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

https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2025/09/17/the-health-benefits-of-sunlight-may-outweigh-the-risk-of-skin-cancer

by petethomas • 10 months ago

292 247 10 months ago

economist.com

breppp• 10 months ago

https://archive.md/ypb35

ponchel• 10 months ago

Who actually thought that getting sunlight was bad ?

uncircle2• 10 months ago

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 for a species that evolved in the sun, I do not believe one bit that sun exposure, which incidentally is linked to many benefits because it’s so bloody normal, is something that can only be dealt with modern technology and we should be deathly afraid of it. Sure, UV radiation can cause mutations, but our immune system has evolved over billions of years to deal with this exact problem.

By all means use sunscreen if you have to spend a lot of time in the sun and risk a very unpleasant sunburn, but I wish someone would explain the Anglo obsession with daily sunscreen routine.

phito• 10 months ago

for a species that evolved in the sun, I do not believe one bit that sun exposure, which incidentally is linked to many benefits because it’s so bloody normal, is something that can only be dealt with modern technology and we should be deathly afraid of it. Sure, UV radiation can cause mutations, but our immune system has evolved over billions of years to deal with this exact problem.

Yeah, most of the time our immune system deals with it, but sometimes it misses one roge cell and you've got cancer. That's why you want to limit your exposure to mutations even if you're somewhat adapted to deal with them.

Then it's a matter of looking at studies and statistics and deciding for yourself. Personally, I'll keep putting on sunscreen, as I sunburn easily ;)

jusssi• 10 months ago

Maybe we're getting more UV now than we evolved with?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion

heyheyhey• 10 months ago

I wish someone would explain the Anglo obsession with daily sunscreen routine.

Because it's more about skincare for physical attraction and less about the cancer. Sun ages your skin with wrinkles, sagging, hyperpigmentation, etc.

This isn't specific to Anglo nations too. Any country where being "fair skinned" is more desirable will have lots of demand for sunscreen.

saltcured• 10 months ago

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.

Earw0rm4• 10 months ago

It's context collapse, the curse of a shared language.

If you live in Australia or Florida and have Anglo skin, you'd best believe that's good advice.

In the natural range of the Anglo skin type, Edinburgh or Dublin, not so much.

SapporoChris• 10 months ago

Most East Asians: Chinese, Japanese and Koreans for a start.

tforcram• 10 months ago

I've had a malignant melanoma, my mother and extended relatives had it as well (including a great uncle I never met who died from it), 4 (of my 9) siblings have had multiple, mostly those of use who have red hair/fair skin. I don't think I've ever heard of a greater risk of skin cancer due to genetics/familial occurrence than I have.

After my mother got it and had a huge chunk taken out of her leg when I was very young, we have had it drilled into our heads that the sun was going to kill us and we needed to cover up and lather in sun screen for even the slightest possibility of sun exposure.

Obviously that didn't help much as many of us still got it anyway, hah!

But yea there are some folks who are terrified of the sun. I personally think 15-20 minutes unfiltered sunlight is good for me, but beyond that I'm looking for the nearest shade or trying to cover up.

thrawa8387336• 10 months ago

What I've heard is people who don't get sun frequently, are at higher risk of melanoma. Like no sun then sunburn = bad bad

ehnto• 10 months ago

Quite a lot of people. People in Australia are educated about the risk of sun exposure in school for one. Another is cultures who view being pale as a beauty standard.

worthless-trash• 10 months ago

Slip, Slop, Slap.

EZ-E• 10 months ago

It is a big thing in Asia to avoid sunlight to avoid premature aging and tanning. It's an interesting parallel you can observe in parks: in my country in Europe, people will prefer to sit on the benches exposed to the sun first, in China and Korea, people will sit in the shade instead.

seanicus• 10 months ago

Lived in SE Asia fora few years and my understanding is that tan skin = outdoor labor = lower caste.

My spouse is asian and I'm N Euro - I would kill to have skin that just tans no matter how much sun you get. I think I've seen her get burns twice in over a decade and we do a lot of beach time.

jokoon• 10 months ago

Dermatologists and doctors

ndsipa_pomu3• 10 months ago

Sunlight has a distinct ageing effect on skin and this is so well known that cosmetic companies can truthfully label their ointments/lotions as "anti-ageing" if they provide some sun protection effect (e.g. SPF level).

Krssst• 10 months ago

Skin aging, skin cancer, cataract.

wiseowise5• 10 months ago

Anyone who didn’t live under a rock for the last 30 years.

cpf_au• 10 months ago

Yeah not as a pasty white guy in Australia

mcdeltat3• 10 months ago

Australia is exceptionally bad for the sun. It's crazy because the incidence of skin cancer is still so high even though sun protection is drilled into us since birth. I'll rant further that Australia is not even good from a UV/temperature tradeoff because the UV is always ridiculously high. Nice warm Mediterranean summer UV level is equivalent to a freezing cold winter day in Australia.

Earw0rm4• 10 months ago

It's because you're the same latitude as Namibia, Botswana etc. Even Perth is on the same equivalent (south instead of north) as Cairo or Kuwait.

