Link: Anger and Depression

If You're Often Angry Or Irritable, You May Be Depressed by Nell Greenfieldboyce

Newsflash! Anger and depression are associated! On the one hand, this seems crashingly obvious. Grief and depression are similar. Anger can certainly be a part of grief. On the other hand, as the article says, the DSM doesn't consider anger a symptom of depression. Fortunately they're starting to do studies that strongly show the link.

Link: Is Sunscreen the New Margarine?

Is Sunscreen the New Margarine? by Rowan Jacobsen.

Over the 20 years of the study, sun avoiders were twice as likely to die as sun worshippers.

There are not many daily lifestyle choices that double your risk of dying. In a 2016 study published in the Journal of Internal Medicine, Lindqvist’s team put it in perspective: “Avoidance of sun exposure is a risk factor of a similar magnitude as smoking, in terms of life expectancy.”

It turns out that supplementing vitamin D does not remedy the negative health effects of low vitamin D. The remedy is to go out in the sun (without sunscreen) and make your own vitamin D, as well as getting all the other health benefits of sunshine.

Margarine became a big deal, the new "health food," when I was a kid. My parents cooked and baked with a lot of butter. I clearly remember thinking that something that came from a cow had to be healthier for me than something made in a lab. Sure enough, 20 years later trans fats become something to avoid.

Same thing with sunshine. I only wear sunblock when I'm going to be biking all day and know I would get fried otherwise. If I'm just out and about my normal amount, I don't wear it. And that was my habit even before I got sensitive to most of the chemicals used in sunblocks. I have a hard time convincing some clients, no really, they can't wear sunblock to their sessions with me no matter how automatically they apply it every morning.

It's nice to see science catch up to basic common sense. Sunlight can't be inherently damaging to us, or we'd never have gotten this far as a species. What's damaging is hiding inside most of the time and then getting overexposed all at once. It's a bit of a problem in Portland where it can be rainy and cold until June, when the sun is at maximum strength, no chance to build up a tan gently starting in March.

ETA: Oh yeah, and that's not even getting into the harm done by applying sunscreen chemicals to our bodies and then the environment. Sunscreen Regulations Haven't Aged Well by Megan Molteni. The inorganic sunblocks - zinc oxide and titanium dioxide - are the only ones now judged "generally recognized as safe and effective." Coincidentally (not!) those are the only kinds I use.