Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior • Hacker News Board

Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#101

Post by cycomanic » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 1:05 PM UTC

thrown_22 wrote: post #56

klodolph wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has got to be one of the worst takes on IRBs I’ve ever heard. The basic argument here is that rules are ineffective because bad actors ignore them. - Before IRBs, unethical experiments were done by professors and grad students with disposal to all of the resources they normally have. - People don’t always know what the ethical implications of their study is, or how it could negatively impact participants. - The…

That's a very naive view of the expanding bureaucracy which must grow to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy. IRBs don't need to be ran by anyone more competent than a 5 year old to catch the cases you're talking about. What they have metastasis to today is just another part of the administrative industrial complex which has strangled academia.

Seriously if you think that IRBs are anywhere near the top 100 of things that are strangling academia I'd like your job. There are so many other issues that are so much more important that, let's fix those first.

Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#102

Post by tremon » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 1:06 PM UTC

arbol wrote: post #42

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm open to the argument that it's wrong/irrational, but I would wager that - at least in the USA - people wearing sunscreen are doing it to avoid skin cancer more than to avoid tanning.

"...skin cancer kills surprisingly few people: less than 3 per 100,000 in the U.S. each year. For every person who dies of skin cancer, more than 100 die from cardiovascular diseases." Personally, I'm from the UK and don't worry about skin cancer. If I was in Australia or some climate I'm not adapted for then I'd be concerned.

kills surprisingly few people: less than 3 per 100,000

Yet the impact on quality of life is huge. Using the same US numbers [0], comparing directly-attributable deaths against life years lost (disability-adjusted life years):

- melanoma: 2.2 vs 64.8

- squamous cell carcinoma: 0.8 vs 26.6

- basal cell carcinoma: 0.2 vs 51.2

[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33852922/

Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#103

Post by SnowHill9902 » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 1:26 PM UTC

jshprentz wrote: post #95

sitkack wrote: post #21

Could be a signaling behavior to encourage spring births. Does UVB peak in the middle of the summer? 9 months later is probably the best time to birth a child for that child's success.

Gabriele Doblhammer and James W. Vaupel concluded that "month of birth influences adult life expectancy at ages 50+" in their paper [1] in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). They tracked for 30 years the mortality of all Danes who were at least 50 years old on 1 April 1968 (about 1.4 million people born before April 1918). They also analyzed about Austrians with known birth dates who died bet…

Hypothesis: people conceived from impulsive sex on Midsommar are more likely to have un-attending and less-caring parents, and possibly inherit lower self-control traits.

Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#104

Post by collegeburner » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 1:33 PM UTC

mattlondon wrote: post #17

samename wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you know if it does both? Look for UVA on the bottle?

The UK - and I presume Europe - has a star rating for UVA protection in addition to SPF. Some details here: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/seasonal-health/sunscreen-and-s... Tl;Dr - you want minimum 5-star 30 SPF for your daily cream.

Do people actually use sunscreen every day? I wouldn't think a little sun (well before a burn) is that likely to cause problems?

Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#105

Post by SnowHill9902 » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 1:34 PM UTC

mercy_dude wrote: post #7

Question: how does sunscreen affect these outcome ? I have been in a UV-high indexed area for over 2hrs a day under sun and wondered if applying sunscreen everyday as I have to exposed parts such as arms and legs have negative consequences since all of them have benzene. Now this seems to be another reason for not doing so?

Benzene? I really doubt that. Benzene is almost banned even at labs because it’s so insidious.

Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#106

Post by amelius » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 1:37 PM UTC

sooheon wrote: post #87

amelius wrote: post #74

Would it make sense for a curious hacker to try out a narrowband UV-B lamp? https://www.proflamps.com/datasheets/Philips%20Phototherapy-...

There is a corner of the biohacking sphere for everything, including this: https://getchroma.co/product/chroma-d-light/ https://www.sperti.com I never bothered with a device because we have the actual sun for free, and the potential for misuse is enormous -- it's trivial to accidentally blind yourself.

Thanks. I was thinking of mounting a light onder my table, so the skin in the legs can pick up the UV-B, thereby reducing safety risks and also distraction. It would be interesting to see if a day of programming could give me the same benefits in terms of well-being as a day surfing waves :)

Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#107

Post by Khelavaster » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 1:50 PM UTC

This isn't big news at all.

Melanocyte-stimulating hormones have been known to stimulate sexual behavior since forever. Melanocortin receptors directly modulate sexual behavior.

Melanocyte-stimulating hormone production is boosted by from inflammatory effects of UV damage. This has been known forever, too.

Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#108

Post by shipman05 » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 2:12 PM UTC

Jugurtha wrote: post #100

tcldr wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, the ‘Brits Abroad’ phenomenon finally explained.

Something that fascinated me with Russians is how they go out of their way to get every bit of sunlight. I mean, they act like sunflowers, even standing to face the sun and open their arms on the beach, and orienting themselves towards it. They'll go to the beach at ungodly hot hours and stay under the sun, in Tunisia, during summer ! It is amazing because I'm really dark and dark skinned, I'm also native of the regi…

Anecdotal, but not all fair skinned people react the same to sun. My wife and her Polish-descended family get a nice golden tan from sun exposure. My English-descended family and I just burn instead. But we all look equally pale during the winters.

Russians are ethnically much closer to the Poles

Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#109

Post by shard » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 2:16 PM UTC

SnowHill9902 wrote: post #105

mercy_dude wrote: post #7

Question: how does sunscreen affect these outcome ? I have been in a UV-high indexed area for over 2hrs a day under sun and wondered if applying sunscreen everyday as I have to exposed parts such as arms and legs have negative consequences since all of them have benzene. Now this seems to be another reason for not doing so?

Benzene? I really doubt that. Benzene is almost banned even at labs because it’s so insidious.

Not all sunscreen have benzene, but there have been some recalls because benzene had been found:

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/banana-boat-s...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sunscreen-coppertone-benzene-re...

Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#110

Post by AuthorizedCust » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 2:16 PM UTC

Khelavaster wrote: post #107

This isn't big news at all. Melanocyte-stimulating hormones have been known to stimulate sexual behavior since forever. Melanocortin receptors directly modulate sexual behavior. Melanocyte-stimulating hormone production is boosted by from inflammatory effects of UV damage. This has been known forever, too.

> boosted by from inflammatory effects of UV damage

That wording supports a notion that the boosting is to encourage the most essential activity of a species—reproduction—in the face of potential harms that may shorten the opportunity for that activity (cancer-induced final exit).

That said, I’m aware of counterarguments to the simplistic takes on “sun bad” messaging and think they have merit. Not trying to open a debate on the latter, just clarifying that I’m not trying to grind an ax with the first paragraph.