There's a reason the indigenous Australians stayed dark skinned after 40,000 years - a time frame more than long enough for the Irish to turn red-haired and pale; as a trait it's relatively fast evolving, Europe probably evolved most/all of its variation since the last ice age.

calebm4• 10 months ago

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).

calebm4• 10 months ago

On a related note: I also think looking at the sun is healthy for our eyes. I've been getting more sun-in-my-eyes exposure, and at the last optometrist I had, he was surprised to find that my vision improved since my last checkup.

quaintdev• 10 months ago

Anyone thinking of doing this, don't. There's a reason we don't directly look at solar eclipse. Here's a excerpt from [1]

Usually we close our eyes in reflex due to intense light from the Sun, but on day of an eclipse, the intensity of sunlight is decreased and we can view the Sun through naked eyes. While we watch a solar eclipse without any protection to our eyes, the ultraviolet rays penetrate our eyes and cause retinal burn, leading to loss of central vision.

[1] https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/partial-solar-eclips...

bob1029• 10 months ago

I've found the same with direct sunlight exposure. My distance vision is much sharper if I've been outside a lot recently. It seems similar to how exercise works elsewhere in the body. You can definitely get a neuromuscular reaction if the incident angle of the sunlight is direct enough. The trick (as with all forms of exercise) is moderation.

avian• 10 months ago

Recently I've received an email from my eye specialist addressed to all her patients urging people not to look at the sun. At the same time I've also seen a similar public warning published in local media.

Apparently there has been an sharp rise in people coming in with retinal damage from staring at the sun. They didn't go into details why someone would do that, but reading this on HN I can start to guess.

herbst• 10 months ago

Is this some kind of weird meta joke or are people actually arguing about staring into the sun in 2025?

bloak2• 10 months ago

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bates_method#Sunning

Aldous Huxley was taken in, unfortunately: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Seeing

I would guess it's dangerous nonsense, though there are plausible claims that shortsightedness is associated with not spending much time outside as a child so perhaps there's a slight link with something that isn't nonsense.

calebm4• 10 months ago

So just to clarify - yes, I do think looking at the sun directly for very short periods is good (especially if it's lower on the horizon). But overall, what I as trying to get at is that being outside and getting the bright light of the sun on your eyes is helpful. The best way to do this is on the water. When you look at the sun reflecting off the water, you are getting the bright light, but because the water is reflecting it, and the waves are constantly changing the angles, the sun like gets spread evenly over your eyes.

For the naysayers, if looking at the sun is so bad, why is it not considered bad to look at the sun's reflection on the water? Additionally, when the sun is low, if you look at the brightness of the sunlight, it is less bright than some artificial light sources, and doesn't hurt to look at. How could this be bad?

jraby3• 10 months ago

I don't think it's at all healthy to look directly at the sun.

But I have noticed that my eyes get weaker after spending a lot of time indoors, like if I'm sick. Getting enough time in sunlight seems to be heavily correlated with better eyesight, both in my personal experience fighting farsightedness as a man in his 50s and with studies done on children regarding nearsightedness.

trhway3• 10 months ago

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 stabilizing the progression of keratoconic eyes.

...

The eyes were saturated with riboflavin solution and were subjected for 30 min under UV-A light

...

Cross-linking was safe and an effective therapeutical option for progressive keratoconus."

I think that this is probably one of the reasons why suntanned skin usually looks like it is in better condition mechanically-wise.

Another my favorite Sun exposure related correlation - vitamin D deficiency and autism, as couple studies on Somali immigrant population in Minnesota and Sweden - where such dark skinned population naturally gets very low on vitamin D - showed such correlation as autism rates in that population is higher than back there in Somali (and that would explain the correlation of low sunlight expo.

And my favorite pet theory is that Neanderthals with their large eyes adapted to the Northern latitudes were significantly impaired by spike of UV radiation - getting highly increased rate of early cataract and other eyesight damage - during that thousand years of magnetic field polar swap 40K years ago, and that caused them to lose to the Cro-Magnon who was coming out of Africa with more dark and smaller eyes more adapted to higher UV levels which are natural to Africa.

EvanAnderson• 10 months ago

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. For someone with keratoconus, where the cornea becomes progressively misshapen, stabilizing the tissue with UV (enhanced by riboflavin) slows or prevents further damage.

I was just a few years too early in my diagnosis to benefit from C3R. My eyes have been stable for the last 10 - 12 years. I wish I could have had C3R when my condition was first diagnosed back in my 20s.

waterhouse• 10 months ago

couple studies on Somali immigrant population in Minnesota and Sweden - where such dark skinned population naturally gets very low on vitamin D - showed such correlation as autism rates in that population is higher than back there in Somali (and that would explain the correlation of low sunlight expo.

Or autism among Somalis causes them, or their parents, to want to immigrate to Minnesota and Sweden?

trallnag2• 10 months ago

And then another person (of North European ancestry looks) like a brown leatherbag at 50. Anecdotal evidence is sadly not worth a lot.

Ekaros• 10 months ago

Some pictures of truck drivers are also good counter examples. The side with more exposure tend to look older.

anonzzzies2• 10 months ago

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.

asdff• 10 months ago

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.

lqet• 10 months ago

Every winter since I was a kid, I get Keratosis pilaris [0] on my inner upper arms, which is a bit of a nuisance. After the first day of spring sun in a T-Shirt, it disappears completely within days.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keratosis_pilaris

xeonmc• 10 months ago

Oh, I've always thought it's just a lack of sweating causing your dead skins to grow over the pores, didn't realize that it's actually a mysterious medical condition?

manmal• 10 months ago

Have you tried irradiating with near infrared light in the winter? Eg with a cheap CCTV IR light off aliexpress.

pinkmuffinere• 10 months ago

It’s tempting to see things like this and think “well of course it does, because that’s how we evolved”. But I think that might just be post-rationalization? At the very least, I think the argument _doesn’t_ hold for periodic famine, extreme temperatures, most disease, etc even though we also evolved with those things. Is there any guiding principle that separates the things-we-evolved-with-that-are-good vs the -that-are-bad? Or is it really just a case-by-case examination?

