I've read in "Lies My Doctor Told Me" by the MD Ken Berry that there isn't a single paper that shows that sun exposure is bad.
In particular the current consensus is that Vitamin D is essential to health and so this is considering that sun is avoided but replaced by pills, as the protective role of vitamin D is well-proven. But there are many other health benefits that are triggered by sun exposure (the skin metabolism activates and it goes down to influence gene expression).
So I've looked a few articles (at least 7, including some reviewing existing research), and sure enough there wasn't a single paper that actually showing that sun exposure is bad. They all relied on showing on something related to sunlight, most of the time that suntanning with artificial UV beds is really bad. But there it lacks a convincing argument that this transfers to 'the real product', as this is the equivalent of saying that carrots are good/bad for people based on some people ingesting large quantities of carotene in pills. And we know from diet that these kinds of arguments do break down when extrapolating only part of one molecule to a whole, natural product (eggs are a famous example).
If somebody has done more research on this please elaborate, I haven't spent too much time because the research seemed in all cases fairly low quality (questionnaires?) and a lot contained confusing arguments (it's not always clear how dark-skinned the individuals are, or how removed from their natural habitat they are, like some Swedish in Australia or Kenyan in the UK, although some do make an effort in that regard).
Well, the conclusion of this study appears to be that it doesn't. Or rather, if I'm reading this right, they're saying the increase in deaths due to skin cancer is just a statistical artifact: more women in the sun exposure group died of skin cancer, not necessarily because the sun caused the skin cancer, but because the women who stayed indoors died of cardiovascular disease instead.
My favorite quip regarding this statistical effect is the observation that the cyanide diet is very effective at reducing deaths due to cardiovascular disease (cyanide kills you much faster, so winds up hogging all the credit).
To avoid the mistake, insist on seeing all cause mortality numbers.
except the reality for the vast number of people isn't about needing to moderate, it's about getting outside period, instead of glued to their devices inside
you can look at the epidemic of myopia as a related indicator that kids especially are not outside enough
so this whole safetyism nagging about melanoma is ridiculous when they can just go to regular dermatologist screenings and avoid sunburns
Sunlight filtered by a window is very different from natural sunlight.
There are two main reasons this is a very poor indicator for sunlight exposure:
- since UV that is filtered out by glass will cause good metabolic reactions, this example takes out the positive of sunlight
- sunlight has a natural "stop it" mechanism. Feeling that you are getting a sunburn would naturally cause you to avoid sunlight, creating therefore a macro regulation mechanism. This is absent from light behind a glass.
So this is showing the exact point I was making that people take something that is not natural sunlight and falsely equate the two.
- sunlight has a natural "stop it" mechanism. Feeling that you are getting a sunburn would naturally cause you to avoid sunlight, creating therefore a macro regulation mechanism. This is absent from light behind a glass.
You seriously suggest the we have mechanism to prevent sunburns? Like the thing people get all the time while at the beach?
It must be very inefficient mechanism since all I remember is that when I notice it i am already sun burned.
So you suggest that even after getting sunburns, people do not avoid sunburns, and are thus at a much lower level of cognitive function than most of the animal kingdom?
You haven't replied to any of the points I'm making, all while making gross scientific errors such as equating glass filtered sunlight to sunlight, so I won't interact any further.
In particular the current consensus is that Vitamin D is essential to health and so this is considering that sun is avoided but replaced by pills, as the protective role of vitamin D is well-proven. But there are many other health benefits that are triggered by sun exposure (the skin metabolism activates and it goes down to influence gene expression).
So I've looked a few articles (at least 7, including some reviewing existing research), and sure enough there wasn't a single paper that actually showing that sun exposure is bad. They all relied on showing on something related to sunlight, most of the time that suntanning with artificial UV beds is really bad. But there it lacks a convincing argument that this transfers to 'the real product', as this is the equivalent of saying that carrots are good/bad for people based on some people ingesting large quantities of carotene in pills. And we know from diet that these kinds of arguments do break down when extrapolating only part of one molecule to a whole, natural product (eggs are a famous example).
If somebody has done more research on this please elaborate, I haven't spent too much time because the research seemed in all cases fairly low quality (questionnaires?) and a lot contained confusing arguments (it's not always clear how dark-skinned the individuals are, or how removed from their natural habitat they are, like some Swedish in Australia or Kenyan in the UK, although some do make an effort in that regard).