphere.[1]
|
| [0]:
| https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2004RG00...
|
| [1]: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/ozone-aus.html
| syntaxing wrote:
| Wouldn't this be very obvious in certain Asian countries (Japan,
| South Korea, and China)? Being pale skin is extremely culturally
| coveted since it's seen as beauty (also pale skins means you
| don't work on the farms so historically speaking, pale skin is
| like being fat in the medieval times). However, anecdotally I
| have not noticed any of the stated benefits of "sun exposure" in
| those countries.
| maximus-decimus wrote:
| Lack of sun exposure is allegedly the reason Japanese kids get
| myopia, so they don't seem to get much sun exposure at all.
| syntaxing wrote:
| Lack of sun exposure or lack of "large environments" where
| your eye can focus further distances? While they're extremely
| hard to separate in real life, it's different from what the
| article is suggesting.
| bbojan wrote:
| Sun exposure. See e.g. https://www.aao.org/editors-
| choice/sunlight-exposure-reduces...
| Flatcircle wrote:
| Fantastic article. The exact type of info I come to Hacker News
| for
| RappingBoomer wrote:
| in my last job, I reviewed hundreds of medical records, many of
| whom had basal cell or squamous cell carcinomas (BCC & SCC)...i
| never saw a case where BCC or SCC caused a real problem...I never
| saw one where it spread elsewhere on the body other than the
| skin...this theory that the more skin cancers you have means you
| have better general health is one that has been finding more
| support recently..and I agree with this theory...the sun has
| definite benefits, and almost certainly benefits that we do not
| yet even understand...
| andi999 wrote:
| Causation could be (partially) the other way round, very sick
| people do not get to go out. So if you screen all sick people
| for sun exposure you will find a lower exposure than non sick
| people.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| This makes sense. I recently saw an article in the local news
| that said the same as the dermatology academy mentioned in the
| article: Any sun exposure is supposedly bad and has to be
| avoided. And the concept of building up tolerance was said to be
| nonsense, apparently any exposure is bad even when you don't
| burn.
|
| What I've always done is build up my tolerance by getting tan
| during the spring so I can walk around without sunscreen in
| summer. Of course I don't go crazy with it, and I try to avoid
| direct sunlight in high-UV situations (e.g. walking on the shaded
| side of the street) but I take it when there is no option. It
| works fine for me, I rarely get sunburn and when I do it's minor,
| just a little red glow and sensitivity. Even though I have very
| pale skin I tan and burn very slowly, luckily. I lived in
| Australia a while in the early '00s while the ozone hole was
| still around and the same approach worked even there
|
| I live in a country (Spain) that has lots of sun so I don't want
| to go out with cream every day. The only times I use it is when
| I'm outside for a long time and I feel I'm getting close to
| burning.
|
| I get that it's totally bad what I see many Northern European
| tourists do: They stay indoors most of the summer and then take a
| 2-week holiday to the costa's where they lay in the sun for 12
| hours a day. Obviously this is totally bad, even with suncreen
| you will get totally burned to a crisp.
|
| In any case, I'll see. Maybe I'm wrong but in that case the
| damage is done already. But I don't think sun exposure can be as
| bad as they say.
| tremon wrote:
| I mostly go into the woods to get my sun exposure. My pet
| theory is that sunlight exposure isn't a problem, it's the
| persistent exposing of the same tissue that's causing problems.
|
| So instead of baking my body for hours on a sandy beach
| somewhere, I prefer to expose my body intermittently to the sun
| through the foliage.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| IMHO, the sun does not cause skin cancer. Oxidative stress
| causes skin cancer. If you have a functioning oxidative
| stress pathway you will not get skin cancer.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3613501/
| xwdv wrote:
| Your tan isn't doing anything. Radiation is still penetrating
| deep into your skin and damaging DNA, leading to potentially
| cancerous mutations.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Really? Tell that to nearly everyone in Africa.
| colechristensen wrote:
| If this was true we wouldn't see human skin tone mapping
| pretty directly to ancestral UV exposure.
| xorfish wrote:
| Is there solid evidence, not just theorizing, for this?
|
| Our bodies can deal with damaged DNA.
|
| Proving that low rates of DNA damage increase cancer risk
| proportionaly to the risk asociated with high rates of damage
| seems nearly impossible.
|
| So I don't understand the absolute certanty with which it
| gets proclaimed as fact.
| [deleted]
| manmal wrote:
| Why not just wear a hat if you don't want cream?
| RamRodification wrote:
| Arms and legs.
| oaktrout wrote:
| For the arms at least, they make UV protective shirts, they
| are essentially just a lightweight loose breathable fabric.
| Worth considering if you aren't familiar with them.
| manmal wrote:
| Skin exposure is quite different there because unlike the
| head they get a change in angle way more often. Sure you
| can get sunburn there too, but it's harder to do.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I do yes! I don't have much hair left so I kinda need to. For
| some reason my head burns quicker than the rest.
