4 ms·

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 a

by 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.
      - slothtrop 4y ago
        That's a relatively recent phenomenon in human history as well. What about the middle ages? What about the bronze age?
        xeyownt 4y ago
        Yeah... let's live like we did in the middle age. Lifetime expectancy was HUGE.
        aksss 4y ago
        “There is a basic distinction between life expectancy and life span,” says Stanford University historian Walter Scheidel, a leading scholar of ancient Roman demography. “The life span of humans – opposed to life expectancy, which is a statistical construct – hasn’t really changed much at all, as far as I can tell. Life expectancy is an average. If you have two children, and one dies before their first birthday but the other lives to the age of 70, their average life expectancy is 35. That’s mathematically correct – and it certainly tells us something about the circumstances in which the children were raised. But it doesn’t give us the full picture. It also becomes especially problematic when looking at eras, or in regions, where there are high levels of infant mortality. Most of human history has been blighted by poor survival rates among children, and that continues in various countries today.” https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181002-how-long-did-ancient-people-live-life-span-versus-longevity https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181002-how-long-did-anc... Adjust for infant mortality, war, etc., humans are still humans.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - throwaway202022 4y ago
      Our human ancestors were not nocturnal. Sleep patterns were probably different, sure, but they went out during the day to gather and hunt for food.
    - bgandrew 4y ago
      Because it's obvious to anybody. It's also obvious that modern humans are far less exposed to UV than our ancestors, who pretty much lived like current days hobos spending most of their time on fresh air.
    - guerrilla 4y ago
      You realize hunter-gatherers exist today, right? They go out during the day and are not mostly nocturnal. They're found all over the world.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- nostromo 4y ago
  And white people that live in California or Florida should note that our complexion evolved in latitudes similar to Canada.
  - robocat 4y ago
    And if you are in the equivalent Southern latitude to Canada (e.g. New Zealand), you still sometimes need sunscreen to avoid the extra UV due to the ozone hole. Perhaps not as bad as it was, but cannot be ignored, although it is variable: https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ourchangingworld/audio/2018774144/ozone-holes-and-uv-radiation https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ourchangingworld/a...
    - flog 4y ago
      The NZ sun is terrible. You feel the sun burning you as soon as you get outside. Burn time can be about 10 minutes on a sunny day, and maybe 20 on a cloudy day in summer. In NZ we get about 4000 in-situ melanoma diagnosis a year. I was one of them a couple of years ago (at 37). Wear sunscreen!
    - incompatible 4y ago
      Perhaps if we are talking about the South Island of New Zealand and the southern tip of Canada (Toronto). Most of Canada would be closer to the pole.
      - robocat 4y ago
        Yeah, good point. NZ has similar latitudes down here as the USA has up there. Weather is very different since we don’t get continental effects. Also NZ wasn’t really affected by ozone depletion, but the effects are definitely in our neighbourhood and we were worried. “While the ozone hole does not directly affect ozone concentrations over New Zealand, when it breaks up in spring it can send ‘plumes’ of ozone-depleted air towards us. This briefly decreases column ozone levels by around 5 percent, about the same amount as normal daily variation.”. Also see graph at https://niwa.co.nz/our-services/online-services/uv-ozone https://niwa.co.nz/our-services/online-services/uv-ozone and notice ozone is lowest in NZ summer. Also measuring a column of ozone is most relevant in the tropics when the sun can be directly above one at noon, and less relevant when the sun doesn’t get so high above the horizon (location further towards poles, and winter versus summer). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9671831/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9671831/
- cfn 4y ago
  Sunscreen, as we know it, is barely 100 years old (see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33583116/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33583116/) and we have a lot of information up to that point. We can also deduce from many sources that humanity did not just "managed to reproduce before keeling over".
zokier 4y ago
> it is good intuition that we survived for thousands of years Well, all those people in the past are dead, so no, they did not survive.
blenderdt 4y ago
According to this page we had skin cancer for thousands of years: https://www.jaad.org/article/S0190-9622(15)00240-6/fulltext https://www.jaad.org/article/S0190-9622(15)00240-6/fulltext We also completely changed our way of life. We don't live outside anymore so we have less pigment that protects us from UV.
cm2012 4y ago
Look at pretty much any elder in today's tribal societies, they look like raisins at age 50. Most people would rather maintain some youthful looks which means protecting yourself from the sun.
JohnBooty 4y ago
I am actually a fan of the sun myself. I feel way better, physically and mentally, when getting decent amounts of sunlight. I would accept some risk in exchange for the benefits. But... it is good intuition that we survived for thousands of years Humans survived to the age of reproductive viability for many thousands of years. If your goal is merely to survive until the age at which you can make a baby and rear it there are a lot of risks that can be disregarded. Skin cancer is one. So are all other cancers. No need to worry about long-term dental health either. So many fears and worries melt away. Embrace that hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Alternatively, if you are hoping to live past your 30s (most of us would like to live at least 2.5x longer!) the lifestyles of ancient civilizations and our hunter-gatherer ancestors may not be your ticket to success. stark naked This is not how people lived.
- guelo 4y ago
  I don't buy this. Having surviving parents and grandparents confers evolutionary advantage to offspring.
  - JohnBooty 4y ago
    Having surviving parents and grandparents confers evolutionary advantage to offspring True but irrelevant. The reality is that lifespans were far shorter back then.
aksss 4y ago
I don’t know about stark naked - in the northern climes where the fairer complexioned folk roam(ed), furs and wool were a matter of survival. Anyway, UV sucks, nobody is hurt by minimizing it and supplementing via diet. Hell, in the north the sun doesn’t even rise high enough to be a source of vit D for months on end. You have to get it from diet or not at all. https://smarttan.com/news/index.php/how-to-safely-effectively-make-vitamin-d-from-sunshine/ https://smarttan.com/news/index.php/how-to-safely-effectivel...
inglor_cz 4y ago
"we survived for thousands of years stark naked without sunscreen and vitamin suplements" We also ate differently in the Stone Age, so our vitamin intake might have been different. Finally, life expectancy in the Stone Age was much shorter. Even excluding infant deaths, few people lived long enough to get cancer. Cancer is a typical disease of old age.

