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> How did we get through the Neolithic Era without sunscreen? Actually, perfectly well. I have to suspect that this logic won't apply if you're a light skinned

> How did we get through the Neolithic Era without sunscreen? Actually, perfectly well. I have to suspect that this logic won't apply if you're a light skinned person in a place where the natives are all fairly dark skinned.

TylerE 7y ago
Not to mention that it’s not hard to suppose that they lived to be old enough to reproduce before they all died from skin cancer...
- nl 7y ago
  That's a really good point. No evolutionary pressure once someone has reproduced, and skin cancer and skin cancer is both rare under 30[1] and take some years to kill. [1] https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/statistics-by-cancer-type/melanoma-skin-cancer/incidence#heading-One https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-...
  - trophycase 7y ago
    That's not strictly true. If we assume that a person provides little/no value to the group until the age of 10-11. Then someone who lives to 50 as opposed to 40 spends 10 more years working productively for the betterment of the group. This of course assumes that they produce more benefit than detriment to the group during those 10 years. Thus if there are group selective pressures at play. Those with adults who live longer may outcompete those who do not.
    - nl 7y ago
      Fair point. And it may explain why darker skin (which has less incidents of skin cancer) was selected for at lower latitudes, while white skin (more effective as absorbing vitamin D) was selected for at higher latitudes. The paper doesn’t specify why these genes might have been under such strong selection. But the likely explanation for the pigmentation genes is to maximize vitamin D synthesis, said paleoanthropologist Nina Jablonski of Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), University Park, as she looked at the poster’s results at the meeting. People living in northern latitudes often don’t get enough UV to synthesize vitamin D in their skin so natural selection has favored two genetic solutions to that problem—evolving pale skin that absorbs UV more efficiently or favoring lactose tolerance to be able to digest the sugars and vitamin D naturally found in milk. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/04/how-europeans-evolved-white-skin# https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/04/how-europeans-evolve...
      - narag 7y ago
        Simpler than that: just being sunburnt is a disadvantage, no need to get cancer.
  - DVassallo 7y ago
    Offspring with living parents and grandparents have incredibly better odds at surviving.
- habosa 7y ago
  Life expectancies were longer than people think back then. A lot of times we see stats that are dominated by high infant mortality. If you lived to 10 you were gonna make it a while.
  - legitster 7y ago
    That's also not necessarily true either. Even accounting for infant mortality, people died much younger than we do today. Sure, people did occasionally live to old ages, but only the ones who lived easier lives.
    - IncRnd 7y ago
      Today, the top 5 places where people live the longest are three islands, one peninsula, and a place filled with vegetarians who don't smoke and don't drink alcohol. https://www.aplaceformom.com/blog/2013-03-29-where-people-live-the-longest/ https://www.aplaceformom.com/blog/2013-03-29-where-people-li...
Spooky23 7y ago
We weren’t able to screen for skin cancer in the Neolithic era, and that was one of many mysterious ways that people died.
Hokusai 7y ago
I live in Sweden, I have traveled with Swedish people to the Philippines. Many of them never get tanned, they just get red. The article criticizes the generalization of using sunscreen advice, and proceeds to go full-generalization itself. The study that the article is based on may be very interesting, the article is just misleading. If there is parts of the population that avoid too much to be under sunlight, it is worth studying. Asking the general public to stop using sunscreen is just bad advice.
- thayne 7y ago
  If you get all the way to the call to action, it doesn't actually say to stop using sunscreen altogether. It basically says you should make sure you get some sun, but not too much. Which I don't think is anything new.
  - jbotz 7y ago
    Actually, the point of this article is that it is something new... for the last few decades the medical establishment and of course the sun-screen industry have been absurdly dogmatic and absolutists, telling people to avoid all sun, and anyone who dared to say that it was OK or even desirable to get a bit of sun was vilified (in one case lost his position as department chair of dermatology at Boston U). I think this article is spot on. And like you say it doesn't say to avoid sunscreen altogether... it says: "Each person’s needs vary so much with season, latitude, skin color, personal history, philosophy, and so much else that it’s impossible to provide a one-size-fits-all recommendation."
    - thayne 7y ago
      Well I've had my doctor tell me I needed more sunlight.
- Merad 7y ago
  Yep, I’m fair skinned (Scots-Irish heritage) and live in the US south (North Carolina). If I’m very careful to build up my sun exposure all spring I can tolerate moderate amounts of sun without burning... but if I went out tomorrow for even an hour in direct sun anywhere near mid-day, I’d have a major sunburn. I’ve been more careful to use sunscreen for the last decade or so after seeing my dad’s experience with skin cancers. His aren’t the “serious” kind but basically every time I see him he has fresh scars from having cancerous spots cut or burned off. No thanks.
osn9363739 7y ago
I live in Australia. I always wondered if a change in attitude/behavior has resulted in the increasing skin cancer rates. When I talk to my grandparents. The idea of doing anything during the hottest part of the day is crazy to them. They would go for a swim at the beach in the morning or afternoon. Not at midday. I guess they also had people that rubbed themselves in butter to get a nice tan too, but I'm interested if there has been that sort of change.
- narag 7y ago
  A sunny place where a lot of people coming from a cloudy place have arrived in the last few centuries. Not a fair comparison with "we survived neolithic".
- IncRnd 7y ago
  My parents always told me not to go outside between the hours of 10 AM and 2 PM.
- strken 7y ago
  The hole in the ozone layer probably doesn't help. UV exposure in Australia is much higher than many other countries.
- throwaway_pdp09 7y ago
  > Australia There was a guy on the radio (in the UK) discussing skin cancer rates in Australia. He summed up with a few words "we're white men in a black man's country".
- chaorace 7y ago
  Isn't it culturally normalized in AUS to wear full skin covering when under the sun? I seem to remember being told that most Australians wore more long-sleeve shirts and jeans than t-shirts and shorts. I think that such a level of skin covering, despite the high temperatures, speaks to an acute cultural awareness of skin cancer that you don't see in most places.
crazygringo 7y ago
Nevertheless, the underlying logic stands: the whole point of evolving light skin was to get the necessary beneficial effects of sunlight (including vitamin D) in climates with drastically less sun. The fact that sun was so important evolutionarily that whole populations literally turned white to get more of it really says something. Of course the point of the article is that it's not just vitamin D, but a whole host of other effects.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  > the whole point of evolving light skin was to get the necessary beneficial effects of sunlight (including vitamin D) I’m not sure that we actually know that this is true. It could be that there is some other beneficial mutation which causes light skin which is only a net positive at higher latitudes where light skin is not penalized as much. And there’s some disconfirming evidence for the vitamin D hypothesis: people of African ancestry seem to do okay when they live at higher latitudes and most of us spend most of our time indoors, anyway, and also seem to do okay.
- yongjik 7y ago
  And when some of these people went back to tropical regions (e.g., across the Bering Strait and down to Central America) they re-developed darker skins. So, not getting too much sunlight was apparently equally important.
carlmr 7y ago
Even if you're a light skinned person in the North, we don't have as much forest cover as we had back in the Neolithic era. If you only have 10% of sun exposure at a time due to trees, that's quite an effective sunblock.
ornornor 7y ago
People didn’t live up to 70–80 years old routinely. They’d die of “club to head” or “fauna dinner” causes waaaay before they’d get skin cancer.
scubasteve85 7y ago
It certainly doesn't apply to me. I have albinism and even 15 minutes outside without sunscreen can result in the start of a nasty burn.

