8 ms·

Implying that a primary causal factor for globally-declining birth rates could be... increased adoption of sunscreen, leading to decreases in libido? (I'm only

by derefr 4y ago

Implying that a primary causal factor for globally-declining birth rates could be... increased adoption of sunscreen, leading to decreases in libido? (I'm only half-joking; the countries that are most obsessed with keeping skin white — and so are likely the highest sunscreen users — are also the countries with the lowest birth rates.)

dragonwriter 4y ago
> (I'm only half-joking; the countries that are most obsessed with keeping skin white — and so are likely the highest sunscreen users — are also the countries with the lowest birth rates.) Obsession with keeping skin white is not something I normally see associated with South Korea, Singapore, or Bosnia and Herzegovina.
- tellmelies 4y ago
  Have you ever tried to buy sunscreen in Asia?
- shard 4y ago
  Obsession with keeping skin white has been a major trend in Korea for a long time, have you seen all the weird hats and face masks that ajummas wear in order to reduce sun exposure?
- Apfel 4y ago
  Can't speak much for Bosnia but in most of South East Asia it's nigh on impossible to find any body wash, sunscreen or moisturiser without whitening products added.
bushbaba 4y ago
If that’s the case then it’d come as a relief. But I doubt it. Realistically the fact wage to housing/health/education/childcare is a bigger contributor.
yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
> the countries that are most obsessed with keeping skin white — and so are likely the highest sunscreen users Isn't it rather more about avoiding skin cancer?
- arbol 4y ago
  There are a whole host of benefits associated with sun exposure that are reduced by wearing sunscreen. “Avoidance of sun exposure is a risk factor of a similar magnitude as smoking, in terms of life expectancy.” https://www.outsideonline.com/health/wellness/sunscreen-sun-exposure-skin-cancer-science/ https://www.outsideonline.com/health/wellness/sunscreen-sun-...
  - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
    I'm open to the argument that it's wrong/irrational, but I would wager that - at least in the USA - people wearing sunscreen are doing it to avoid skin cancer more than to avoid tanning.
    - arbol 4y ago
      "...skin cancer kills surprisingly few people: less than 3 per 100,000 in the U.S. each year. For every person who dies of skin cancer, more than 100 die from cardiovascular diseases." Personally, I'm from the UK and don't worry about skin cancer. If I was in Australia or some climate I'm not adapted for then I'd be concerned.
      - tremon 4y ago
        kills surprisingly few people: less than 3 per 100,000 Yet the impact on quality of life is huge. Using the same US numbers [0], comparing directly-attributable deaths against life years lost (disability-adjusted life years): - melanoma: 2.2 vs 64.8 - squamous cell carcinoma: 0.8 vs 26.6 - basal cell carcinoma: 0.2 vs 51.2 [0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33852922/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33852922/
numpad0 4y ago
I don't get how reduced UV exposure is supposed to be more attributable to sunscreens than to office labors. Most industrial materials block roughly 100% of UV rays, except viewing windows which allows as much as 1%. Therefore, just staying in any modern building alone cuts down UV exposure by 99% at very least. There is absolutely no way some translucent face painting does that.
- csdvrx 4y ago
  > There is absolutely no way some translucent face painting does that. Wow what a dismissive comment to chemistry and cosmetics. Just for fun, try take a pic of yourself with a UV camera (or just UV light with some phones), and you'll see it's translucent only to the visible spectrum: https://petapixel.com/2016/05/26/tiny-uv-camera-shows-youve-put-enough-sunscreen/ https://petapixel.com/2016/05/26/tiny-uv-camera-shows-youve-...
  - derefr 4y ago
    One thing I've recently become curious about, is whether the "UV pigments" in sunscreens are color-fast or not; i.e. whether getting sunscreen on clothing gradually tints the clothing darker when seen in ultraviolet, in the same way that getting throwing a non-colorfast red shirt in with your whites will gradually tint them red.
  - numpad0 4y ago
    The Sun Protection Factor(SPF) is defined "a measure of the fraction of sunburn-producing UV rays that reach the skin" when applied as instructed and only over a defined period, usually 2hr[1]. That means there is twofold difference even between a pane of glass(<1% whole body) and correctly applied sunscreen(~2% for 2hr @ SPF50), before taking walls into accounts. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunscreen#Sun_protection_factor_and_labeling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunscreen#Sun_protection_facto...
    - LorenPechtel 4y ago
      This. Note that even single-layer garments generally don't have a protection factor of 100. Simply being outside in warm weather will give you more UV even if you use sunscreen perfectly--and I don't believe perfect use of sunscreen happens in the real world. I don't care how well you apply it, the protection will be degraded by movement. It will be degraded even more by touching things.
ipaddr 4y ago
It is probably birth control in the water supply that are causing birth rate declines.
- Godel_unicode 4y ago
  That has been thoroughly studied and debunked. Just one example of many: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2854760/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2854760/ Add to this the fact that less than 1% of the estrogen in the water supply is from The Pill.
  - amelius 4y ago
    Yes. I'd be more worried about estrogen in meat. https://ascopubs.org/doi/abs/10.1200/jco.2010.28.15_suppl.1553 https://ascopubs.org/doi/abs/10.1200/jco.2010.28.15_suppl.15...
  - ipaddr 4y ago
    That paper used predicted estrogen instead of measuring estrogen. I wouldn't say it has been studied at all based on that link.
FullStackAda 4y ago
Provided how people apply sunscreen, I doubt it. Not exactly translatable, but there was no effect on vitamin D levels in people using sunscreen: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30945275/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30945275/

by derefr 4y ago

dragonwriter 4y ago

> (I'm only half-joking; the countries that are most obsessed with keeping skin white — and so are likely the highest sunscreen users — are also the countries with the lowest birth rates.) Obsession with keeping skin white is not something I normally see associated with South Korea, Singapore, or Bosnia and Herzegovina.

