8 ms·

This is a very interesting theory, but also low-quality evidence. It merits further study, but hard to say that it merits any change in behavior just yet. As f

This is a very interesting theory, but also low-quality evidence. It merits further study, but hard to say that it merits any change in behavior just yet. As far as I can tell, the "340 000" person study was finally published in 2020[1]. The study was an observational analysis of 342,000 dialysis patients. There was no attempt to measure personal exposure to UV (FTA: "it was not feasible to determine personal exposures to UV radiation and temperature"). Rather, these exposures were approximated by dialysis center zip code. I can understand why David Fisher would say that he doesn't question the data, but doesn't agree with the implications. 1 = https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/JAHA.119.013837 https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/JAHA.119.013837

cpncrunch 4y ago
Have you looked at all the other studies, e.g. Lindqvist? [1] [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24697969/#:~:text=We%20found%20that%20all%2Dcause,population%20attributable%20risk%20of%203%25 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24697969/#:~:text=We%20found....
Gimpei 4y ago
This is why journalists need to learn some basic stats. The credulity with which he takes the pro-sun researchers claims, the ignorance he displays about the shortcomings of observational studies are as depressing as they are common. Not saying, by the way, that I don’t believe the sun hypothesis, I just think this article displays false confidence. Science is hard; when you present the latest theory as The Truth, all you do is undermine long term faith in science. Sometimes these new discoveries bear out, but most of the time, they don’t. See this pattern enough and it becomes reasonable to conclude that scientists are full of shit.
- xpe 4y ago
  Well said in many ways; however, it isn't clear that having more statistics savvy journalists would address the problems associated with media economics and incentives.
  - lbriner 4y ago
    Agree. How well-trained would a journalist need to be in order to effectively analyze something that has probably taken several years of effort. Lots of numbers != good interpretations and little data != bad conclusion. But agree with OP that in a world that is becoming less and less trusting of authority (to a dangerous extreme) that it would be nice for those in authority to have enough humility to accept when their work is questioned.
- guelo 4y ago
  Why don't you demand as much strong evidence from the pro-sunscreen status quo?
  - lr4444lr 4y ago
    No, because they have a demonstrable mechanism from pre-established science: UV radiation damages DNA, which causes cancer. Their product absorbs or scatters UV radiation. This is the same as the teeth flossing skeptics: observational studies suggesting a paradox are interesting, but they actually need to unearth convincing alternative models with at least as much support as the dominant one for why they're right.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - taeric 4y ago
      This feels wrong, too. You are presenting one option as a settled thing because it has a proposed mechanism. I agree that just dropping a seemingly safe belief should take effort. I have no problem challenging them on a regular basis, though. Especially with more than just arguments and thought experiments. More observational studies can almost certainly only be a good thing.
      - dsizzle 4y ago
        GP didn't say that the science of sun exposure is "settled." Also, that UV damages DNA and causes cancer isn't simply a "proposed" mechanism, it's been tested many times. I would say pure "observation" per se has little value -- for it to be scientifically valid it needs to seek explanations.
        taeric 4y ago
        Observational studies are certainly science. Any claim against that is going to be hard to defend. The mechanism isn't really at question. But just as sun exposure can kill grass, so to can lack of sun. We know that humans don't do photosynthesis, but it seems reasonable to ask if we do get other benefits. Note. Is reasonable to ask and study. Is not reasonable to just assume the conclusion.
- refurb 4y ago
  Reporters have zero incentive to accurately report on things like this. The reporters goal is eyeballs. Job well done. By the time someone looks at it closely, nobody is talking about the article anymore.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
com2kid 4y ago
> FTA: "it was not feasible to determine personal exposures to UV radiation and temperature" Sadly no current consumer devices exist on market that can track these two numbers. The Microsoft Band used to have both needed sensors, but AFAIK no one else has tried to widely release a consumer product with a UV exposure sensor on it. FWIW that sensor was a major hassle, took up a lot of space, and finding a plastic cover for it that didn't also block UV was super hard.
- comicjk 4y ago
  Couldn't you use the bleaching effect of UV to estimate exposure? It doesn't have to be an electronic UV sensor, just a spot of calibrated UV-sensitive dye.
  - pigeonhole123 4y ago
    You want to avoid sunburn, while getting enough sun every day, so this wouldn't work if I understand your suggestion correctly.
  - HPsquared 4y ago
    That's similar in concept to the old style film badge dosimeters used to measure radiation exposure. Unlike a film badge, a calibrated dye could be visually interpreted against a colour scale by the user. Neat idea if it works!
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- wolverine876 4y ago
  > no current consumer devices exist on market that can track these two numbers And if there were consumer devices, the next problem would be accuracy. Based on a bunch of reading I did several years ago (so maybe out of date), consumer excercise trackers were very innaccurate in many ways. Exercise misinformation devices.
cfn 4y ago
There are other studies with interesting results in the article and it is good intuition that we survived for thousands of years stark naked without sunscreen and vitamin suplements. One interesting paragraph was: "When you spend much of your day treating patients with terrible melanomas, it’s natural to focus on preventing them, but you need to keep the big picture in mind. Orthopedic surgeons, after all, don’t advise their patients to avoid exercise in order to reduce the risk of knee injuries." We need to avoid tunnel vision when making health decisions. And this coming from someone (me) who had skin cancer in the past (not that it makes me a specialist).
- pilsetnieks 4y ago
  I don't have a horse in the race either way but > it is good intuition that we survived for thousands of years stark naked without sunscreen and vitamin suplements That, as an argument, is completely worthless. You don't know how those people lived, how they died, what diseases they had, all you can deduce is that some of them managed to reproduce before keeling over.
  - slothtrop 4y ago
    > You don't know how those people lived ... without sunscreen.
    - clint 4y ago
      How do you know they went out during the day and weren't completely or mostly nocturnal?
      - comicjk 4y ago
        Within living memory, Americans wore hats pretty much whenever they were outside. If we decide to give up sunblock, we might want to reconsider the change in fashions that got rid of them.
        4y ago
scrozart 4y ago
To be expected from a lifestyle magazine. OO is an OK place to find your next camping destination, but it's a terrible place to look for science. This nonsense made it to HN a year or so ago. If you're looking for sunblock that won't give you cancer or ruin the environment, check out EWG: https://www.ewg.org/sunscreen/ https://www.ewg.org/sunscreen/
- cpncrunch 4y ago
  Just because it isn't a scientific magazine, doesn't mean the science is junk. How exactly is it "nonsense"?
- nradov 4y ago
  Do you have a scientific criticism of the article contents, or are you going to stick with a low-effort ad hominem attack?
mgh2 4y ago
Global trends: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31473919 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31473919
t_mann 4y ago
I would upvote if it wasn't for the stance of disagreeing with the implications of data that you don't have any reason not to trust. What you describe clearly is a problem with data collection, where crucial unobservable variables had to be replaced with questionable assumptions. We should be wary because we can't fully trust those assumptions, and hence not the data, not because of what the implications would be.
- carbocation 4y ago
  Observational data is so profoundly affected by the decisions and assumptions of those who chose to select them and analyze them in a specific way that I cannot agree with this premise that the implications should be “trusted”. Those implications are a function of the choices made by the people making those decisions. The data have no opportunity to tell an independent story. There are tools that can make this better (eg, finding an instrumental variable), but this wasn’t done here.

