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I live in the tropics and there is plenty of sunshine here. So my skin doctor told me to avoid the sun at all costs, always wear suncreen and a hat, don't go ou
by dn3500 10mo ago
I live in the tropics and there is plenty of sunshine here. So my skin doctor told me to avoid the sun at all costs, always wear suncreen and a hat, don't go out in the daytime. A few years of that and now I have a vitamin D deficiency.
- delfinom 10mo agoYea sun damage and cancer vs. vitamin d deficiency is a little bit of a balancing act. It also doesn't help skin color is very critical part in all of this but people view that topic as taboo to discuss. The entire reason for skin color variations is a genetic optimization for UV absorption at specific latitudes vs sunburn risks. That and the other half of the problem is we are all sedentary as hell in all latitudes these days. Be it people hiding under AC at the tropics or hiding in heated homes in the north. We don't go outside to get enough sunlight and our fat reserves that store vitamin d don't grow large enough because we still don't go outside when the weather is tolerable.
- immibis 10mo agoI don't think anyone is making it taboo to say someone's melanin content affects how they absorb UV light. It's taboo when you tie it to all sorts of other things, say, how well they should do at school.
- pangolinpouch 10mo ago[flagged]
- Jensson 10mo ago> It's taboo when you tie it to all sorts of other things, say, how well they should do at school. Vitamin D deficiency might affect how well you do in school though and skin color affects that a lot. People who don't live in their native environment get such issues, just like white people getting burnt easily if they move south.
- inciampati 10mo ago> The entire reason for skin color variations is a genetic optimization for UV absorption at specific latitudes vs sunburn risks. This seems obvious but was not confirmed by genetic evidence. The rate of adaptation turns out to be much higher than can be explained by skin cancer. The real cause appears to be fertility. UV radiation breaks down folate (vitamin B9) in the bloodstream, and folate is critical for DNA synthesis and repair. Folate deficiency causes serious problems in pregnancy, neural tube defects like spina bifida, and may impair sperm production. So darker skin in high-UV equatorial regions likely evolved partly to protect reproductive capacity. In the other direction, lower melanin production helps with vitamin D synthesis in lower sunlight environments. Vitamin D requires UV-B radiation to be synthesized in the skin, and melanin inhibits this. Vitamin D is also linked to fertility. It's involved in sex hormone production and has been associated with successful implantation and pregnancy outcomes. If you're curious, check out Nina Jablonski and George Chaplin's work. Their hypothesis is that skin color evolution as fundamentally about reproductive fitness: dark enough to protect folate, light enough to synthesize vitamin D. Both nutrients affect fertility, fetal development, and offspring survival. They have an immediate primary impact on fertility and success, while skin cancer even in the most extreme environment/phenotype mismatch, has an onset after reproductive age.
- victor_xuan 10mo agoWearing sunscreen might be a good idea if you are white ethnicity (that is your ancestors lived in northern Europe for thousands of years). For others. It depends. Native South Americans, Africans and Indians seem to get skin cancer at much lower rates.
- cachius 10mo agoCan supplement D easily, together with K2.
- mentos 10mo agoCareful with this I took vitamin d every day no problem for a year. Randomly started getting heart palpitations one week and was trying to figure out why. Got an Apple Watch to monitor for a fib. Was asking myself what changed in my life that it happened all of a sudden and realized I had started taking K2. ChatGPTs theory is that it really made the absorption of vit d effective and led to hypercalcemia. Stopped taking vit d and k2 it resolved after a week no problems almost a year later.
- gbear605 10mo agoYou’re warning people to be cautious of taking Vitamin D… because you had problems with potassium supplements? Those are entirely different things with entirely different risk profiles.
- Rebelgecko 10mo agoK2 is synthetic cannabinoid inspired by THC
- SeanAnderson 10mo agoI mean, you're not wrong, but that's not what the discussion is about. There's Vitamin K1 and Vitamin K2. Vitamin K2 is frequently taken alongside Vitamin D.
- candiddevmike 10mo agoK2 isn't a potassium supplement
- candiddevmike 10mo agoIt should be the opposite, not taking K2 leads to calcification as K2 helps your body absorb calcium instead of lingering in your circulatory system.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- hammock 10mo agoReminder that the FDA recommended daily allowance of vitamin D is 10x lower than it was supposed to be, because of a math error, and they have never corrected it. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28768407/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28768407/
- OneMorePerson 10mo agoBetween the vitamin D error (this affected US and Europe and probably more places) and the sodium/blood pressure study that was misleading if not outright false, it's amazing how a few data points can become widespread advice without much verification and follow-up. I'm sure there's tons more cases that we don't even know about, not in the conspiracy sense, but more in the sense that there's some issues with how carefully these claims are validated before they get put out there as a rule to be followed.