Jweb_Guru2• 10 months ago

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.

annsjdhs• 10 months ago

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 ok because our incomplete model has been updated, whereas it should have always been ok because it’s been that way for a long time

Put another way: we should give more weight to a repeated pattern observed over thousands of years and heavily question any science that goes against it. Both sides are just estimations, but nowadays it’s almost assumed “old ways bad”. Way too many cases that end up being “way humans have operated for millennia is actually ok”.

usef-• 10 months ago

The things you mention are sudden extremes: famine (extreme hunger), extreme temperature, being hit by a disease. The highest skin cancer group seems to be those that get sporadic extremes of sun (eg. the indoor office worker that burns on the weekend). That kind of rapid change in sunshine quantity was tough to ever do naturally. Even if you could hide from the sun in (rare) caves in the middle of summer it would be for hours not weeks. It wasn't something done normally in life.

I do think we also have observation on our side here, as it has been seen for a long time that people with outdoor occupations have lower skin cancer rates than indoor (eg "Occupational sunlight exposure and melanoma in the U.S. Navy", 1990). Why those stories never broke through to the mainstream is an interesting question.

(I know they're out of fashion now, but the paleo community was talking about doing ~10 minutes of direct sun a day almost two decades ago, with strict guidance to avoid burning, roughly based on the above reasons)

jerlam2• 10 months ago

Why those stories never broke through to the mainstream is an interesting question.

The mainstream media in the US has never been great at communicating any story with nuance or depth. In the 80s and 90s, foods that we've eaten forever were being demonized, like eggs. In 2020, people were being told they shouldn't go outside lest they come within 100 feet of another person.

To their credit, the general population has never had a shorter attention span and so easily hoodwinked into believing misleading claims.

Australia's sun recommendations for people of differing skin types is not bad: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/tailored-protection-aust...

globular-toast2• 10 months ago

Yeah, I've always found it a very weird and weak argument. There are plenty of things we've evolved with that would be considered pretty bad for us now. For example, we evolved as a polygamous species (like virtually all mammals), meaning harams, lots of sexless males and fighting etc.

Also important to remember evolution operates at a population level, not individual. We are descended from females that were able to survive at least pregnancy and carry the second to term, but it doesn't matter if they die in the second pregnancy. We're descended from males that were able to mate with said females, but they could have died very shortly after mating. So if you follow "what we evolved with" then that's all you're likely to get.

amanaplanacanal8• 10 months ago

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.

qalmakka• 10 months ago

Exactly - as if evolution cared enough about keeping us healthy after childbearing age. It's hard to state "yeah we've evolved to live like that, of course it's good for us" because clearly keeping us alive after the age of 40 really wasn't _that_ necessary for human survival. There's a lot of perfectly natural stuff that hurts us, including sunlight. Most cancers will only occur in the latter half of our lives, where usually a human historically had already had several children that are now old enough to survive on their own.

papyrus92442• 10 months ago

because clearly keeping us alive after the age of 40 really wasn't _that_ necessary for human survival.

That's a very common misconception. Being alive after 40 is quite necessary if you are a member of a gregarious species that (bar exceptions) always lives in community. And it's not only about the survival of your own genes, it's about the survival of the genes of the whole community.

DoctorOetker• 10 months ago

Selection pressure does not simply select on "did or did not reproduce" it selects on reproduction rate (compare 2 individuals, both having parented a first child, but one dies afterwards while the other continues to occasionally reproduce before dying. The latter displays higher fitness.

Its like any poisson process, a recent event does not inherently lower the probability density for the next event.

Achieving the minimum necessary for reproduction is not representative of the distribution of reproductive success scores.

brightball• 10 months ago

Since I was a little kid I was always skeptical of slathering something all over my body just to go outside. Just thought…how did people survive before this stuff if we really need it so bad.

adrianN2• 10 months ago

If you ask „how did people survive“ the answer is more often than not: „with great difficulty“. Take for example simple hygiene measures like using soap or brushing your teeth or disinfecting wounds.

TinkersW2• 10 months ago

Often living in a different climate zone, US is well south of Europe.

throwaway746282• 10 months ago

Slathering oneself in mud if you need to endure harsh sun exposure is the most common answer I’ve seen to this question. Otherwise, I agree with your comment, the “best practice” of avoiding sun exposure is as unintuitive as the grain-heavy food pyramid.

AppleBananaPie• 10 months ago

They survived but for a much shorter time?

pitpatagain• 10 months ago

People didn't used to expose themselves to as much direct sun and covered themselves with a lot more clothes. Traditional clothing in arid sunny areas typically covers everything, look at people in the middle east today.

I live in a very sunny desert area and it's kind of funny when people assume people from here would be "more tanned". We stay in the shade, the sun will kill you! Anyone working outside is wearing wide brimmed hats and typically has all of their skin covered with clothing even in the heat, people typically have their faces covered with cloth as well.

Spending time outside with minimal clothing in direct midday sun is a modern weird behavior.

seemaze2• 10 months ago

Global migration outpaced evolutionary adaption a long time ago. Many peoples have adapted to local UV conditions, but can now jump on an airplane and are instantly in a completely different environment.

