I have a controversial, non-scientific view: When you live in a place with better weather, your mental health is better. This has enormous second order effects. (I have no idea if this can be scientifically explained due to UVA/UVB exposure.) I grew up in place with horrible, long winters. When I finally escaped to places with better weather, it was life altering. I will never forget living as a university student in Silicon Valley. My otherwise unimpressive apartment had an orange tree in the backyard. I could pick the oranges and eat them. Weeks elapsed where there wasn't a single cloud in the sky. I cannot stress enough how much this improved my mental health.
The health benefits of sunlight may outweigh the risk of skin cancer
241–250 of 258 posts
Re: The health benefits of sunlight may outweigh the risk of skin cancer
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Economist a few years back did an article on Steon (free energy engine) but it was essentially a PR piece soliciting investors… so take them with a grain of salt
Journalists fucked up massively when they allowed sponsored content to masquerade as editorial content. Now people don't trust media as much as they used to and are moving to other sources to get their information. What journalists around the world need to do is come together and build consensus in the industry on separating sponsored content from their own. A tiny, fine print at the bottom of a full page sponsor is…
I canceled my subscription to the local daily over this. Not only were they presenting advertisement as if they were editorial content, they weren’t even reading it themselves. If they were, they would have noticed that they’d printed, on actual paper, an unreadable article full of broken html fragments. That was the last straw for me. Stunning disrespect for the people who pay for the paper.
Re: The health benefits of sunlight may outweigh the risk of skin cancer
#243> 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…
> Double-blind experiments on this are probably impossible, but it's not like large population studies are totally worthless.
Large population studies in itself are fine, it's just the quoted study is worthless. Socially there's just so many differences between the two groups that it becomes almost impossible to validly compare these two.
A better study design would be to treat each region separately. And compare 'time spent outside' with health outcomes in each region. That would give a much more reliable and useful insight in if time spent outside equals better/less health. Bonus points if you also ask them if they regularly use sunscreen.
That data would actually be useful. That way you could compare if spending time outside is healthy in itself, or if it has to do with the sun. For example if the sun would be a net negative, you would find relatively more skin cancer in the groups in sunnier climates that spend a lot of time outside versus those in greyer regions. If the sun would be a net-benefit, you would see less skin cancer instead. And quite likely you would see that people who spend more time outside have better health outcomes no matter which region you are in, although the size of those groups may differ greatly depending on the climate.
Re: The health benefits of sunlight may outweigh the risk of skin cancer
#244For 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,…
Can you share the tanning machine make/model/url?
Re: The health benefits of sunlight may outweigh the risk of skin cancer
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
The important piece missing from both of these comments IMHO, is that sunburns are the problematic piece. There's always going to be some risk from UV exposure, but as the parent comment points out we're evolved to deal with it and even to rely on it. There's research showing that low amounts of cellular damage is actually beneficial as it triggers cellular repair mechanisms or aptosis of senecent cells. Even here ot…
> The important piece missing from both of these comments IMHO, is that sunburns are the problematic piece. Then the problem is light skin tone, and the advice to wear sunscreen always , only applies to them, hence my doubts. I do not get sunburnt if I go buy groceries or if I spend 1 hour outside, like most ethnicities on Earth; yet if I dare question the dogma of sunscreen, I get downvoted, which makes me wonder if…
>> The important piece missing from both of these comments IMHO, is that sunburns are the problematic piece.
>Then the problem is light skin tone, and the advice to wear sunscreen always, only applies to them, hence my doubts.
My view: sunscreen for any skin is not healthy, lots of marketing there. People with sensitive skin to sunlight( generally light skinned folks but not always) should either avoid harsh sun of wear clothing that will protect them from harsh sunlight.
Re: The health benefits of sunlight may outweigh the risk of skin cancer
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
Entirely case by case. It's further confounded by the fact that a bunch of things that are bad for us don't exert strong selective pressure in the first place.
