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

(www.economist.com)
279 points petethomas | 1 comments | 19 Sep 25 04:46 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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calebm ◴[19 Sep 25 06:12 UTC] No.45298453[source]▶
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).
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trhway ◴[19 Sep 25 06:40 UTC] No.45298598[source]▶
>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.

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waterhouse ◴[19 Sep 25 21:12 UTC] No.45306669[source]▶
> 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?

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1. trhway ◴[19 Sep 25 21:48 UTC] No.45307084[source]▶
No. There the vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy is correlated with autism of the child. In another study child autism was correlated with regular Swedish woman pregnancy with the 3rd trimester in winter when the deficiency is the most frequent / most serious.

It seems that autism got politicized and thus such various correlations, which may or may not be real causations, don't seem to get enough of proper scientific attention/resources. I mean, for example folic acid deficiency causes spina bifida, and it wouldn't be out-of-this-world if vitamin D (which is steroid) deficiency (or some other deficiency) would have affected prenatal development and structure of the brain which is just another body organ. Instead we spend tremendous amount of attention and energy on alleged vaccine-autism connection which hasn't been established even as mere correlation.