Additionally, if you've ever seen a portrait of a human in the UV spectrum, you'll notice how shiny they look. I'm sure modern people have much less protective oils in their skin as a result of increased bathing required by societal and sanitation norms of modern urbanized habitation.

danielmarkbruce• 10 months ago

Many didn't. On top of that, evolution optimizes for reproduction, not long life. With few exceptions, cancer is a disease of the post child rearing aged folks.

Earw0rm4• 10 months ago

White people - depending on your definition, I mean pale-skinned Northern Europeans - are adapted to live north of about 45 degrees.

Obviously they live lots of other places now, but evolution is slow to catch up.

If you drive through France for a day, you can literally see the change from north to south, "could be Dutch" in the far north to "could be Spanish" in the south. Of course lots of people move around but I'm talking about averages.

anthomtb2• 10 months ago

skeptical of slathering something all over my body just to go outside

Missing nuance: Outside for how long? And how strong is the sun?

Even with my pasty Northern European complexion, I'm skipping the sunscreen for a 20 minute walk to lunch in November. But for a 10 hour hike above treeline in July? I'll be re-applying every two hours.

aidenn0• 10 months ago

I live at a much lower latitude (about the same as Morocco) than my Celtic ancestors did.

astura3• 10 months ago

Long sleeves and wide brim hats.

heavyset_go• 10 months ago

The ozone layer wasn't as weak as it is now. We receive more radiation from the sun at the surface than we did before CFCs.

In the past, people, in general, remained in the general vicinity of where they were born. Different skin types adapted to different amounts of sunlight.

We also didn't have the knowledge to link death and disease with their actual causes.

That said, in the past, people used variety of materials for sunscreen without the knowledge that "too much radiation bad". Mud/clay/etc seems to be something multiple cultures over time used. In cultures where working in the sun is common, wearing long clothes that blocks the sun is also a thing, and works like sunscreen.

Given that last point, I think baking in the sun while nearly naked to the point of developing disease is a relatively recent cultural thing, but that's just a guess.

ZaoLahma• 10 months ago

As with everything, I guess do it in moderation and don't be stupid...?

Planning on being out a full day under the summer sun as a very pale north European? Slob on all the sunscreen that you can and hide in the shade when possible.

A day out in mid September / mid March when the sun is not looking to murder you? Revel in it. Soak it up. Be a plant.

surfmike• 10 months ago

Also it makes a lot of difference where you are. Scandinavians rarely wear sunscreen but their UV index is much lower than, say, California, let alone Australia.

whycome• 10 months ago

Also, critically, get regular sun exposure so that your skin adapts. Ideally do this before it gets intense.

wewxjfq2• 10 months ago

The way I see it: If you live where your ancestors lived for thousands of years and if you make sure your skin gets gradually attuned to the sun each year, you probably get more health benefits. But beware if you're of Northern European ancestry living in Southern USA or Australia or if you work an office job and only seek the summer sun with pale skin.

mcdeltat3• 10 months ago

make sure your skin gets gradually attuned

Is this a thing? Surely DNA damage from UV is dose-dependent, in which case any greater amount of UV results in a greater chance of skin cancer.

oasisaimlessly• 10 months ago

Is this a joke? Yes, it's called 'tanning'.

Having more melanin decreases the effective dose because any photon that melanin absorbs isn't going to be absorbed by your DNA.

TheCoelacanth• 10 months ago

Melanin helps protect from DNA damage by absorbing much of the UV radiation. As you get more exposure to sunlight, your skin produces more melanin resulting in more protection.

wewxjfq2• 10 months ago

A sunburn is what you want to avoid and it's easier to get when you stayed indoors the whole year and only go outside when the sun is out full blast. I personally think this modern lifestyle is one of the reasons people get more skin cancer despite being outside less. There are studies that show that chronic sun exposure isn't that bad.

whatevertrevor2• 10 months ago

I have no reliable and in-depth data on how many of my ancestors died of skin cancer, or how many hours they exposed themselves to sunlight, and what kind of sunlight, or what clothes they wore over those thousands of years.

Using this line of thinking is at best an attempt at rationalizing what lifestyle you wanted to live anyway.

anthonj• 10 months ago

Isn't skin cancer 100% survivable if caught on time*, with the removal procedure begin a single 1-2 hour specialist visit?

Where "on time" means during the trivial yearly screening that everyone should be getting.

NaomiLehman• 10 months ago

If you get melanoma, it can progress within weeks or months to stage >1. An annual checkup is not enough. And then you get 50% chance if you qualify for gene therapy or die.

joseakle• 10 months ago

What is the recommended screening frequency ?

vharuck• 10 months ago

Between 2015 and 2021, Americans diagnosed with invasive[0] melanoma had a 94.7% net 5-year survival rate[1]. That means, if all other causes of death were impossible, an estimated 5.3% of those patients would have died of melanoma.

That's a pretty good net survival rate [3], but it's not perfect. And it's possible that less care in avoiding excessive sun exposure could lead to any cancers being more aggressive. However, I don't have a reference for that musing, so feel free to ignore it.

[0]: Invasive means the tumor has left the tissue it started in.