by cfn 4y ago

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.
    - slothtrop 4y ago
      That's a relatively recent phenomenon in human history as well. What about the middle ages? What about the bronze age?
      - xeyownt 4y ago
        Yeah... let's live like we did in the middle age. Lifetime expectancy was HUGE.
        aksss 4y ago
        “There is a basic distinction between life expectancy and life span,” says Stanford University historian Walter Scheidel, a leading scholar of ancient Roman demography. “The life span of humans – opposed to life expectancy, which is a statistical construct – hasn’t really changed much at all, as far as I can tell. Life expectancy is an average. If you have two children, and one dies before their first birthday but the other lives to the age of 70, their average life expectancy is 35. That’s mathematically correct – and it certainly tells us something about the circumstances in which the children were raised. But it doesn’t give us the full picture. It also becomes especially problematic when looking at eras, or in regions, where there are high levels of infant mortality. Most of human history has been blighted by poor survival rates among children, and that continues in various countries today.” https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181002-how-long-did-ancient-people-live-life-span-versus-longevity https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181002-how-long-did-anc... Adjust for infant mortality, war, etc., humans are still humans.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - throwaway202022 4y ago
    Our human ancestors were not nocturnal. Sleep patterns were probably different, sure, but they went out during the day to gather and hunt for food.
  - bgandrew 4y ago
    Because it's obvious to anybody. It's also obvious that modern humans are far less exposed to UV than our ancestors, who pretty much lived like current days hobos spending most of their time on fresh air.
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    You realize hunter-gatherers exist today, right? They go out during the day and are not mostly nocturnal. They're found all over the world.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
nostromo 4y ago
And white people that live in California or Florida should note that our complexion evolved in latitudes similar to Canada.
- robocat 4y ago
  And if you are in the equivalent Southern latitude to Canada (e.g. New Zealand), you still sometimes need sunscreen to avoid the extra UV due to the ozone hole. Perhaps not as bad as it was, but cannot be ignored, although it is variable: https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ourchangingworld/audio/2018774144/ozone-holes-and-uv-radiation https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ourchangingworld/a...
  - flog 4y ago
    The NZ sun is terrible. You feel the sun burning you as soon as you get outside. Burn time can be about 10 minutes on a sunny day, and maybe 20 on a cloudy day in summer. In NZ we get about 4000 in-situ melanoma diagnosis a year. I was one of them a couple of years ago (at 37). Wear sunscreen!
  - incompatible 4y ago
    Perhaps if we are talking about the South Island of New Zealand and the southern tip of Canada (Toronto). Most of Canada would be closer to the pole.
    - robocat 4y ago
      Yeah, good point. NZ has similar latitudes down here as the USA has up there. Weather is very different since we don’t get continental effects. Also NZ wasn’t really affected by ozone depletion, but the effects are definitely in our neighbourhood and we were worried. “While the ozone hole does not directly affect ozone concentrations over New Zealand, when it breaks up in spring it can send ‘plumes’ of ozone-depleted air towards us. This briefly decreases column ozone levels by around 5 percent, about the same amount as normal daily variation.”. Also see graph at https://niwa.co.nz/our-services/online-services/uv-ozone https://niwa.co.nz/our-services/online-services/uv-ozone and notice ozone is lowest in NZ summer. Also measuring a column of ozone is most relevant in the tropics when the sun can be directly above one at noon, and less relevant when the sun doesn’t get so high above the horizon (location further towards poles, and winter versus summer). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9671831/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9671831/
cfn 4y ago
Sunscreen, as we know it, is barely 100 years old (see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33583116/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33583116/) and we have a lot of information up to that point. We can also deduce from many sources that humanity did not just "managed to reproduce before keeling over".