|
| I get mine mostly from walking in the woods/mountains too and
| I usually wear long trousers even on hot days too. But it's
| really for a different reason. I just don't like shorts and I
| get cut a lot.
| Barrera wrote:
| > There are not many daily lifestyle choices that double your
| risk of dying. In a 2016 study published in the Journal of
| Internal Medicine, Lindqvist's team put it in perspective:
| "Avoidance of sun exposure is a risk factor of a similar
| magnitude as smoking, in terms of life expectancy."
|
| There's a link around "put it in perspective." Following it
| through to the source leads to the 2016 study, which notes:
|
| > We acknowledge several major limitations of this study. First,
| it is not possible to differentiate between active sun exposure
| habits and a healthy lifestyle, and secondly, the results are of
| an observational nature; therefore, a causal link cannot be
| proven. A further limitation is that we did not have access to
| exercise data from study initiation; however, similar sHR values
| were obtained when including exercise for those women who
| answered the second questionnaire in 2000. With the introduction
| of whole-genome scanning, a new method of getting closer to
| causality using observational data is Mendelian random analysis.
| A potential causal link between BMI and vitamin D levels has been
| demonstrated with this method 8. In addition, individuals with
| high BMI do not obtain the same increase in vitamin D levels by
| UV radiation as lean subjects 9. As a consequence, as BMI seems
| to be involved in the causal pathway of vitamin D, it should not
| be included as a confounder in analyses as has been performed in
| many studies.
|
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/joim.12496
|
| This adds nuance missing from the original article. Also, AFAICT,
| the study doesn't mention anything about sunscreen use by the
| women. Based on the discussion in the original article, this
| study looks like a smoking gun. But going a little deeper, not so
| much.
|
| It'd put the study into the category "needs follow-up."
| raverbashing wrote:
| I'll go with "the sun is a deadly laser". I'll suggest anyone
| that disbelieves that to spend some 30min into a moderate/high UV
| intensity day outside without sunscreen. Especially around
| midday.
|
| Sure, don't avoid the sun completely, but don't play with it
|
| It's true that sunlight increases Vit D and Nitric Oxide, other
| claims are much feeble and holy mother of selection bias to claim
| all that is due to the sun!
| throwaway202022 wrote:
| > I'll suggest anyone that disbelieves that to spend some 30min
| into a moderate/high UV intensity day outside without
| sunscreen. Especially around midday.
|
| 30 minutes? I did that today for two hours. My arms, legs,
| face, and neck were all exposed without sunscreen, and I didn't
| burn at all. It all depends on your skin type.
| easrng wrote:
| Not anymore, there's a blanket.
| smt88 wrote:
| > _I 'll suggest anyone that disbelieves that to spend some
| 30min..._
|
| I do this daily for up to 6 hrs on the weekend. I have never
| had a sunburn.
|
| You seem to have assumed all humans are light-skinned, which is
| something the article warns about right at the top.
| watchdogtimer wrote:
| Should be marked 2019.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Something to keep in mind that's strongly in sunscreen's favor:
| Sun exposure has a dramatic (over spans of years) effect on how
| your skin looks. People who have low sun exposure, or high
| sunscreen look look noticibly younger. I can't think of a
| reproducible way to look younger than preventing UV exposure.
| dfee wrote:
| Gotta look good while dying early!
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I don't care if I look old but feel young. Sun exposure helps
| me sleep properly, lifts my mood, and generally improves most
| aspects of my life.
|
| Balance is necessary but man, I started balding at 17, looking
| old is no big deal compared to feeling good.
| sushid wrote:
| Are you sure you're not getting that from being outside,
| working out, etc.?
| maximus-decimus wrote:
| I prefer looking older when I'm old than have to have greasy
| coconut-smelling skin my entire life.
| throwaway98797 wrote:
| Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of
| arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather
| to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up,
| totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!
| tayo42 wrote:
| It feels good to look good and younger though.
|
| When i shave and look younger I always kind of feel like OK I
| might have a few more years of not falling apart
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| That's the thing though. Same body, same mind; you didn't
| actually need to shave to feel that way.
|
| I get the sentiment of course, but I think there's value in
| seeing past it too.
| somehnguy wrote:
| Seems there might be a balance between the extremes of being
| afraid of the sun vs looking like a used up leather boot..
| asdff wrote:
| Among my ancient relatives those that look darker from the
| sun look better in old age anyway than those who stay
| indoors and pasty. Healthier looking for sure.
