4 ms·

Interesting, the linked paper [0] does show they controlled for physical activity here, since I would assume someone who gets more sun exposure, is outside more

Interesting, the linked paper [0] does show they controlled for physical activity here, since I would assume someone who gets more sun exposure, is outside more. If they really have controlled for that factor, shouldn't we see similar results from people with sedentary lives, but high UV exposure? (possibly by regular use of tanning beds or the like?) Being prescribed UV exposure is an interesting idea for the future. [0] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.11.23292360v1.full.pdf https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.11.23292360v...

DennisP 3y ago
In sunlight you also get lots of red and infrared, and there's quite a bit of research on the benefits of that. To replicate sunlight you'd also need bulbs for those frequencies.
- InSteady 3y ago
  IR light reduces certain types of inflammation, speeds wound healing, protects against macular degeneration.. I'm surprised there isn't more interest in its benefits given what we've found so far.
wnoise 3y ago
It's certainly plausible, but there's a lot of confounds. Broad-spectrum vs tanning. And outside also gets lower CO2 and VOC.
qingcharles 3y ago
I feel like they should prescribe sunlight for prisoners. I was held for 10 years without seeing the sun, and many jails and prisons are built on budgets that don't allow for any sunlight.
- olalonde 3y ago
  Do you mean that your cell didn't have sunlight or that you literally never went outside? I was watching a documentary on ADX Florence, which is known for its maximum-security isolation, and prisoners were allowed one hour outside per day.
  - qingcharles 3y ago
    Yeah, the ADX guys sued to get that back. They lost it at some point and went years without. I tried to sue, but it is almost impossible to sue for lack of sunlight because you need to employ expert witnesses to even have a chance to prove that lack of sunlight is harmful to your health. I was held in cells without windows for five years. The other five the cells had windows but were so dirty that practically no sunlight entered. Never went outside. Maybe a total of 10 hours outside in 10 years. The first five years in a facility where they didn't design any outside into it because it was built in the middle of a downtown area and there wasn't space. The other five in a facility that had large outside areas but no staff to organize corralling a whole cellblock of inmates, getting them through the corridors of the buildings to the outside, monitoring them so they didn't escape and then getting them back. That requires a lot of staff, and most jails and prisons are vastly understaffed.
- zolbrek 3y ago
  That is rough. Perhaps a very stupid question but did you have access to Vitamin D supplementation during that time?
  - qingcharles 3y ago
    No, most jails and prisons don't sell supplements. You only got whatever vitamin D you got from the slop they serve you :(
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  Not to dox you, but did you ever think to blog about this? 10 years without seeing the sun? That sounds like an incredible story to tell.
  - qingcharles 3y ago
    At some point when it is all over I will write about it. I've not been to trial yet - so this 10 years was while unconvicted waiting for trial, which is even more insane. It's not even the worst of it, IMO. When I finally got out I started working for criminal justice charities on various issues, and I started getting harassed by the police. They would literally come and drag me out of my house every single day of the week and arrest me and cuff me behind my back on the street (this is the USA too, not some Third World dictatorship!) and then let me go a few minutes later. Eventually they arrested me and I served another five months simply because I Tweeted about the harassment. There was nothing illegal about it, but a judge in the USA can do whatever he wants, so there you go. Here's what I wrote about the sunlight: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37740417 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37740417
xkcd-sucks 3y ago
Related, there were some drugs developed to activate melanin production by hooking in to sunlight damage reaponse related pathways, and they do work for light-free tanning. But they were then found to significantly and meangingfully increase libido in men and women, so now there are follow up projects to develop these for erectile dysfunction / low libido. (You probably haven't heard of these because they're all peptides which generally have to be injected without a lot of development work and luck, but the shocking success ofsemaglutide and friends means maybe injection-only peptide lifestyle drugs have a market) As a general just-so-story rule of thumb to be discounted in the face of evidence to the contrary, stimulus or stress that's a consequence of doing stuff generally acts as a "growth factor" even if it causes slight damage, including exercise, heat and cold shock, and sunlight.
- amelius 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanotan_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanotan_II

DennisP 3y ago

In sunlight you also get lots of red and infrared, and there's quite a bit of research on the benefits of that. To replicate sunlight you'd also need bulbs for those frequencies.

InSteady 3y ago
IR light reduces certain types of inflammation, speeds wound healing, protects against macular degeneration.. I'm surprised there isn't more interest in its benefits given what we've found so far.

wnoise 3y ago

It's certainly plausible, but there's a lot of confounds. Broad-spectrum vs tanning. And outside also gets lower CO2 and VOC.

qingcharles 3y ago

I feel like they should prescribe sunlight for prisoners. I was held for 10 years without seeing the sun, and many jails and prisons are built on budgets that don't allow for any sunlight.

olalonde 3y ago
Do you mean that your cell didn't have sunlight or that you literally never went outside? I was watching a documentary on ADX Florence, which is known for its maximum-security isolation, and prisoners were allowed one hour outside per day.
- qingcharles 3y ago
  Yeah, the ADX guys sued to get that back. They lost it at some point and went years without. I tried to sue, but it is almost impossible to sue for lack of sunlight because you need to employ expert witnesses to even have a chance to prove that lack of sunlight is harmful to your health. I was held in cells without windows for five years. The other five the cells had windows but were so dirty that practically no sunlight entered. Never went outside. Maybe a total of 10 hours outside in 10 years. The first five years in a facility where they didn't design any outside into it because it was built in the middle of a downtown area and there wasn't space. The other five in a facility that had large outside areas but no staff to organize corralling a whole cellblock of inmates, getting them through the corridors of the buildings to the outside, monitoring them so they didn't escape and then getting them back. That requires a lot of staff, and most jails and prisons are vastly understaffed.
zolbrek 3y ago
That is rough. Perhaps a very stupid question but did you have access to Vitamin D supplementation during that time?
- qingcharles 3y ago
  No, most jails and prisons don't sell supplements. You only got whatever vitamin D you got from the slop they serve you :(
throwaway2037 3y ago
Not to dox you, but did you ever think to blog about this? 10 years without seeing the sun? That sounds like an incredible story to tell.
- qingcharles 3y ago
  At some point when it is all over I will write about it. I've not been to trial yet - so this 10 years was while unconvicted waiting for trial, which is even more insane. It's not even the worst of it, IMO. When I finally got out I started working for criminal justice charities on various issues, and I started getting harassed by the police. They would literally come and drag me out of my house every single day of the week and arrest me and cuff me behind my back on the street (this is the USA too, not some Third World dictatorship!) and then let me go a few minutes later. Eventually they arrested me and I served another five months simply because I Tweeted about the harassment. There was nothing illegal about it, but a judge in the USA can do whatever he wants, so there you go. Here's what I wrote about the sunlight: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37740417 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37740417

xkcd-sucks 3y ago

Related, there were some drugs developed to activate melanin production by hooking in to sunlight damage reaponse related pathways, and they do work for light-free tanning. But they were then found to significantly and meangingfully increase libido in men and women, so now there are follow up projects to develop these for erectile dysfunction / low libido. (You probably haven't heard of these because they're all peptides which generally have to be injected without a lot of development work and luck, but the shocking success ofsemaglutide and friends means maybe injection-only peptide lifestyle drugs have a market) As a general just-so-story rule of thumb to be discounted in the face of evidence to the contrary, stimulus or stress that's a consequence of doing stuff generally acts as a "growth factor" even if it causes slight damage, including exercise, heat and cold shock, and sunlight.

amelius 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanotan_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanotan_II