zokier 4y ago

> it is good intuition that we survived for thousands of years Well, all those people in the past are dead, so no, they did not survive.

blenderdt 4y ago

According to this page we had skin cancer for thousands of years: https://www.jaad.org/article/S0190-9622(15)00240-6/fulltext https://www.jaad.org/article/S0190-9622(15)00240-6/fulltext We also completely changed our way of life. We don't live outside anymore so we have less pigment that protects us from UV.

cm2012 4y ago

Look at pretty much any elder in today's tribal societies, they look like raisins at age 50. Most people would rather maintain some youthful looks which means protecting yourself from the sun.

JohnBooty 4y ago

I am actually a fan of the sun myself. I feel way better, physically and mentally, when getting decent amounts of sunlight. I would accept some risk in exchange for the benefits. But... it is good intuition that we survived for thousands of years Humans survived to the age of reproductive viability for many thousands of years. If your goal is merely to survive until the age at which you can make a baby and rear it there are a lot of risks that can be disregarded. Skin cancer is one. So are all other cancers. No need to worry about long-term dental health either. So many fears and worries melt away. Embrace that hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Alternatively, if you are hoping to live past your 30s (most of us would like to live at least 2.5x longer!) the lifestyles of ancient civilizations and our hunter-gatherer ancestors may not be your ticket to success. stark naked This is not how people lived.

guelo 4y ago
I don't buy this. Having surviving parents and grandparents confers evolutionary advantage to offspring.
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  Having surviving parents and grandparents confers evolutionary advantage to offspring True but irrelevant. The reality is that lifespans were far shorter back then.

aksss 4y ago

I don’t know about stark naked - in the northern climes where the fairer complexioned folk roam(ed), furs and wool were a matter of survival. Anyway, UV sucks, nobody is hurt by minimizing it and supplementing via diet. Hell, in the north the sun doesn’t even rise high enough to be a source of vit D for months on end. You have to get it from diet or not at all. https://smarttan.com/news/index.php/how-to-safely-effectively-make-vitamin-d-from-sunshine/ https://smarttan.com/news/index.php/how-to-safely-effectivel...

inglor_cz 4y ago

"we survived for thousands of years stark naked without sunscreen and vitamin suplements" We also ate differently in the Stone Age, so our vitamin intake might have been different. Finally, life expectancy in the Stone Age was much shorter. Even excluding infant deaths, few people lived long enough to get cancer. Cancer is a typical disease of old age.