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Sunscreen Not So Good for You?
j-beda writes "Don't like sunscreen? Maybe that tan is good for you. It looks like people are rethinking the common wisdom of avoiding sun exposure... "research suggests that vitamin D might help prevent 30 deaths for each one caused by skin cancer". Maybe if Kurt Vonnegut ever does address MIT grads, he will say something else..."
No sun -> little vitamin D production = bad.
Some sun -> vitamin D production = good.
Ridiculous amounts of sun -> high risk for cancer = bad.
I didn't read the article, but most things are OK on modetate doses. Cholesterol, for example, is necessary for the body to function.
Too much of any one thing is seldom a good idea.
.: Max Romantschuk
It seems like you just need to use a modicum of common sense. Too much of anything is bad for you. The less "natural" and more refined a product is the less likely it is to be good for you. It is healthy to get outside and do some exercise every now and then.
All this research seems to contradict itself every few years anyway. I suspect a lot of scientists misuse/misunderstand their own data, either to match their own preconceptions, or to make a headline grabbing story like this one.
From personal experience I can also add that the sun in the Northern Hemisphere never seemed as hot or burning as the sun in Australia. I could walk around in the summer sun in Boston and barely get even a touch of colour. In Australia I would be burnt in less than an hour - probably quicker. Sun screen is very important in Australia as is a hat and a shirt.
And finally, this article demonstrates the quest of reporters to beat up each marginal scientific discovery into something that it isn't just to get a good headline. With medical news this invariably creates all sorts of problems. The study found that Vitamin D can be beneficial for treating cancers but said absolutely nothing about the delivery mechanism. Getting your Vitamin D directly from the sun also means you get wonderful melanomas via UVA and UVB radiation. Sure, Vitamin D on its own is fine but the side effects of getting it directly from the sun are pretty severe.
That all depends on your genetic origins, for someone like me, of northern european decent, with blonde hair, blue eyes and freckles, more than 30 minutes of sun during the hottest hours of the day is "too much". For someone of african decent, there probably isn't an upper limit (although without ozone that might not be true). For someone of southern italian decent, more than a few hours is too much.
Too little would be calculated by your necessity for Vitamin D.. I'd imagine less than an hour of exposure weekly might put you in that category, but I'm no nutritionalist.
BTW, I'm not a programmer either, what's Lux?
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Natural selection is very very poor at selecting for attributes that only become important after peak reproductive years. Sure there is the "wisdom of the elders" effect and a few people the reproduce (mostly males) in the later years but given that the vast majority of people die from skin cancer after they would have reproduced and given the historical lifecycle/reproductive cycle of humans it is not really all that surprising of an outcome.
--- Liberty in our Lifetime
Too much of anything is bad for you. Too much water will kill you (it upsets your body's fluid balance)
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Vitamin pills shouldn't be necessary at all - if you need them, then there's something wrong with your diet and/or lifestyle.
That's an overly scepticist view.
For instance, in Iceland it is so dark during the winter that it's simply not possible to get enough sun to avoid vitamin-D deficiency. Unless your view of a normal diet includes unusual amounts of cod-liver.
Dietary supplements wouldn't be necessary if everybody was living in a temperate environment and eating a good and varied diet. But most of the world's population don't fall into that category.
A few years ago, various friends and family members bought their first computers. Pretty soon, I was getting a steady steam of hoax e-mails from them.
Over and over again I tried to explain to them that this stuff wasn't true. Bill Gates is NOT testing an e-mail tracking program and Microsoft will NOT send you any money if you forward this e-mail to all your friends. Congress is NOT about to impose a tax on e-mail.
I pointed them to the various websites that specialize in debunking urban legends and internet hoaxes. But it didn't work. They just took me off their mailing lists and kept on going. For some reason, people desperately want to believe stupid crap.
You know in all honesty, for most geeks sunscreen is a moot point. Alot are as pasty as a vampire :P
Although, I'd say most family age geeks get occasional sun. Shrug.
I wonder if low spf (4/8) would block the production of vitamin d?
Shadus
And not just any fish, cold water fish. No? There's something wrong with your diet/lifestyle. How about someone with dark skin living in a northern clime. Vitamin D deficiency right there.
Sometimes the people who've spread out over the world have moved to areas where they simply can't get the stuff their body needs in sufficient quantities through local produce.
It's only the last couple of decades scientists have even begun to understand how food affects our wellbeing and only the last decade that the information has really started to filter through to the general populace.
Deleted
Completely off topic, but as a side note, lemmings do commit suicide, as do some ants and bees when tough times ensue. Not that I disagree with your counter post, but suicide isn't the best example of uniquely human behavior.
In other words, challenge the currently accepted hypothesis, and be prepared for extreme backlash from those who have spent their careers supporting it, no matter how well thought out or researched your work is. Charles Fort was right. The high priesthood of science is exactly that. Blaspheme at your own peril.