[1] https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/melan.html

[2]: It would be higher if the official method for calculating net survival didn't, in my opinion, needlessly bias itself against cancer patient survival. The last time I reviewed the methodology notes, they compared daily hazards of death between cancer patients and everyone else. But, if the cancer patients had a lower hazard for a day, the difference was treated as zero instead of negative. This is a hill I'll die on, because their method pretends any confounding variables not in the model have no effect. Patients who catch melanoma early are probably less likely to die soon compared to those of similar age, race, sex, and location. An early diagnosis likely means they care enough about their health to visit doctors regularly and make good use of those visits.

ryandvm• 10 months ago

Correlation versus causation and all that, but an increase in bowel cancers and a decrease in sun exposure are both well documented trends over the last few decades.

amanaplanacanal8• 10 months ago

They've associated low vitamin D levels and bowel cancer, but I don't know which direction causation goes. Or if it's a third factor like more exercise.

fbn79• 10 months ago

I never realized how much solar radiation can be dangerous until I read Andy Weir's Hail Mary.

mrsvanwinkle• 10 months ago

unexpected andy weir reference (luv him)

Nevermark2• 10 months ago

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, it turns out that a minute at a time, sporadically but regularly, is enough to train the skin to be somewhat tan all the time. Presumably with far less skin damage than longer more random sun exposures, or typical duration salon sessions.

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.

There is nothing subjective about the mental benefits of the lights. I am far more alert during the day, and sleep better at night, even in summer. Rationale: We were meant to live outside.

I have worked at home my whole career, so I tune things.

I also enjoy the real sun!

ToDougie2• 10 months ago

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 what it would even look like. But I am interested in feeling better while stuck indoors all day.

photon_garden• 10 months ago

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.

Nevermark2• 10 months ago

Here you go!

The camera dramatically auto-reduced the brightness in all the pictures. So imagine the room summer sun bright. But not harsh, very soft shadowing.

https://imgur.com/a/0OBnR9j

Where the ceiling shows shadow in the middle of each border, it is really just a tiny bit less bright than at the edge of the borders.

And those LED strips are blinding, even though they look off!

In the evening I turn off the ceiling lights, and the room is lit warmly by the low-lumen crystal lights from below.

The sleep cycle isn't something that comes natural to me, so I work all the angles.

quickthrowman• 10 months ago

“Cove lighting” is the architectural lighting term used for this sort lighting installation. You build coves out of gypsum or wood and then install LED tape lighting into a plastic or metal channel and bounce the light off the cove to create indirect lighting. You can use cove lighting to illuminate a ceiling, or accent a wall, which is called perimeter cove lighting.

There are a number of other types of indirect light fixtures (and direct/indirect fixtures, most commonly as suspended linear fixtures with LEDs on both the top and bottom of the fixture).

The first picture in the article linked below has an architectural elevation diagram (basically a side profile) of cove lighting: https://www.architectmagazine.com/technology/lighting/cove-l...

everybodyknows• 10 months ago

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.

Excellent idea. In my temperate climate, I use the outdoor method, with one further tweak: Cover the head and arms, which get too much inadvertent exposure anyway during daily activity.

SamBam• 10 months ago

Sounds good, I'll schedule my time to wander the neighborhood nude, except for towels around my head and arms.

thelastgallon• 10 months ago

Can you share the tanning machine make/model/url?

spullara• 10 months ago

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.

gaoshan2• 10 months ago

Make sure your sunscreen is free from things like benzene* or you may just be trading one cancer causer for another.

* https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/is-sunscreen-safe

meatmanek• 10 months ago

A reality check on the sunscreen benzene panic: https://labmuffin.com/will-benzene-in-sunscreens-give-you-ca...

DennisP2• 10 months ago

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

jghn• 10 months ago

That's the thing about population level trends: there's always going to be individuals with counterexamples.

WarOnPrivacy4• 10 months ago

It has a lot to do with the individual's makeup. My mom came from a pale lineage and had the same story as the parent comment - except for the luck part. Melanoma was common in her family and was tightly tied to excessive time in the sun as children.

papyrus92442• 10 months ago

There are studies that show that regular sun exposure is correlated with both lower incidence of and lower mortality from melanoma.

So as long as you're not getting sum burns, sun exposure is actually better for you.

In some decades we'll look at the whole sun avoidance policy as those doctors prescribing cigarettes a century ago.

smeeger3• 10 months ago

funny how some anecdotes are pounced on by redditors and others are taken at face value

brokegrammer• 10 months ago

followed 30,000 Swedish women for 20 years. It likewise found that, even after correcting for things like age, wealth and health, sun-seeking behaviour was associated with a lower chance of death from all causes.

Is it because they got exposed to sun or is it because of the "sun-seeking behavior", which probably means more physical activity?

Either way, it's too soon to be throwing away our sunscreen.

namuol6• 10 months ago

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 “may” - this is hardly a gold standard study. Living in sunnier/warmer climates as a proxy for UV exposure as opposed to lifestyle differences afforded by such a climate, regional culture differences, etc. makes all of this very dubious to me.

I’m going to keep wearing my sunscreen most of the time when I need to be in direct sun, and continue regular screening for skin cancer.

DennisP2• 10 months ago

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.

namuol6• 10 months ago

Yep this about lines up with my current approach.

But also let’s not forget the things that tend to correlate with moderate sun exposure: Fresher air, exercise, social activity, daylight exposure on the eyes, stimulation of all the senses, etc.

legacynl• 10 months ago

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.

tsoukase2• 10 months ago

The helper verb 'may' should accompany any scientific result as the scientific method usually cannot prove causations but only negate the null hypothesis.

namuol6• 10 months ago

I still think “increased sun exposure correlates with decreased all cause mortality” makes a better headline, but then maybe that’s why I’m not an editor.

TZubiri• 10 months ago

Sun good

Science is good, but restraining all decisions behind FUTON biased double-blind longitudinal meta-analysis is not only unreasonably cognitiviely expensive, but not even the greatest idea.

