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Unexpected benefits of sun exposure on skin

theguardian.com

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Re: Unexpected benefits of sun exposure on skin

#91

Post by menomatter »

memen wrote: post #84
missedthecue wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the "sunscreen inside" people are those trying to maximize their visible skin health and beauty. If you don't care about your physical looks, as least above all else, I imagine the trade off to getting regular direct sunlight is well worth it. But it is fairly intuitive that sunlight's ultraviolet radiation at any strength is going to degrade your skin over long periods of time.

Could you link to studies backing up your claim about 'visible skin health and beauty'?. I have searched for these a lot, but I cannot find thorough literature study type of research about this. Except for the 'sitting in office all year and then sit in the sun for two weeks straight and get 14 sun burns is not good, so you should use sunscreen' message, which is not very helpful and could conclude also that one 'sho…

Photoaging is the term and a quick search yields a few studies. Ex: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8802961/. And anecdotally, I never used sun screen and was exposed to a lot of sunburns in the Mediterranean climate. My skin is visibly older and more wrinkled than my peers who used skin protections. My back is full of freckles and dermatologist said this is due to sunburn. I guess sunburn doesn’t need a lot of studies to show it’s very damaging to the skin?

Re: Unexpected benefits of sun exposure on skin

#92

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

insanitybit wrote: post #88
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for a start, two people in that group wore sunblock religiously. But that's just anecdata, and I would certainly ridicule e.g. anti-covid vaccine arguments framed like that. It seems that the argument that solar exposure causes cancer, and if not cancer than weathered leathery skin when you're older, has been widely and effectively made, and this has been enough to get most people to hedge and just use sunblock…

> It seems that the argument that solar exposure causes cancer, and if not cancer than weathered leathery skin when you're older, has been widely and effectively made, and this has been enough to get most people to hedge and just use sunblock anyway. Yes, that is literally it. That is why people wear sunblock, including "religiously". They don't want cancer or prematurely aged skin. > m not convinced they're wrong -…

The "conspiracy" would be an multinational, multibillion-dollar industry making big money selling people a product they don't need and that could be harmful for their health.

I didn't actually just say that :)

Re: Unexpected benefits of sun exposure on skin

#93

Post by olivermuty »

throwaway87651 wrote: post #31
olivermuty wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most western diets gets more than enough d-vitamin through food additives. Just a couple of slices of cheese per day and some milk is all the d-vit you need here apparently. The old folk saying is to take d-vitamin supplements in all months that has an R in them. Probably sound advice

"Probably sound advice" ... unless you're in the southern hemisphere!

Haha! Good point, I dont have any folklore rules for them :(

Re: Unexpected benefits of sun exposure on skin

#94

Post by qingcharles »

zolbrek wrote: post #18
qingcharles wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like they should prescribe sunlight for prisoners. I was held for 10 years without seeing the sun, and many jails and prisons are built on budgets that don't allow for any sunlight.

That is rough. Perhaps a very stupid question but did you have access to Vitamin D supplementation during that time?

No, most jails and prisons don't sell supplements. You only got whatever vitamin D you got from the slop they serve you :(

Re: Unexpected benefits of sun exposure on skin

#95

Post by qingcharles »

olalonde wrote: post #12
qingcharles wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like they should prescribe sunlight for prisoners. I was held for 10 years without seeing the sun, and many jails and prisons are built on budgets that don't allow for any sunlight.

Do you mean that your cell didn't have sunlight or that you literally never went outside? I was watching a documentary on ADX Florence, which is known for its maximum-security isolation, and prisoners were allowed one hour outside per day.

Yeah, the ADX guys sued to get that back. They lost it at some point and went years without. I tried to sue, but it is almost impossible to sue for lack of sunlight because you need to employ expert witnesses to even have a chance to prove that lack of sunlight is harmful to your health.