TylerE 7y ago

Not to mention that it’s not hard to suppose that they lived to be old enough to reproduce before they all died from skin cancer...

nl 7y ago
That's a really good point. No evolutionary pressure once someone has reproduced, and skin cancer and skin cancer is both rare under 30[1] and take some years to kill. [1] https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/statistics-by-cancer-type/melanoma-skin-cancer/incidence#heading-One https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-...
- trophycase 7y ago
  That's not strictly true. If we assume that a person provides little/no value to the group until the age of 10-11. Then someone who lives to 50 as opposed to 40 spends 10 more years working productively for the betterment of the group. This of course assumes that they produce more benefit than detriment to the group during those 10 years. Thus if there are group selective pressures at play. Those with adults who live longer may outcompete those who do not.
  - nl 7y ago
    Fair point. And it may explain why darker skin (which has less incidents of skin cancer) was selected for at lower latitudes, while white skin (more effective as absorbing vitamin D) was selected for at higher latitudes. The paper doesn’t specify why these genes might have been under such strong selection. But the likely explanation for the pigmentation genes is to maximize vitamin D synthesis, said paleoanthropologist Nina Jablonski of Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), University Park, as she looked at the poster’s results at the meeting. People living in northern latitudes often don’t get enough UV to synthesize vitamin D in their skin so natural selection has favored two genetic solutions to that problem—evolving pale skin that absorbs UV more efficiently or favoring lactose tolerance to be able to digest the sugars and vitamin D naturally found in milk. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/04/how-europeans-evolved-white-skin# https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/04/how-europeans-evolve...
    - narag 7y ago
      Simpler than that: just being sunburnt is a disadvantage, no need to get cancer.
- DVassallo 7y ago
  Offspring with living parents and grandparents have incredibly better odds at surviving.
habosa 7y ago
Life expectancies were longer than people think back then. A lot of times we see stats that are dominated by high infant mortality. If you lived to 10 you were gonna make it a while.
- legitster 7y ago
  That's also not necessarily true either. Even accounting for infant mortality, people died much younger than we do today. Sure, people did occasionally live to old ages, but only the ones who lived easier lives.
  - IncRnd 7y ago
    Today, the top 5 places where people live the longest are three islands, one peninsula, and a place filled with vegetarians who don't smoke and don't drink alcohol. https://www.aplaceformom.com/blog/2013-03-29-where-people-live-the-longest/ https://www.aplaceformom.com/blog/2013-03-29-where-people-li...

