Link: Is Sunscreen the New Margarine?

[sonia]

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.

Comments

[silveradept]

Interesting. I have to admit the way the article is written reads to me more like someone trying to promote their product rather than giving the facts, which is raising critical reading flags that I might not otherwise have with it. It is nice to see people advocating taking time outside to do things, though.

[sonia]

What product is the article promoting?

[silveradept]

Oh, no product. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. The style and word choices used in the piece remind me of similar styles used by people who are promoting products. Which trips a certain amount of skepticism about the claims being made, based on that part experience.

[sonia]

Interesting! It reads to me as someone trying to apply science to counter people promoting a product. But then again I was already in agreement, as I said.

[silveradept]

Right. I think it might have been that I got a healthy dose of that kind of scientific-sounding marketing speak for things I knew were not scientific earlier on in life, and I've made a generalization that may or may not be true about that form of communication.