I was held in cells without windows for five years. The other five the cells had windows but were so dirty that practically no sunlight entered. Never went outside. Maybe a total of 10 hours outside in 10 years. The first five years in a facility where they didn't design any outside into it because it was built in the middle of a downtown area and there wasn't space. The other five in a facility that had large outside areas but no staff to organize corralling a whole cellblock of inmates, getting them through the corridors of the buildings to the outside, monitoring them so they didn't escape and then getting them back. That requires a lot of staff, and most jails and prisons are vastly understaffed.

Re: Unexpected benefits of sun exposure on skin

#96

Post by qingcharles »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #81
qingcharles wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like they should prescribe sunlight for prisoners. I was held for 10 years without seeing the sun, and many jails and prisons are built on budgets that don't allow for any sunlight.

Not to dox you, but did you ever think to blog about this? 10 years without seeing the sun? That sounds like an incredible story to tell.

At some point when it is all over I will write about it. I've not been to trial yet - so this 10 years was while unconvicted waiting for trial, which is even more insane. It's not even the worst of it, IMO. When I finally got out I started working for criminal justice charities on various issues, and I started getting harassed by the police. They would literally come and drag me out of my house every single day of the week and arrest me and cuff me behind my back on the street (this is the USA too, not some Third World dictatorship!) and then let me go a few minutes later. Eventually they arrested me and I served another five months simply because I Tweeted about the harassment. There was nothing illegal about it, but a judge in the USA can do whatever he wants, so there you go.

Here's what I wrote about the sunlight:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37740417

Re: Unexpected benefits of sun exposure on skin

#98

Post by tabtab »

memen wrote: post #84
missedthecue wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the "sunscreen inside" people are those trying to maximize their visible skin health and beauty. If you don't care about your physical looks, as least above all else, I imagine the trade off to getting regular direct sunlight is well worth it. But it is fairly intuitive that sunlight's ultraviolet radiation at any strength is going to degrade your skin over long periods of time.

Could you link to studies backing up your claim about 'visible skin health and beauty'?. I have searched for these a lot, but I cannot find thorough literature study type of research about this. Except for the 'sitting in office all year and then sit in the sun for two weeks straight and get 14 sun burns is not good, so you should use sunscreen' message, which is not very helpful and could conclude also that one 'sho…

Maybe the trick is to spread sun exposure across the body rather than mostly let our limbs and face take most the sun. Protect those areas, but get fuller body sun more often. The parts of my body on the boundary between heavy exposure and no exposure seem relatively okay. They have a slight freckle-ness to them, but arguably acceptable. (I'm not young; time-tested.)

Re: Unexpected benefits of sun exposure on skin

#99

Post by memen »

menomatter wrote: post #91
memen wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you link to studies backing up your claim about 'visible skin health and beauty'?. I have searched for these a lot, but I cannot find thorough literature study type of research about this. Except for the 'sitting in office all year and then sit in the sun for two weeks straight and get 14 sun burns is not good, so you should use sunscreen' message, which is not very helpful and could conclude also that one 'sho…

Photoaging is the term and a quick search yields a few studies. Ex: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8802961/ . And anecdotally, I never used sun screen and was exposed to a lot of sunburns in the Mediterranean climate. My skin is visibly older and more wrinkled than my peers who used skin protections. My back is full of freckles and dermatologist said this is due to sunburn. I guess sunburn doesn’t need…

That is kind of my point. Sun burn is not good. But without sun burn? The article you sent doesn't make clear whether photoaging always happens, or only on sun burn or other high doses of exposure.

Re: Unexpected benefits of sun exposure on skin

#100

Post by ghoogl »

nu11ptr wrote: post #34

This is not even remotely surprising to me. I've always been a bit skeptical of "the sun is evil" (and got even more skeptical when I was told I should wear sunblock inside!) and ensure I get 20 minutes full body exposure daily in the summer. Anecdotally, I can tell a general difference in my mood and sleep during periods where I get adequate sun vs. when I'm not (and I supplement vitamin D when I'm not). While I am…

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