1. Vitamin D supplements do nothing
2. Regular safe sun exposure has many positive benefits and very few negatives (a very very small chance of getting a type of cancer that is normally deadly, but for reasons we don't fully understand, is much less deadly to people who get regular sun exposure).
3. Avoiding sun exposure entirely has many negative effects and will kill you.
4. Intermittent extreme sun exposure (the kind that causes sunburn) actually is terrible, and will lead to the bad skin cancers that will actually kill you.
5. Sunscreen may do more harm than good, both to people and the environment. It's certainly not a magic bullet.
6. Sun exposure needs (and risks) vary heavily by skin colour, and while it's good for everyone to get regular safe sun exposure, it's critical for people with darker skin.
In other words, if (like a lot of Americans) you take vitamin D supplements, avoid the sun most of the year, then slather on a ton of sunscreen for your once a year summer vacation, you're basically doing everything as wrong as you possibly can, and getting the worst of all worlds.
And apparently this is supported by new research, and most countries have already adopted it, with the main outlier being the US, primarily due to industry pressure/greed/inertia.
Sounds plausible, at any rate.
Agreed but Sunscreen might still be better in that case. See point 4 (Intermittent extreme sun exposure (the kind that causes sunburn) actually is terrible). These people would be sure to get bad sunburn if they lay on the beach all day only 2 weeks out of the year.
Of course, even if unhealthy sun exposure + sunscreen is better than unhealthy sun exposure on its own, it doesn't mean it's better than avoiding the unhealthy sun exposure patterns at all.
I feel like there's a fair bit more to figure out here. A lot of us live far from the equator with jobs and hobbies that keep us indoors a lot. Observing that regular safe sun exposure is healthy is great, but I don't even like beaches. It's easy to criticise bad ideas (vitamin D supplements, tanning beds, etc.) but harder to figure out the best compromise.
Given that melanoma is so rare, it might be valid in this particular case, but it absolutely makes sense that sun exposure could have a mixture of positive/negative effects in prehistoric times, but a different mix today.
Another factor that's relevant to some of us: as someone of Northern European descent living in the southern US, I'm not in the environment that selected for my pale skin (and my ancestors didn't wear t-shirts in February). This effect might go in the opposite direction for dark-skinned folks living in Northern Europe.
But if I spend time outdoors year-round, my skin takes on an olive tone, my freckles get darker, and when summer comes around I can enjoy the sun without fear of burns. But that's free health care, and the medical industry makes money hand over fist with that pharmacopoeia.
Our emotions can be wrong, but I guess it makes sense we'd evolve some reasonable senses about sun exposure.
Something like artificial and abundant sugar would be different since it did not exist.
There might be a lot of value in reasonable disobedience of authority and instead listening to your body.
How much refined sugar do you think people were eating in the environment of evolutionary adaptation?
(Although, I agree that causes of death change as life expectancy changes, and things that didn't matter before start to matter now that the low-hanging fruit has been picked)
I strongly recommend getting your vitamin d levels checked!
So while these studies may be showing that vitamin D doesn't affect cancer, heart disease or strokes... that doesn't mean it's useless. YMMV.
"Most people can make enough vitamin D from being out in the sun daily for short periods with their forearms, hands or lower legs uncovered and without sunscreen
...
you should be careful not to burn in the sun, so take care to cover up or protect your skin with sunscreen before your skin starts to turn red or burn.
People with dark skin ... will need to spend longer in the sun to produce the same amount of vitamin D as someone with lighter skin."[0]
[0] https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/how-to-get-vitamin...
P.1 is not correct (it correctly reflects the article contents, but not factually correct). Research mentioned states vit. D supplements doesn't seem to reduce risks of cancers, and cardiovascular diseases - which doesn't mean they aren't useful.
Many light-skinned people do not easily tan at all, and even complain that their skin seems to go straight from white to red. In Sweden, there are many people who do tan easily in spite of having very light skin. It seems like that could very easily have been a confounding factor. The genes that make you bun easily or tan easily seem like they would have a significant effect on ones decision on whether to sunbathe or not. Likewise, I can imagine that those genes could also affect all-death mortality rates.
So outside genes there may be some sort of adaptation going on.
A compromise would be to use sunscreen on your face and neck (since they don't produce that much vitamin D anyway, if I'm remembering a study correctly), but leave the rest of your body uncovered. Perhaps add sunscreen to your hands too.
It usually goes as "Vitamin D is not useful for healthy individuals" which is a nice example of circular reasoning (probably because they get enough sun exposure or have good levels of Vit. D from other sources)
Oh yeah and tests checking Vitamin D's effects on things it was never claimed to help, like "found no impact on cancer, heart disease, or stroke." (Maybe cancer, but still)
You will still get some Vit D through sun even with sunscreen on
> Yes, but skin cancer kills surprisingly few people: less than 3 per 100,000 in the U.S. each year.
Tell that to people in Australia or some other country directly below the Ozone layer hole
But the news that production of NO is more important than Vit D is certainly interesting
That's before 9am or after 6pm around this week https://uv.willyweather.com.au/nsw/sydney/sydney.html
Australia and New Zealand have the highest melanoma rates in the world. We thus have a paranoia of "taking care not to burn", during office hours when UV is most intense.
And some explanation behind UV reporting: https://www.niwa.co.nz/our-services/online-services/uv-and-o...
It seems to vary over Australia but I'm not sure how far from the normal values this is
Does the Antarctic Ozone Hole ever come over Australia?
No. The ozone hole has only ever been observed to be well south of the Australian mainland and Tasmania. In fact, during springtime, when the hole is in existence, ozone levels over southern Australian cities are at their highest.
You can also check the Wikipedia page on the ozone hole, where the image showing the largest extent of the hole (2006) doesn't cover Australia
I believed it was common knowledge how bad margarine is for our body... at least in Italy, where we always use olive oil of butter - I don’t know anybody that would prefer margarine here!
1. Research shows the most popular vitamin supplements aren't useful. This turns out to include D supplements.
2. This is strange because "People with low levels of vitamin D in their blood have significantly higher rates of virtually every disease and disorder you can think of"
3. One theory to explain this is that Vitamin D was acting as simply a marker for sun-exposure. This is put forth by Richard Weller.
4. To add evidence, Weller found that exposing people to sunlight for 30 minutes reduced blood pressure and increased nitric oxide levels.
5. Article dispells concerns about sun exposure by pointing that the type of skin cancer one is likely to get from the sun is actually very safe (carcinomas) as compared to melanoma (1-3% of cases).
6. Cites a study 30,000 Swedish sunbathing women and found greater health and decreased odds of dying from a melanoma.
7. Observes the counter-intuitive nature of sun-exposure being harmful to a species that evolved outdoors.
8. Questions the validity of SPF recommendations when they don't factor in race / skin-tone.
9. Observes an example of "common knowledge" being wrong with margarine which was wrongly perceived to be healthier than butter for a long time. Suggests the very thing may be happening here.