When making decisions to personally guide your life, you can also base them on values, heuristics, paternal advice, common wisdom, etc...

It's obvious that the ideal amount of sunlight is somewhere between 0 and 100% of the time, I don't need to read a "The Economist" article with a clickbaity, possibly misrepresented title of a nuanced meta-analysis.

The proof is on this comment, it's never enough data, the conclusion is always that you need more funding:

360,000 light-skinned Brits
Emphasis on “may” - this is hardly a gold standard study

I didn't even need 1 subject, you need more than 360,000. You are out there running kubernetes for a blog and asking for more EC2 instances on top of a 3M$ bill, I'm out here running the whole company on 2 raspberry pis.

If wealth can be achieved by increasing resources or reducing necessities, I have achieved the nirvana of wisdom of the second kind while you still strive to amass more information to make a decision:

Sun good

bobthepanda• 10 months ago

Two things can be true.

The study says sun good. But the studies being described in the UV are specifically comparing people who stay indoors vs people who get exposed to UV by being outdoors. The studies listed are not looking at application of sunscreen, or wearing clothes to block UV, etc.

This generally makes sense; stop being cooped up indoors and do things outside, but also wear UV protection.

mrandish• 10 months ago

Yeah, I agree. This always seemed pretty obvious to me but it was also obvious that it's nuanced and can be highly variable depending on skin type, medical history, locale, lifestyle and preferences.

But when it comes to things which are very probably "mostly beneficial for most people most of the time - but (obviously) not always beneficial for all the people all the time", there's a reluctance to say anything unless you've got study data to fully support everything you say into "the nines". But the world is full of things that are hard, expensive or impossible to study experimentally with that kind of rigor.

namuol6• 10 months ago

I didn't even need 1 subject, you need more than 360,000

If you read my whole comment, my point was that I will continue to enjoy the sun, with sunscreen. Sun good. You say sunscreen bad? No. We agree.

lurking_swe3• 10 months ago

time of day and UV index is the most important thing, right? That is how you can accurately assess the “risk” of being exposed in direct sunlight.

Example: would you put on sunscreen when playing volleyball at the beach at 4:30pm, if the UV index at that time is 2 (UVI scale)? That seems completely unnecessary imo. And many people are vitamin d deficient anyway, so the minor sun exposure would certainly do more good.

If it’s around mid-day and/or the UV index is higher, say 4+, then i 100% agree with you that it’s prudent to apply sunscreen.

jnsie• 10 months ago

How reliable are UV indexes? Genuine question. The iOS weather app is far from 100% reliable and I wonder the margin of error regarding the UV index number it provides.

jbjbjbjb• 10 months ago

People don’t have a nuanced view of when to use sunscreen. You can see for yourself in the comments, there’s plenty of loud certainty and context is left behind. And I’d have expected this group to at least understand that the need for sunscreen is based on the position of the sun during the day.

elif• 10 months ago

The only time you will see anything stated as an absolute is when there is low or no scientific rigor.

Thinking you are somehow holding the authors into account is akin to doubting a paper's veracity because it has "too many authors" or some other meaningless if not ironic standard.

namuol6• 10 months ago

Agree - my original comment was trying to highlight the actual info from the study in contrast to the suggestive headline: That there’s no causal link being claimed by the study that UV exposure decreases all-cause mortality, or in other words, sunscreen isn’t killing us.

Earw0rm4• 10 months ago

Bear in mind that this study is about the UK, and London is on the same latitude as Calgary, give or take.

The sun does get strong enough to burn here, but not for much of the year - especially considering the relatively high % cloud cover (not Seattle high maybe, but high). Skin cancer cases here are AFAIK most commonly related to overseas travel or people with outdoor lifestyles in the southwest of the country.

cameronh90• 10 months ago

but not for much of the year

Speak for yourself. Thanks to my Celtic genetics, I get sunburnt if I put my phone brightness too high. ;)

JumpCrisscross3• 10 months ago

I’m going to keep wearing my sunscreen most of the time when I need to be in direct sun, and continue regular screening for skin cancer

Sunscreen reduces vitamin D production, but it doesn't stop it. Wearn sunscreen. Get screened. And don't stay indoors for fear of UV.

kijin• 10 months ago

Also, getting sunburnt is not the only way to get vitamin D. Wear sunscreen and go out. Enjoy the sun. And eat healthy foods that contain vitamin D.

Spooky23• 10 months ago

I think it’s difficult to study this sort of thing because people and behavior is so different. I lost someone dear to me to melanoma and one of the things we learned was that a single blistering sunburn as a child increases cancer risk significantly. So small variations have big impacts.

I’d love to see a study where people wear a meter to sample exposure. My mom was an avid gardener who never wore sunscreen - she dressed appropriately with a hat.

nelox• 10 months ago

Yes, dubious indeed.

How about looking at descendants of fair-skinned Britains in sunnier climes?

Australia has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world. This is due to a combination of factors: very high levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation, outdoor lifestyles, and a largely fair-skinned population that is more vulnerable to sun damage. Rates of both melanoma (the deadliest form of skin cancer) and non-melanoma skin cancers are higher in Australia than anywhere else. New Zealand follows closely behind.

verteu• 10 months ago

Australia has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world.

It also has excellent life expectancy.