Spooky23 7y ago

We weren’t able to screen for skin cancer in the Neolithic era, and that was one of many mysterious ways that people died.

Hokusai 7y ago

I live in Sweden, I have traveled with Swedish people to the Philippines. Many of them never get tanned, they just get red. The article criticizes the generalization of using sunscreen advice, and proceeds to go full-generalization itself. The study that the article is based on may be very interesting, the article is just misleading. If there is parts of the population that avoid too much to be under sunlight, it is worth studying. Asking the general public to stop using sunscreen is just bad advice.

thayne 7y ago
If you get all the way to the call to action, it doesn't actually say to stop using sunscreen altogether. It basically says you should make sure you get some sun, but not too much. Which I don't think is anything new.
- jbotz 7y ago
  Actually, the point of this article is that it is something new... for the last few decades the medical establishment and of course the sun-screen industry have been absurdly dogmatic and absolutists, telling people to avoid all sun, and anyone who dared to say that it was OK or even desirable to get a bit of sun was vilified (in one case lost his position as department chair of dermatology at Boston U). I think this article is spot on. And like you say it doesn't say to avoid sunscreen altogether... it says: "Each person’s needs vary so much with season, latitude, skin color, personal history, philosophy, and so much else that it’s impossible to provide a one-size-fits-all recommendation."
  - thayne 7y ago
    Well I've had my doctor tell me I needed more sunlight.
Merad 7y ago
Yep, I’m fair skinned (Scots-Irish heritage) and live in the US south (North Carolina). If I’m very careful to build up my sun exposure all spring I can tolerate moderate amounts of sun without burning... but if I went out tomorrow for even an hour in direct sun anywhere near mid-day, I’d have a major sunburn. I’ve been more careful to use sunscreen for the last decade or so after seeing my dad’s experience with skin cancers. His aren’t the “serious” kind but basically every time I see him he has fresh scars from having cancerous spots cut or burned off. No thanks.

osn9363739 7y ago

I live in Australia. I always wondered if a change in attitude/behavior has resulted in the increasing skin cancer rates. When I talk to my grandparents. The idea of doing anything during the hottest part of the day is crazy to them. They would go for a swim at the beach in the morning or afternoon. Not at midday. I guess they also had people that rubbed themselves in butter to get a nice tan too, but I'm interested if there has been that sort of change.

narag 7y ago
A sunny place where a lot of people coming from a cloudy place have arrived in the last few centuries. Not a fair comparison with "we survived neolithic".
IncRnd 7y ago
My parents always told me not to go outside between the hours of 10 AM and 2 PM.
strken 7y ago
The hole in the ozone layer probably doesn't help. UV exposure in Australia is much higher than many other countries.
throwaway_pdp09 7y ago
> Australia There was a guy on the radio (in the UK) discussing skin cancer rates in Australia. He summed up with a few words "we're white men in a black man's country".
chaorace 7y ago
Isn't it culturally normalized in AUS to wear full skin covering when under the sun? I seem to remember being told that most Australians wore more long-sleeve shirts and jeans than t-shirts and shorts. I think that such a level of skin covering, despite the high temperatures, speaks to an acute cultural awareness of skin cancer that you don't see in most places.

crazygringo 7y ago

Nevertheless, the underlying logic stands: the whole point of evolving light skin was to get the necessary beneficial effects of sunlight (including vitamin D) in climates with drastically less sun. The fact that sun was so important evolutionarily that whole populations literally turned white to get more of it really says something. Of course the point of the article is that it's not just vitamin D, but a whole host of other effects.

toasterlovin 7y ago
> the whole point of evolving light skin was to get the necessary beneficial effects of sunlight (including vitamin D) I’m not sure that we actually know that this is true. It could be that there is some other beneficial mutation which causes light skin which is only a net positive at higher latitudes where light skin is not penalized as much. And there’s some disconfirming evidence for the vitamin D hypothesis: people of African ancestry seem to do okay when they live at higher latitudes and most of us spend most of our time indoors, anyway, and also seem to do okay.
yongjik 7y ago
And when some of these people went back to tropical regions (e.g., across the Bering Strait and down to Central America) they re-developed darker skins. So, not getting too much sunlight was apparently equally important.

carlmr 7y ago

Even if you're a light skinned person in the North, we don't have as much forest cover as we had back in the Neolithic era. If you only have 10% of sun exposure at a time due to trees, that's quite an effective sunblock.

ornornor 7y ago

People didn’t live up to 70–80 years old routinely. They’d die of “club to head” or “fauna dinner” causes waaaay before they’d get skin cancer.

scubasteve85 7y ago

It certainly doesn't apply to me. I have albinism and even 15 minutes outside without sunscreen can result in the start of a nasty burn.