cpncrunch 4y ago

Have you looked at all the other studies, e.g. Lindqvist? [1] [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24697969/#:~:text=We%20found%20that%20all%2Dcause,population%20attributable%20risk%20of%203%25 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24697969/#:~:text=We%20found....

Gimpei 4y ago

This is why journalists need to learn some basic stats. The credulity with which he takes the pro-sun researchers claims, the ignorance he displays about the shortcomings of observational studies are as depressing as they are common. Not saying, by the way, that I don’t believe the sun hypothesis, I just think this article displays false confidence. Science is hard; when you present the latest theory as The Truth, all you do is undermine long term faith in science. Sometimes these new discoveries bear out, but most of the time, they don’t. See this pattern enough and it becomes reasonable to conclude that scientists are full of shit.

xpe 4y ago
Well said in many ways; however, it isn't clear that having more statistics savvy journalists would address the problems associated with media economics and incentives.
- lbriner 4y ago
  Agree. How well-trained would a journalist need to be in order to effectively analyze something that has probably taken several years of effort. Lots of numbers != good interpretations and little data != bad conclusion. But agree with OP that in a world that is becoming less and less trusting of authority (to a dangerous extreme) that it would be nice for those in authority to have enough humility to accept when their work is questioned.
guelo 4y ago
Why don't you demand as much strong evidence from the pro-sunscreen status quo?
- lr4444lr 4y ago
  No, because they have a demonstrable mechanism from pre-established science: UV radiation damages DNA, which causes cancer. Their product absorbs or scatters UV radiation. This is the same as the teeth flossing skeptics: observational studies suggesting a paradox are interesting, but they actually need to unearth convincing alternative models with at least as much support as the dominant one for why they're right.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - taeric 4y ago
    This feels wrong, too. You are presenting one option as a settled thing because it has a proposed mechanism. I agree that just dropping a seemingly safe belief should take effort. I have no problem challenging them on a regular basis, though. Especially with more than just arguments and thought experiments. More observational studies can almost certainly only be a good thing.
    - dsizzle 4y ago
      GP didn't say that the science of sun exposure is "settled." Also, that UV damages DNA and causes cancer isn't simply a "proposed" mechanism, it's been tested many times. I would say pure "observation" per se has little value -- for it to be scientifically valid it needs to seek explanations.
      - taeric 4y ago
        Observational studies are certainly science. Any claim against that is going to be hard to defend. The mechanism isn't really at question. But just as sun exposure can kill grass, so to can lack of sun. We know that humans don't do photosynthesis, but it seems reasonable to ask if we do get other benefits. Note. Is reasonable to ask and study. Is not reasonable to just assume the conclusion.
refurb 4y ago
Reporters have zero incentive to accurately report on things like this. The reporters goal is eyeballs. Job well done. By the time someone looks at it closely, nobody is talking about the article anymore.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