| legulere wrote:
| Sadly the article talks about sun exposure being a confounder to
| vitamin D and positive health outcomes, but not about further
| confounders. If you are already sick you will go out less into
| the sun.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| I'd worry more about the studies covering every possible
| confounding factor than the article itself. The conceivable
| confounding factors are practically without limit. The same can
| be said for data backing the "sun bad" schools of thought.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > we've been taught to protect ourselves from dangerous UV rays,
| which can cause skin cancer. [...] > 25,871 participants received
| high doses for five years--found no impact on cancer, heart
| disease, or stroke. > How did we get it so wrong?
|
| I don't get the fundamental premise of the article:
| Dermatologists warn about skin cancer from sun exposure, and the
| author takes issue with vitamin D not curing cancer and heart
| diseases.
|
| What is "wrong" ? These two facts look disjointed to me, with no
| specific opposition.
|
| Vitamin D not directly linked to curing cancer and heart diseases
| is also nothing new, there is very few scientifically proven
| effects of vitamin D[0] and it's usually offered as "just in
| case" supplement.
|
| Dermatologists arguing skin cancer can happen doesn't seem wrong
| or unproven either, and all the "sun benefits us" part doesn't
| seem to contradict that part either.
|
| Am I missing some important cultural background of the author
| that makes it all a bigger point ?
|
| [0]
| https://www.webmd.com/vitamins/ai/ingredientmono-929/vitamin...
|
| PS: is the author just arguing that extreme advice should be
| taken with a grain of salt ?
| samtho wrote:
| I think they were just making a point that this relationship
| between Vitamin D and good health is correlative rather than
| causal, i.e people who had higher levels of Vitamin D were
| healthy because natural production of Vitamin D is common in
| people who are more active, rather than Vitamin D itself made
| them healthy.
|
| The CTA of the article seems to focused around that we may have
| been overdoing it with the sunscreen advice and that there is a
| healthy amount of sun exposure we should be getting.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| On sunscreen, my personal impression was that people were
| sloppy enough that the impact would be mild at most (seems
| the subject has also been looked into [1]), and people going
| for really high blocking values usually do so for beauty
| preferences way more than health preoccupations.
|
| [1 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30945275/
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| I had some pretty crappy skin issues (Dermatitis and occasionally
| psoriasis) starting in childhood, but as an adult I moved to a
| tropical country - boom no more problems. I don't even think I
| have allergic reactions to cats and dogs anymore. Wild how much
| your health and mood improves when you can get daily sunlight
| year round. There's the rainy season for sure, but there's
| usually a window in the morning of a few hours or so to go for a
| nice walk in.
| wincy wrote:
| The last two winters I've had some really bad mental problems.
| Two winters ago I spent savings and that night booked a morning
| flight to Florida, which helped a lot. The second time I didn't
| have money to blow so I told my wife I was leaving and going to
| Florida, got in the car and turned off my phone (it was more
| traumatic and not a good time, she was very upset about me
| effectively abandoning her and our children. And I was
| effectively insane for the next two hours, which is good
| because if I had been thinking clearly I could have booked a
| flight and ended up 1500 miles away with no plan). About an
| hour of driving later I snapped out of it, but I'm pretty sure
| the lack of sunlight where I live in the winter is making me go
| crazy.
| nradov wrote:
| I'm not a doctor but it's likely you have something more
| going on mentally than just lack of sunlight. For the sake of
| yourself and your family, please see a psychiatrist.
| staticman2 wrote:
| If you haven't done it you can try one of those Seasonal
| Affective Disorder lights that is supposed to simulate
| sunlight.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| The latter skin condition runs in my family (thankfully I have
| never really dealt with it except a couple of bouts when I was
| a child) and all those in my family that deal with it say the
| same thing. They go to the tropics and it's gone in a week.
|
| I spent a few years in a tropical country and never once got a
| sunburn. I paid no mind to sun and spent a ton of time outside.
| Moving back to the states, within 3 months I had gotten a bad
| sunburn. I don't know what is going on with this sunburn thing
| but I'm convinced it has more to do with just sun exposure.
| Maybe ozone, maybe an environmental factor that increases
| damage upon exposure, I don't know, but there's something
| there.
|
| As far as sun exposure now, I'll put sunscreen on when I'm
| going to spend more than an hour in direct sunlight at a time.
| I spend a lot of time outside and I don't really get burned
| anymore.
| qgin wrote:
| Concerning the referenced study that equates negative effects of
| sun-avoidance to smoking:
|
| https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/joim.12496
|
| > First, it is not possible to differentiate between active sun
| exposure habits and a healthy lifestyle.
|
| People who are healthy get outside more. People who engage in
| physical activity tend to do quite a bit of it outside.
|
| Despite the term "sun avoidance" this is not about people who
| intentionally avoid the sun. It is about people who for whatever
| reason do not have much sun exposure.
| pigeonhole123 wrote:
| This is an unavoidable problem of any observational study. Do
| we have any randomized controlled trials that support the
| current dogma of sun = bad?
