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.
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.
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?
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)
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 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”.
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.
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.
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).
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.
"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.
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.
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.
In a Solar Eclipse you're getting a tiny fraction of the sun's energy and it is still enough to very quickly cause long-term physical damage to your eyes. Looking at the sun during not an eclipse is even worse.
So suddenly during an eclipse, your eyes have no idea what's painful/harmful anymore? Trust your experience, it's the closest you're ever going to get to truth.
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.
Until I see some definite proof, I'm going to put this in the FUD box.
There's seems to be a concerted effort at making people afraid of the sun. My guess is because the sun fixes a lot of problems, and problems mean profit.
Seriously, take a step back. If spending time in / looking at the sun was dangerous we wouldn't be here.
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.
Might it be that when outside you tend to look farther than when inside? So distance vision gets used more and body adapts. Similar to how kids that spend time outside are less shortsighted.
Also, bright light will help the eye to focus. It's the same principle as if you were using a camera with a small aperture (and larger DOF, keeping more things in focus).
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.
An obvious thing perhaps worth mentioning: if you're shortsighted (or longsighted) then you see better in bright sunlight because the iris closes, giving you greater depth of field, so that might make people think/feel that sunlight "cures" myopia.
(On the other hand, if you have excellent eyesight then you see better in less bright conditions because your vision is being limited by diffraction at the aperture.)
> Is this some kind of weird meta joke or are people actually arguing about staring into the sun in 2025?
Why not? People are still arguing in 2025 that the vast majority of the world's climate scientists are wrong about climate change, and there are even some who unironically argue that the Earth is flat. Science is dead. Long live "Whatever I want to believe is true and you're all wrong!"
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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 ;)
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 other commenters point out how exposure improved their skin or vision.
However that natural evolved state doesn't include sitting inside all week and then going outside on the weekend and getting completely toasted sunburnt!
Doing that and getting completely sunburnt overwhelms our normal cellular repair mechanism, the immune system response, etc. It's much more likely a rogue cell evades the immune system when it's swamped with such cells.
Personally I avoid sunscreen if possible for short excursions but will use it if going to the pool as I'm indoors more these years and paler.
> 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 it's at all rational. It boggles my mind how it has become a kind of innocent yet taboo argument on the (English-speaking) internet.
Just google it. I mean, there's plenty of articles that say you need to wear it even if you plan to stay indoors all day. WTF.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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)
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 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”.
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.
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.
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).
And then another person (of North European ancestry looks) like a brown leatherbag at 50. Anecdotal evidence is sadly not worth a lot.
Some pictures of truck drivers are also good counter examples. The side with more exposure tend to look older.
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.
>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.
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.
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...
The comment above you said nothing about a solar eclipse
In a Solar Eclipse you're getting a tiny fraction of the sun's energy and it is still enough to very quickly cause long-term physical damage to your eyes. Looking at the sun during not an eclipse is even worse.
Where the fuck are these people coming from???
So suddenly during an eclipse, your eyes have no idea what's painful/harmful anymore? Trust your experience, it's the closest you're ever going to get to truth.
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.
Until I see some definite proof, I'm going to put this in the FUD box.
There's seems to be a concerted effort at making people afraid of the sun. My guess is because the sun fixes a lot of problems, and problems mean profit.
Seriously, take a step back. If spending time in / looking at the sun was dangerous we wouldn't be here.
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.
Might it be that when outside you tend to look farther than when inside? So distance vision gets used more and body adapts. Similar to how kids that spend time outside are less shortsighted.
Also, bright light will help the eye to focus. It's the same principle as if you were using a camera with a small aperture (and larger DOF, keeping more things in focus).
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.
> there are plausible claims that shortsightedness is associated with not spending much time outside as a child
AFAIK that has nothing to do with the sun but rather with looking at things at a larger distance than at home.
That seems likely.
An obvious thing perhaps worth mentioning: if you're shortsighted (or longsighted) then you see better in bright sunlight because the iris closes, giving you greater depth of field, so that might make people think/feel that sunlight "cures" myopia.
(On the other hand, if you have excellent eyesight then you see better in less bright conditions because your vision is being limited by diffraction at the aperture.)
Is this some kind of weird meta joke or are people actually arguing about staring into the sun in 2025?
An age of unenlightenment!
> Is this some kind of weird meta joke or are people actually arguing about staring into the sun in 2025?
Why not? People are still arguing in 2025 that the vast majority of the world's climate scientists are wrong about climate change, and there are even some who unironically argue that the Earth is flat. Science is dead. Long live "Whatever I want to believe is true and you're all wrong!"
https://archive.md/ypb35
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
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?
Have you tried irradiating with near infrared light in the winter? Eg with a cheap CCTV IR light off aliexpress.
Yeah not as a pasty white guy in Australia
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.
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.
Who actually thought that getting sunlight was bad ?
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.
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
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.
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.
> 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 ;)
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 other commenters point out how exposure improved their skin or vision.
However that natural evolved state doesn't include sitting inside all week and then going outside on the weekend and getting completely toasted sunburnt!
Doing that and getting completely sunburnt overwhelms our normal cellular repair mechanism, the immune system response, etc. It's much more likely a rogue cell evades the immune system when it's swamped with such cells.
Personally I avoid sunscreen if possible for short excursions but will use it if going to the pool as I'm indoors more these years and paler.
> 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 it's at all rational. It boggles my mind how it has become a kind of innocent yet taboo argument on the (English-speaking) internet.
Just google it. I mean, there's plenty of articles that say you need to wear it even if you plan to stay indoors all day. WTF.
Cancer is a parasite, the sun kills parasites.
Soap also kills parasites. And antibiotics!
While we may be one species, there are very obvious differences between some ethnic groups and ancestral clusters.
Maybe we're getting more UV now than we evolved with?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion
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.
Slip, Slop, Slap.
[dead]
Most East Asians: Chinese, Japanese and Koreans for a start.
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).
Dermatologists and doctors
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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