The key question is: For all-cause mortality, do the benefits outweigh the risks?

tejohnso• 10 months ago

"The big picture is that the benefits of sunlight outweigh the risks—provided you don’t get sunburnt,” argues Richard Weller, a dermatologist at the University of Edinburg

Also, Dr. Roger Seheult has some strong opinions on this as well. Considers sun exposure one of the pillars of health and avoiding the sun to be as dangerous as smoking.

cpncrunch2• 10 months ago

That does seem to be the case. The Lindqvist study specifically said that sun avoidance was as bad as smoking iirc. Sun exposure has been one of my main activities for over 10 years. The evidence is now overwhelming.

WarOnPrivacy4• 10 months ago

I'm in the other camp. Sunlight never feels great and the best I've ever felt is working nights.

jrpt• 10 months ago

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?

setopt2• 10 months ago

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.

cma• 10 months ago

Make sure the studies control for people bed bound for long times in the hospital or in home care, they are magnitudes more likely to die early and don't get as much sun as people doing sports etc. but the sun isn't likely to be the primary factor.

If they claim causation in the paper it is usually controlled for, if they just claim a link it might not be.

mylifeandtimes• 10 months ago

something to think about here: Your body synthesizes vitamin D. That chemical reaction may have side-products which are not found in the supplements.

Biology is complex.

geor9e3• 10 months ago

I wish there was anything we could do about "x may y" "studies" where it's just a grad student finding 2 weakly correlated variables in an existing dataset and hitting publish. Maybe experimental studies can be called science and observational studies can be called schmience. Of course that is a terrible solution, but god I wish something could be done.

JumpCrisscross3• 10 months ago

where it's just a grad student

This study was "just a grad student"?

geor9e3• 10 months ago

This article is a pop sci editorial. But it's drawing a "may cause" causation from correlations found in "observational studies" rather than "experimental studies". Junior researchers, pressured to publish or die, shovel them out because it's the easiest thing to publish. No experiments, no scientific method, no controls. Just manipulate old data and cherry pick something that looks like it might be related to another thing. Then a year later we get the opposite headline, from another grad student looking for an easy paper to publish. Then the general public confuses it for science.

rob_c• 10 months ago

Well yes, given this has been the message since the problems with short sightedness in the east everyone still seems obsessed with "too much sun bad".

How about not making any public messaging so black and white. B&W messaging leads to polarised ideas on healthcare and everything else...

</rant>

myrmidon• 10 months ago

Insufficient sun (light) exposure also increases risk of myopia (sort-sightedness) by an insane amount, by messing with eye growth.

biimugan• 10 months ago

I 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 unrelated topics. Named individuals seem to "specialize" in sunlight as a wellness remedy (seems like a big red flag to me). No actual physical theory as to how it could be true (more vitamin D reduces death by up to 50%? how? your body only needs so much vitamin D and it's not actually all that much).

And sure enough, if you look up any details on the studies in question, they are highly questionable. Vastly different populations studied with very weak controls. For example, sunscreen use -- both chemical and physical, i.e. hats -- was not controlled for. Seems like a big problem since that's the primary claim being made! And it seems like such an obvious thing. It makes one wonder why it was omitted.

The facts of the "status quo" of sun exposure dangers, on the other hand, have quite a lot more going for them, both in terms of study quality and in terms of physical explanation/interpretation. UV radiation physically damages DNA, even when you don't burn. Tanning is a response to skin cell damage, so any additional melanin production in your skin is indication that your DNA is being damaged. Damaged DNA means when your cells reproduce, they reproduce the damage and/or otherwise mutate. If that damage or mutation happens to be cancerous, then you have a big problem. Tanning, contrary to what people seem to think, doesn't inoculate you against skin cancer or damage. It merely helps absorb a higher percentage of UV radiation -- meaning your skin is still getting damaged, just at a slightly lower rate (a helpful, though marginal, evolutionary advantage).

atombender• 10 months ago

No byline/author.

This is The Economist; they don't use bylines, and their articles are all anonymous.

avalys• 10 months ago

The byline is “The Economist”, and the lack of links is the house style, like a printed newspaper.

A relic from the times when the name and reputation of the institution alone was enough to earn your trust.

Personally I still find them a high-quality source, especially because they are a weekly publication based in the UK and distanced (but not entirely removed) from the bullshit of the US media cycle.

muizelaar• 10 months ago

This is the Lindqvist and Weller paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43630-025-00743-6

hombre_fatal• 10 months ago

So it’s a narrative review, the op ed of journals. Basically worthless.

pazimzadeh3• 10 months ago

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 once in a while. This is also the basis for exercise - your muscles and tendons are damaged when you work out, but they get rebuilt stronger. Your DNA is also repaired, and turning repair pathways on can sometimes improve tissue quality/collagen production or get rid of imperfections - this is the basis of microneedling and cosmetic techniques, some of which involve light exposure. UV therapy is also a treatment for psoriasis (skin inflammation).

If any amount of sunlight is bad, ask yourself why melanoma typically occurs on the trunk region (in men) or legs (women) rather than say the face or arms. Those are regions that are normally hidden, but are then suddenly exposed when you go shirtless/at the beach.

The most dangerous thing is to go straight from non-exposure to high exposure. But if you gradually increase exposure, the body has many ways of dealing with non-overwhelming amounts of damage. Damage can in fact trigger repair which is often beneficial, as this article alludes to.

Most importantly, the more beneficial UV rays (UVB) for vitamin D production are weaker than the more harmful ones (UVA), so any sunscreen or glass that "blocks UV" necessarily blocks all UVB before you get close to blocking all UVA. Nothing can actually block 100% of UVA. But let's say you slather sunscreen on every time you go out. Now imagine one day you forget it or run out of it or for whatever emergency reason can't apply it. Now your pale unready skin is exposed to a large dose which could actually do more damage than your body is ready to repair.