| thenerdhead wrote:
| It's a great article. There definitely has been some back and
| forth on this topic for many years. It probably will always be
| like that, especially given it's in the same realm of artificial
| light, eggs, and sugar.
|
| I do believe much of these problems exist because of the literal
| interpretation of the science. More people are thinking in
| absolutes rather than how one can moderate these things in our
| lives.
|
| Even just last year, many "influencers" on social media were
| misinforming younger people about the dangers of the sun.
| Speaking in the sense of never going outside without proper
| products. Debating if those products will give you the same
| benefits without them on ridding the risk. But none the less,
| selling a product at the end of the day.
|
| America is one big shopping mall with everyone holding their
| credit card out.
| dilap wrote:
| There's a study on rabbits that finds you can give them skin
| cancer quite easily if you feed them a diet high in
| polyunsaturated fats.
|
| If the same holds true in humans, it could explain our high skin
| cancer rates, since modern diets include a lot of polyunsaturated
| fats.
|
| A corollary of that is that it might be a very bad idea, indeed,
| to stop using sunblock without also changing your diet, if you're
| eating a typical diet.
|
| (Because maybe the diet is causal and the coincidentally-also-
| increasing-at-the-same-time sunblock use is actually a mitigating
| factor.)
|
| Still, I do find the arguments in favor of sunlight's beneficial
| effects to be convincing. So my approach (/gamble) is to avoid
| modern sources of polyunsaturated fat (basically: seed oils and
| industrial ag chicken and pork) and mostly not wear sunblock.
|
| (I'll let you know how it works out.)
| astrange wrote:
| What do rabbits have to do with humans? Rabbits also die of GI
| stasis if they don't eat grass 24/7.
|
| You gotta test with omnivores, and even then humans are more
| omnivorous than most other animals (like dogs are poisoned by
| grapes, chocolate, onions...).
| dilap wrote:
| Sure, it's not definitive, and rabbits are different from
| humans in many ways, but at the cellular level they are
| similar, & if skin cancer is a cellular phenomenon (say,
| perhaps, driven by fat composition of the cell membranes),
| it's likely the results would transfer.
|
| (Hard to do this kind of research in humans, so you have to
| use animal models and use good judgement/guess at the
| applicability.)
| twofornone wrote:
| >These are dark days for supplements. Although they are a
| $30-plus billion market in the United States alone, vitamin A,
| vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium, beta-carotene, glucosamine,
| chondroitin, and fish oil have now flopped in study after study
|
| Since the byline brings up race, its kind an aside but I'm almost
| convinced that a lot of our large scale nutritional/alternative
| medical studies give mixed results (and are not reproducable)
| because researchers are unwilling to sufficiently control for
| genes. High level categories like "black, white, hispanic, asian"
| are not enough.
| astrange wrote:
| If the advice they're testing was actually strong, it'd work no
| matter the genes you have.
|
| Dietary genes aren't correlated to race of course, except for
| rare ones like Inuits adapting to eating more fat.
|
| For a large scale study I would check if they correlated for
| geography, blood markers and diet outside the supplements.
| taeric wrote:
| Maybe. It is also plausible that ancestral diets have primed
| people to react to different diets and needs.
| twofornone wrote:
| I think its absolutely certain that thousands of
| generations of specialization for local geographies post
| africa lead to disparate dietary needs. Yeah, humans can
| pretty much eat anything, but regularly consuming the same
| diet may may be ideal for one ethnic group and unhealthy
| for another.
|
| Hell, look at the distribution of lactose intolerance. Is
| drinking milk racist?
| astrange wrote:
| Lactose intolerant cultures don't all avoid milk. They
| develop cultural ways of processing it like kefir that
| eliminate lactose, or they're Japanese and just drink it
| anyway because they're masochists and think it builds
| character.
|
| Actually, the most lactose intolerant people I know are
| totally white and I think actually have worse undiagnosed
| medical problems but just think they're lactose
| intolerant. And Asians I know aren't lactose intolerant
| because even though they "are Asian" culturally and would
| look Asian to you they're actually 2/3 genetically
| Scottish.
|
| Testing milk as a supplement would be interesting I
| guess; I know in the 90s we were all taught it was needed
| for bones but more recently this is said to not be true
| because 1. bones need vitamin K which we don't get enough
| of and 2. cows milk contains galactose which is bad for
| bones and may cause osteoporosis.
| taeric wrote:
| Probably more that being racially blind is a form of
| racism. Probably not the worst, usually.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| To be fair, having different recommendations per race is
| problematic.
|
| The rapper Logic is African American, but he probably needs more
| sunblock than Akon. I imagine Italians can tolerate more sunlight
| than Norwegians
|
| Like with most medical advice what works for Billy might not work
| for Andy. But we have a massive medical industrial complex which
| needs to sell as much crap as possible.
|
| Wouldn't surprise me if the sunblock manufacturers are behind
| some of this
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