tellmelies 4y ago
Have you ever tried to buy sunscreen in Asia?
shard 4y ago
Obsession with keeping skin white has been a major trend in Korea for a long time, have you seen all the weird hats and face masks that ajummas wear in order to reduce sun exposure?
Apfel 4y ago
Can't speak much for Bosnia but in most of South East Asia it's nigh on impossible to find any body wash, sunscreen or moisturiser without whitening products added.

bushbaba 4y ago

If that’s the case then it’d come as a relief. But I doubt it. Realistically the fact wage to housing/health/education/childcare is a bigger contributor.

yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago

> the countries that are most obsessed with keeping skin white — and so are likely the highest sunscreen users Isn't it rather more about avoiding skin cancer?

arbol 4y ago
There are a whole host of benefits associated with sun exposure that are reduced by wearing sunscreen. “Avoidance of sun exposure is a risk factor of a similar magnitude as smoking, in terms of life expectancy.” https://www.outsideonline.com/health/wellness/sunscreen-sun-exposure-skin-cancer-science/ https://www.outsideonline.com/health/wellness/sunscreen-sun-...
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  I'm open to the argument that it's wrong/irrational, but I would wager that - at least in the USA - people wearing sunscreen are doing it to avoid skin cancer more than to avoid tanning.
  - arbol 4y ago
    "...skin cancer kills surprisingly few people: less than 3 per 100,000 in the U.S. each year. For every person who dies of skin cancer, more than 100 die from cardiovascular diseases." Personally, I'm from the UK and don't worry about skin cancer. If I was in Australia or some climate I'm not adapted for then I'd be concerned.
    - tremon 4y ago
      kills surprisingly few people: less than 3 per 100,000 Yet the impact on quality of life is huge. Using the same US numbers [0], comparing directly-attributable deaths against life years lost (disability-adjusted life years): - melanoma: 2.2 vs 64.8 - squamous cell carcinoma: 0.8 vs 26.6 - basal cell carcinoma: 0.2 vs 51.2 [0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33852922/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33852922/

numpad0 4y ago

I don't get how reduced UV exposure is supposed to be more attributable to sunscreens than to office labors. Most industrial materials block roughly 100% of UV rays, except viewing windows which allows as much as 1%. Therefore, just staying in any modern building alone cuts down UV exposure by 99% at very least. There is absolutely no way some translucent face painting does that.

csdvrx 4y ago
> There is absolutely no way some translucent face painting does that. Wow what a dismissive comment to chemistry and cosmetics. Just for fun, try take a pic of yourself with a UV camera (or just UV light with some phones), and you'll see it's translucent only to the visible spectrum: https://petapixel.com/2016/05/26/tiny-uv-camera-shows-youve-put-enough-sunscreen/ https://petapixel.com/2016/05/26/tiny-uv-camera-shows-youve-...
- derefr 4y ago
  One thing I've recently become curious about, is whether the "UV pigments" in sunscreens are color-fast or not; i.e. whether getting sunscreen on clothing gradually tints the clothing darker when seen in ultraviolet, in the same way that getting throwing a non-colorfast red shirt in with your whites will gradually tint them red.
- numpad0 4y ago
  The Sun Protection Factor(SPF) is defined "a measure of the fraction of sunburn-producing UV rays that reach the skin" when applied as instructed and only over a defined period, usually 2hr[1]. That means there is twofold difference even between a pane of glass(<1% whole body) and correctly applied sunscreen(~2% for 2hr @ SPF50), before taking walls into accounts. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunscreen#Sun_protection_factor_and_labeling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunscreen#Sun_protection_facto...
  - LorenPechtel 4y ago
    This. Note that even single-layer garments generally don't have a protection factor of 100. Simply being outside in warm weather will give you more UV even if you use sunscreen perfectly--and I don't believe perfect use of sunscreen happens in the real world. I don't care how well you apply it, the protection will be degraded by movement. It will be degraded even more by touching things.

ipaddr 4y ago

It is probably birth control in the water supply that are causing birth rate declines.

Godel_unicode 4y ago
That has been thoroughly studied and debunked. Just one example of many: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2854760/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2854760/ Add to this the fact that less than 1% of the estrogen in the water supply is from The Pill.
- amelius 4y ago
  Yes. I'd be more worried about estrogen in meat. https://ascopubs.org/doi/abs/10.1200/jco.2010.28.15_suppl.1553 https://ascopubs.org/doi/abs/10.1200/jco.2010.28.15_suppl.15...
- ipaddr 4y ago
  That paper used predicted estrogen instead of measuring estrogen. I wouldn't say it has been studied at all based on that link.

FullStackAda 4y ago

Provided how people apply sunscreen, I doubt it. Not exactly translatable, but there was no effect on vitamin D levels in people using sunscreen: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30945275/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30945275/