> don't exert strong selective pressure in the first place This assumes we understand how these things work in the first place. It’s very likely our understanding of evolution is incomplete. I make this mistake a lot: 1. See thing that’s been done a long time a certain way 2. Modern recommendation is don’t do thing 3. Revised modern recommendation says “actually wait, do thing” 4. Revised modern recommendation is now…
I agree with you in general, but we understand enough of the mechanisms for how selective pressure occurs that we know it is often not the deciding factor in population-level changes. For example, the smallest and most rapidly replicating bacteria have such intense selective pressure that they even select against noncoding introns (extra energy during replication!) but this effect is already gone for larger and less rapidly-dividing bacteria. A lot of stuff simply does not affect fitness (either direct reproductive fitness or species survival) enough for that to be the deciding factor in its propagation, and without recognizing that an awful lot of evolutionary biology / population genetics isn't going to make much sense.
In other words, the default hypothesis when we find that something humans often did in the past is bad for our health should certainly not be that there is some evolutionary advantage to the behavior. We are a fairly homogeneous population that has suffered several severe bottlenecking events, has fairly long and slow reproductive cycles, and has relatively few children. We also have aggressive active immune systems. Under these circumstances selective pressure is not super high, even before accounting for any of the modern life factors people often bring up. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist at all obviously, just that it's very case by case.
Re: The health benefits of sunlight may outweigh the risk of skin cancer
#247No sunscreen in decades, no signs of skin cancer. Shrug.
Re: The health benefits of sunlight may outweigh the risk of skin cancer
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure but you should also be highly skeptical of people telling you that sunscreen is always required to go outside. A lot of the studies are funded by sunscreen companies which stand to make a lot of money. > Tanning is a response to skin cell damage I don't think this is true in any meaningful sense. Damage is part of life. Your body repairs minor damage and it is usually a good thing to trigger the repair pathways…
> This is also the basis for exercise - your muscles and tendons are damaged when you work out, but they get rebuilt stronger This is an outdated view, evidence shows muscle/tendon growth/adaptation occurs primarily via mechanical tension and metabolic stress, with damage playing a minimal or even counterproductive role. hypertrophy happens despite it, not because of it. [The development of skeletal muscle hypertroph…
That’s interesting, thanks for the link.
Nevertheless, exercise turns on repair pathways in multiple tissue types.
Molecular mechanisms of exercise contributing to tissue regeneration (2022) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-022-01233-2
Exercise Promotes Tissue Regeneration: Mechanisms Involved and Therapeutic Scope (2023) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10164224/
Re: The health benefits of sunlight may outweigh the risk of skin cancer
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very simple, studies all confirm that people who spend more time outdoors have better eyesight at youth (avoids myopia) and health (exercise), use sunscreen (avoid skin cancer). No need to speculate more.
But is that cause or correlation? Kids with bad sight or health might be more drawn to indoor pursuits.
You should read the research: 1st comment link
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25907356
Taiwan case study: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/01/shortsighted-t...
Re: The health benefits of sunlight may outweigh the risk of skin cancer
#250I think people should be highly skeptical of articles like this, even without knowing anything about the subject in question. No byline/author. No citations/links to the studies in question. Confirmation of preconceived notions that people would like to be true (e.g. the sun as a wellness remedy instead of damaging to skin), including unfounded "just so" stories and claims about evolution, diabetes, and other unrelat…
Sure but you should also be highly skeptical of people telling you that sunscreen is always required to go outside. A lot of the studies are funded by sunscreen companies which stand to make a lot of money. > Tanning is a response to skin cell damage I don't think this is true in any meaningful sense. Damage is part of life. Your body repairs minor damage and it is usually a good thing to trigger the repair pathways…
Are you sure about this? I always heard about Australians (especially surfers) that had a high melanoma incidence and that it had made it clear that even if you are adapted (tanned) cancer risks still rises with exposure time.