com2kid 4y ago

> FTA: "it was not feasible to determine personal exposures to UV radiation and temperature" Sadly no current consumer devices exist on market that can track these two numbers. The Microsoft Band used to have both needed sensors, but AFAIK no one else has tried to widely release a consumer product with a UV exposure sensor on it. FWIW that sensor was a major hassle, took up a lot of space, and finding a plastic cover for it that didn't also block UV was super hard.

comicjk 4y ago
Couldn't you use the bleaching effect of UV to estimate exposure? It doesn't have to be an electronic UV sensor, just a spot of calibrated UV-sensitive dye.
- pigeonhole123 4y ago
  You want to avoid sunburn, while getting enough sun every day, so this wouldn't work if I understand your suggestion correctly.
- HPsquared 4y ago
  That's similar in concept to the old style film badge dosimeters used to measure radiation exposure. Unlike a film badge, a calibrated dye could be visually interpreted against a colour scale by the user. Neat idea if it works!
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
wolverine876 4y ago
> no current consumer devices exist on market that can track these two numbers And if there were consumer devices, the next problem would be accuracy. Based on a bunch of reading I did several years ago (so maybe out of date), consumer excercise trackers were very innaccurate in many ways. Exercise misinformation devices.

cfn 4y ago

There are other studies with interesting results in the article and it is good intuition that we survived for thousands of years stark naked without sunscreen and vitamin suplements. One interesting paragraph was: "When you spend much of your day treating patients with terrible melanomas, it’s natural to focus on preventing them, but you need to keep the big picture in mind. Orthopedic surgeons, after all, don’t advise their patients to avoid exercise in order to reduce the risk of knee injuries." We need to avoid tunnel vision when making health decisions. And this coming from someone (me) who had skin cancer in the past (not that it makes me a specialist).

pilsetnieks 4y ago
I don't have a horse in the race either way but > it is good intuition that we survived for thousands of years stark naked without sunscreen and vitamin suplements That, as an argument, is completely worthless. You don't know how those people lived, how they died, what diseases they had, all you can deduce is that some of them managed to reproduce before keeling over.
- slothtrop 4y ago
  > You don't know how those people lived ... without sunscreen.
  - clint 4y ago
    How do you know they went out during the day and weren't completely or mostly nocturnal?
    - comicjk 4y ago
      Within living memory, Americans wore hats pretty much whenever they were outside. If we decide to give up sunblock, we might want to reconsider the change in fashions that got rid of them.
      - 4y ago

scrozart 4y ago

To be expected from a lifestyle magazine. OO is an OK place to find your next camping destination, but it's a terrible place to look for science. This nonsense made it to HN a year or so ago. If you're looking for sunblock that won't give you cancer or ruin the environment, check out EWG: https://www.ewg.org/sunscreen/ https://www.ewg.org/sunscreen/

cpncrunch 4y ago
Just because it isn't a scientific magazine, doesn't mean the science is junk. How exactly is it "nonsense"?
nradov 4y ago
Do you have a scientific criticism of the article contents, or are you going to stick with a low-effort ad hominem attack?

mgh2 4y ago

Global trends: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31473919 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31473919

t_mann 4y ago

I would upvote if it wasn't for the stance of disagreeing with the implications of data that you don't have any reason not to trust. What you describe clearly is a problem with data collection, where crucial unobservable variables had to be replaced with questionable assumptions. We should be wary because we can't fully trust those assumptions, and hence not the data, not because of what the implications would be.

carbocation 4y ago
Observational data is so profoundly affected by the decisions and assumptions of those who chose to select them and analyze them in a specific way that I cannot agree with this premise that the implications should be “trusted”. Those implications are a function of the choices made by the people making those decisions. The data have no opportunity to tell an independent story. There are tools that can make this better (eg, finding an instrumental variable), but this wasn’t done here.