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The health benefits of sunlight may outweigh the risk of skin cancer

economist.com

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Re: The health benefits of sunlight may outweigh the risk of skin cancer

#111

Post by [deleted] »

asdff wrote: post #85
calebm wrote: post #9

I am very white, but getting sun feels very healthy for my skin. Obviously I don't want to get burned bad, but good sun exposure helps my skin feel softer and less inflamed. My grandfather also spent most of his days out in the sun gardening, and my mom was just commenting a few months ago about how surprisingly smooth his skin is (and he's 92).

Grandfather was southern european but spent so much time in the garden he looked middle eastern. Never any sunscreen as he didn't burn. He wouldn't even feel bee stings. He did not visibly age from his 70s into his mid 90s when he passed, aside from getting quite skinny in those last years.

[deleted]

Re: The health benefits of sunlight may outweigh the risk of skin cancer

#112

Post by cisasteelersfan »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #60
anonzzzies wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of those smoke or used to smoke, a lot (continues). I live in a country village in south EU and you can see immediately which of the farmers smoke and which don't. Most of them do, but the ones that don't have smooth skin and look younger than they are, the others look like leather bags indeed and older than they are. I guess you can get the same skin without smoking, I just don't see those here.

It's instructive to look at people who drive for a living. One arm will have significantly more sun exposure than the other and it's trivial to spot the difference as the sun does have a very noticeable aging effect.

What's interesting is that sun exposure through a car window removes almost all UVB rays and most UVA rays. So it's closer to comparing lower sun exposure vs sun exposure with sunscreen.

Re: The health benefits of sunlight may outweigh the risk of skin cancer

#113

Post by amanaplanacanal »

globular-toast wrote: post #108
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you get the idea that we evolved as a polygamous species? The few remaining hunter-gatherer societies don't work like that. I think that kind of polygamy came with agriculture.

The existence of porn should be enough to show that we aren't monogamous. That and the fact that virtually no other mammal is including all the great apes. Monogamy is a thing in birds and they are literally dinosaurs.

I think possibly we are using different definitions of polygamy. If you mean one male monopolizes the females, I disagree. If you mean that individuals (both male and female) don't mate with just one person, then I agree.

Re: The health benefits of sunlight may outweigh the risk of skin cancer

#114

Post by trhway »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #110
trhway wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>good sun exposure helps my skin feel softer and less inflamed. The UV light polymerizes collagen in presence of vitamin B. They did experiments by repairing cornea that way: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3018104/ "The aim of this study is to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of riboflavin-ultraviolet type A (UV-A) light rays induced cross-linking of corneal collagen in improving visual acuity and in s…

> They did experiments by repairing cornea that way: As a person w/ keratoconus I have read a fair bit about this treatment, corneal collagen crosslinking with riboflavin (C3R). It does not repair the damage caused by keratoconus. It stabilizes the cornea and slows or halts progression. The collagen in the cornea naturally crosslinks (likely due to UV exposure) over our lives. My our late 30s our corneas are stable.…

Yes, i see what you're saying. I'm just a layman here, so i talking only based on my recollection of what i read somewhere somewhen. I think i also read another study where there were scratches or some other damage and they did it similar to pothole filling by applying solution/mix of collagen with vitamin B and curing with UV.

Re: The health benefits of sunlight may outweigh the risk of skin cancer

#116

Post by DennisP »

namuol wrote: post #103

> A study published last year, for instance, examined medical data from 360,000 light-skinned Brits and found that greater exposure to UV radiation—either from living in Britain’s sunnier southern bits rather than the darker north, or from regularly using sunbeds—was correlated with either a 12% and 15% lower risk, respectively, of dying, even when the raised risk of skin cancer was taken into account. Emphasis on “m…

Double-blind experiments on this are probably impossible, but it's not like large population studies are totally worthless. It's probably best to go where the evidence points, and the article mentions other studies with similar conclusions, as well as work on possible biological mechanisms.

My strategy is to get short sun exposures, use sunscreen only when I'm going to be out long enough to get burnt, and also do my dermatology appointments.

Re: The health benefits of sunlight may outweigh the risk of skin cancer

#117

Post by DennisP »

spullara wrote: post #92

dunno man, just had melanoma removed from my ear and if it had moved to my lymph nodes I had a 50% chance of dying within 5 years. thankfully it didn't but it was caused by sun damage incurred in my youth. I'll be wearing sunscreen and mostly avoiding direct sunlight.

They did say to avoid getting sunburn, which is the main cause of melanoma.

Re: The health benefits of sunlight may outweigh the risk of skin cancer

#118

Post by photon_garden »

ToDougie wrote: post #109
Nevermark wrote: post #90

For winter I got a standing tanning machine. Which I use 2-4x a week for 1 minute per use. I calculated this was equivalent to 5-15 minutes outside, depending on time, but engages the entirety of the bodies largest organ. My (anecdotal, subjective) experience is that it helps. Both vitamin D and nitric oxide are good rationales for that. This would be economically impossible at a tanning salon. If you like to be tan,…

> I also have bright rope LEDs surrounding a few of my room ceilings, hidden behind coving. That light reflects smoothly off the entirety of the white ceilings. A great combination of very high intensity lighting, that is also gentle, diffuse and calming. Summer days, indoors, all year round. I am intrigued -- please can you share any publicly available image of this solution? I'm not sure what to google search, or w…

David Chapman has a great writeup on this:

https://meaningness.com/sad-light-lumens

His other writing is great too, but much more philosophical which may or may not be your cup of tea.

Re: The health benefits of sunlight may outweigh the risk of skin cancer

#119

Post by saltcured »

uncircle wrote: post #5
ponchel wrote: post #4

Who actually thought that getting sunlight was bad ?

There is a lot of weird discussion on English-speaking forums that you should always always wear sunscreen, even if the day is grey, because skin cancer is a constant risk. I do not get if it’s a massive and long-running marketing campaign that has brainwashed the entire population, if it’s because many living in US and UK have a very white skin tone thus burn easily, or what else. Skin cancer is a fact of life, but…

Where the medical establishment pushes it, it is largely about establishing habits for people who may get a lot of exposure that they didn't plan for.

Also, local climates differ dramatically. A couple of my worst sunburns in my life were on extremely gray days on the California coast. It is easy to fool yourself into thinking the sun isn't strong when you don't feel the heat of it. But on those kinds of days, it's just diffuse UV blasting from every direction.

I found it instructive when I got photochromatic eye glasses. Since they are UV-activated, it is like carrying a UV detection instrument around with a heads-up display. It really helped me get a better sense for what conditions and hours of the day have significant UV in my normal daily life.

Re: The health benefits of sunlight may outweigh the risk of skin cancer

#120

Post by setopt »

jrpt wrote: post #115

I would like to know how regular sunlight compares to the combination of vitamin D supplementation and red light therapy. If you do both of those, is that equivalent or better since it doesn't have any damaging effects of the sun?

There are other benefits as well. For example, some eye exposure to violet or ultraviolet light have been shown to reduce myopia, which might be one reason why glasses usage has increased a lot. (Screen usage is a big myopia factor as well, but it’s not the whole story.)

There are also studies suggesting that low-level UV exposure lowers risk of death by more than what can be explained by serum vitamin D levels alone, suggesting other unknown mechanisms at play.

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