The best time to get UVB is actually around solar noon. So, depending on your skin type, the best thing to do is to expose yourself to sunlight for short amounts of time (start with 1 minute if you want) without sunscreen before applying sunscreen. Then gradually increase the non-sunscreen time as your skin turns up repair pathways (and you get tanner).

tehnub• 10 months ago

Solar noon sunlight microdose is now on my todo list for tomorrow, thanks.

brahyam• 10 months ago

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 hypertrophy through resistance training: the role of muscle damage and muscle protein synthesis. Schoenfeld et al., 2017](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29282529/)

tarsinge• 10 months ago

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.

mgh22• 10 months ago

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.

wiseowise5• 10 months ago

No, it’s not very simple.

I’ve spent on average 15 hours outside as a kid, still -6. So take all those “studies” with a grain of salt, they might be not applicable to you.

msh• 10 months ago

But is that cause or correlation?

Kids with bad sight or health might be more drawn to indoor pursuits.

hollerith2• 10 months ago

Tanning is a response to skin cell damage

That might be true, but it is also true that the positive health effects of aerobic exercise (e.g., increased fitness, increased insulin sensitivity) are responses to the oxidative damage caused by the exercise.

marstall• 10 months ago

the economist doesn't have bylines, never has. you go by the reputation of the publication, which is top notch for science reporting!

abhaynayar• 10 months ago

during which the nights will be longer the days.

Error in the first sentence. At first I thought that's a bad thing, but then also, probably more likely not written/assisted by an AI. Haha.

WarOnPrivacy4• 10 months ago

Personally, I associate sunlight with less health because of how it makes me feel - uncomfortable on a good day but often like having the flu.

Some of that is tied to our daily 85° dew points but once the sun goes down the dp feels livable.

But even without high heat and humidity, sunlight feels relentlessly, painfully bright. The best I can hope for is to ignore it.

Conversely, cool cloudy days feel like the relief after a long, bad headache. And fog is the finest weather there is.

whatever1• 10 months ago

I’m looking at the correlation between melanoma incidence and geographic latitude, and it doesn’t appear to be very strong. For instance, I observe a significantly higher incidence in countries like Norway compared to Italy.

Shouldn’t we expect a much stronger correlation?

sershe• 10 months ago

Weren't there studies showing that 1) some health conditions correlate with low vitamin D level, 2) vitamin D supplements do nothing for these conditions?

Clearly, there's a third variable that causes both. Since we don't understand what the heck it is and I like being in the sun despite being pale (nearly never getting burned, although I did get burned a lot as a teen), I personally call it SUN MAGIC.

indolering2• 10 months ago

I don't think I'm going to take my health advice from an economics magazine that is published by libertarians in the UK (a famously NOT sunny place).

Economists have a habit of wandering off into other fields and misapplying statistical methods developed for economics. See their work in anti-parastic studies and all sorts of gross wannabe sociology research.

I'll wait until Chocrane steps in and says something before rejecting decades of scientific consensus.

maleldil• 10 months ago

I think this assessment is unfair. The paper [1] is not from economists. The first author is an endocrinologist. The third author is a dermatologist. As for where the authors are from, I don't see why it would matter, as long as their methodology is sound.

However, this doesn't mean one should forget about the current consensus. This is just one paper, and it takes more than that to offset the current knowledge.

[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43630-025-00743-6

indolering2• 10 months ago

The actual scientists have a much more limited outlook on the potential impact of this line of research, but The Economist's headline does not. This sort of hyperbole is very Freakonomics and will be used by people who really like the sun as evidence that it's better to not wear sunscreen.

It's gross to see them weighing in on this topic at all.

nl• 10 months ago

This is not true in Australia or other places with high UV, and at least they sort of admit this: "at least for denizens of gloomy countries at high latitudes."

EdwardDiego• 10 months ago

Yeah, I was laughing in Kiwi at this. When you live in a country where you can sunburn in less than 10 minutes in spring, skin cancer is a far higher risk.

smeeger3• 10 months ago

when your skin turns pale white your body is screaming for sunlight. it wants sunlight just like your body wants food and makes you hungry. if sunlight were so deadly then everyone would have skin that was pitch black and doesnt change. but we have this insane adaptive system to make sure we are always getting a trickle of UV. why else would we evolve this system if sunlight werent extremely important?

wiseowise5• 10 months ago

when your skin turns pale white your body is screaming for sunlight.

Complete bullshit.

smeeger3• 10 months ago

why does it turn white then?

elihu• 10 months ago

https://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/sunshine

m3kw9• 10 months ago

Is this the eggs/butter but for sun?

byyoung3• 10 months ago

until you get melanoma

Amaury-El• 10 months ago

I used to avoid the sun, thinking that staying out of it was the healthier choice. But after spending long periods indoors, especially during the darker winter months, I started feeling constantly tired and low. A blood test later showed I was seriously low on vitamin D.

Since then, I’ve made a point to get a bit of sunlight each day. Over time, I noticed my energy and mood improved. That small, consistent exposure to sunlight really does seem to make a subtle but meaningful difference in both body and mind.

padjo• 10 months ago

Did you get your Vitamin D re-checked? I’ve been low on Vitamin D, recovered it to high levels and noticed basically zero difference over the long term.

throwaway20372• 10 months ago

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.

jasonvorhe• 10 months ago

No sunscreen in decades, no signs of skin cancer. Shrug.

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

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