Having 0 as an option for SPF annoys me to no end.
Time to sunburn
111–120 of 121 posts
Re: Time to sunburn
#112I get wildly different results for London (7 hours+) and my postcode in inner London (Wood Green area) (2 hours ish). I also get the 7 hour result if I enter "Wood Green".
Re: Time to sunburn
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fortunately Vitamin D supplements are a safe and effective way to get the recommended amount. UV exposure is the most preventable cause of skin cancer[1] and not worth the risk. EDIT Forgot my link: 1. https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/call-to-action-preve...
But, after 50+ years of rising sunscreen use, there's essentially no data showing more sunscreen use reduces skin cancer. Sunscreen definitely prevents sunburns, and almost certainly delays visible skin aging/weathering. Those may be enough benefits for some people. But the people/populations using more sunscreen are also having more skin cancer. Some theories compatible with these observations are: • While preventin…
There is evidence that bad (peeling) sunburns as a child are a major risk factor in melanoma. That is never going to be feasible to study in a randomized control trial, in addition to the study taking 40 years to complete it would be unethical to burn children that badly on purpose. Randomized control trials on seatbelts saving lives are also hard to find for the same reason but that doesn’t mean they don’t work.
Also, as anyone who burns easily will be well aware, sunscreen is almost impossible to use properly in the real world. You need to cover every inch of your skin and reapply every 60-90 minutes and make sure not to let it wash off by going in the water too soon or sweating too much, make sure not to rub it off with clothing or towels, etc.
The first part of your advice makes sense in light of this - shade and clothing are much more practical ways to stay safe if you’re outdoors all day and burn easily.
“Use sunscreen sparingly” is just stupid advice to be giving though. There is much more evidence to it helping than doing any harm.
Re: Time to sunburn
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
>But the people/populations using more sunscreen are also having more skin cancer Um, you missed the most obvious explanation (assuming that's even true): People who have an elevated risk of skin cancer (due to geographic location and/or skin type) are likely to use more sunscreen for that very reason, but despite their sunscreen use they're still at an elevated risk of cancer because sunscreen cannot eliminate all r…
This sort of confounder is common, but we have in the US a population that, over the decades, is (pre-exposure) no more pale/susceptible-to-burns. The public has been bombarded for decades with the health message to avoid the sun, and a deep tan has become less fashionable. (My younger friends, especially, treat minimizing tans/exposure as an almost religious obligation.) Sunscreens have broadened the wavelengths the…
> If the population's generally the same, but slathering on far more sunscreen every decade – but cases still go up & mortality barely budges – there's little hint of effective protection.
It is not so simple to come to this conclusion. You would have to establish that time spent in sun per person has not gone up, that per person use of sunscreen (good quality sunscreen) has gone up by a measurable amount, that it is being used properly, and the cancer is happening on areas where sunscreen was used. In addition, you would have to control for people living longer.
Note that the US population in less sunny and cold areas (Midwest and Northeast) has stalled for 3 decades compared to explosive growth in population in the South and West (sunny, warm areas).
Re: Time to sunburn
#115Having 0 as an option for SPF annoys me to no end.
Why?
Re: Time to sunburn
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see anything in that article that actually contradicts the definition of SPF. It's basically saying: > It's a common misconception that speed determines how fast you get to your destination, but actually distance also matters. So speed does not reflect time to destination. Instead, speed lets consumers compare the level of relative quickness and that 60mph is quicker than 6mph. Obviously we need to hold other…
If you're standing under a UV light that's constant, I think the SPF === time works. In the real world, where the sun, ya know, rises and sets, this is actually a harmful assumption.
The FDA's article gives a meaninglessly useless. The multiplicative one is clear. What is the plausible case where someone gets confused by this in a way that's harmful? Would anyone ever over-estimate the time they can spend in the sun? I can only imagine under-estimating that time (which is fine) since our base reference for sunburns is always to picture the hottest day of summer at the beach at middday - the worst case scenario. The sun setting makes this better not worse!
Either way the multiplicative one is clear: 30 minutes of midday exposure with 30 SPF is approximately equal to 1 minute of midday exposure and so is minimal. That's helpful to know! And 50 is only moderately better than 30, but 30 is a lot better than 10 - the FDA page says nothing about this.
Re: Time to sunburn
#117I think you're API key might be out of requests. I'm getting this error, no matter what location I put in, even though the Location block correctly returns the coordinates for whatever city I put in. Exception Traceback (most recent call last) in 7 location_response = requests.get(f'https://api.opencagedata.com/geocode/v1/json?key={OPENCAGEDATA_API_KEY}&q={Location}&no_annotations=1&limit=1') 8 if not location_respon…
OpenCage here. We set a higher number of requests for the user now, seems to work again.
Hello OpenCage. Jan from Deepnote here. Thanks a lot for increasing the limit! Very much appreciated.
Re: Time to sunburn
#118If people could avoid as much as possible suncreams, that'd be great (using natural protections, clothes, ...), just for their plastic wrapping at least, I know some are said to be environment-safe, but still
Where are you that suncream packaging is the most concerning litter?
Earth, pollution is concerning on that planet
Re: Time to sunburn
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
This sort of confounder is common, but we have in the US a population that, over the decades, is (pre-exposure) no more pale/susceptible-to-burns. The public has been bombarded for decades with the health message to avoid the sun, and a deep tan has become less fashionable. (My younger friends, especially, treat minimizing tans/exposure as an almost religious obligation.) Sunscreens have broadened the wavelengths the…
> If the population's generally the same, but slathering on far more sunscreen every decade – but cases still go up & mortality barely budges – there's little hint of effective protection. It is not so simple to come to this conclusion. You would have to establish that time spent in sun per person has not gone up, that per person use of sunscreen (good quality sunscreen) has gone up by a measurable amount, that it is…
The shifting of population regionally, and the aging of the population, are both good points to consider for proper controls. (In Australia, a fair-skinned population in high-UV latitudes suffers melanoma rates 50% or higher than the US. Accordingly, the promotion of sun-avoidance & sunscreen is even more intense than the US. Their age-adjusted malanoma rate reporting shows the same increase, from the 1980s through 2016: https://www.canceraustralia.gov.au/affected-cancer/cancer-ty...).
But as a longtime observer of trends, I'm pretty confident: people of all ages are conspicuously, consciously avoiding the sun more than in the 60s-80s. Indoor time has risen. Our palest most-sun-sensitive subgroups haven't increased as a proportion of the population - they've shrunk, compared to darker-skinned populations with lower base rates of melanoma.
If contra my impressions, sun exposure time has gone up, that could be due to overconfidence in sunscreens, one of the effects I'm concerned about.
If sunscreens provided the protection claimed, & this drumbeat of "slather it on always!" was an effective message, shouldn't there have been some dent in melanoma rates over the decades?
Lung cancer deaths have gone down with smoking warnings & reduced sales.
Motor vehicle deaths per mile traveled have gone down with new rules & education.
Melanoma rates seem to go up no matter how much more sunscreen is touted, is sold/used, or is strengthened in SPF or formats/staying-power.