- jeltz 10mo agoOne of the big issues is the momentum. Even long after these misstakes have been found doctors still give advice based on the error.
- hammock 10mo agoDoctors giving advice based on mistaken or otherwise bad data and outdated guidance is a pervasive problem
- nrhrjrjrjtntbt 10mo agoLet alone meddling vested interests, e.g. with RDA for sugar.
- diydsp 10mo agoThose are two recommendations out of how many? And how many years? How many errors do police make? Actuaries? Security researchers?
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- coldtea 10mo agoUnless you're non-native and have redhead-style very white skin or some history, the doctor sounds overly cautious to paranoid. Hundreds of millions live in such climates (including people with fairer skin) and have no problems, even though they don't do anything extreme like "avoid the sun at all costs, always wear suncreen and a hat, don't go out in the daytime". I'm white and I lived near the tropics for a few years, big white and asian population, everybody was out in the sun all the time, hardly covered too. Skin cancer stats as good as Europe or US.
- drob518 10mo agoI think we’re starting to find that the “if you get sunlight you will develop skin cancer” mantra is way overblown, if not outright wrong. Being out in the sun is good for humans. In fact, we need it. But modern life largely conspires to prevent it for most of the developed world. Even when we do, we slather ourselves with sunscreen that might be doing more harm than good. Better to wear long sleeves and a hat that you can take off and at least get reflected sunlight while wearing. Oddly, it turns out that our bodies have been tuned to survive outside. Whodathunkit?
- chongli 10mo agoHere’s my hypothesis: it’s not total sun exposure that causes issues, it’s inconsistent sun exposure. Those of us in northern climates experience an annual cycle of very high and then nonexistent sun exposure. This causes our skin to stop producing melanin during the winter and then leaves us vulnerable to sunburn in the spring and summer. If we had year-round sun then our skin would consistently maintain melanin levels and we wouldn’t have sunburn. I’d love to know if there are any studies trying to answer my question.
- ch4s3 10mo agoIt’s just sunburns that cause skin cancer. It’s really that simple.
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- camel_gopher 10mo agoHere’s the American association of dermatology recommendation. They say don’t try to get your vitamin D from the sun. https://www.aad.org/media/stats-vitamin-d https://www.aad.org/media/stats-vitamin-d
- wtcactus 10mo agoI can’t really check for the studies right now since I’m on the phone, but I distinctly remember being interested in the theme of skin cancer due to personal reasons, and that studies found that great exposure to the sun, although slightly increasing the risk of benign skin cancer, does greatly decrease the incidence of non benign skin cancer.
- jijijijij 10mo agoWell, supplementing vitamin D surely is cheaper than dealing with accelerated skin aging and cancer. Unless your doctor is a vampire, I presume they didn't mean to imply you should never go outside, but rather avoid any direct sunlight. I suspect the shade and sunscreen wasn't the issue.
- gdevenyi 10mo agohttps://open.substack.com/pub/takecontrol/p/dermatologys-war-against-sun https://open.substack.com/pub/takecontrol/p/dermatologys-war...
- _DeadFred_ 10mo agoI have never wanted to flag a comment on hacker news more. Do you also recommend that people smoke based on... nothing but feelz? I am 50. I had to have skin cancer removed from my face. I have never seen a more busy doctors office than this dermatologist's office. They were printing money. The waiting room was always full, half filled with men in their 50s up (so probably not getting cosmetic dermatology surgery). Some had noses/ears missing. Granted I grew up surfing in Santa Cruz. But don't think 'skin cancer isn't a thing'. And the follow up discussion here. Do people here not have parents? Do you not talk to ANYONE over 50 about their lives? Skin cancer is actually real and common and scary AF.
- xinayder 10mo agoI used to live there and the common consensus was: - don't stay out in the sun too long, if you do, apply sunscreen - 10-15 minutes of sunlight exposure a day is completely fine
- scubadude 10mo agoWe only need a few minutes sun exposure in the Australian sun at a UV Index of 14 for vitamin D. 20 minutes to start burning. Maybe there's a happy medium between a bit of sun exposure and no sun exposure.
- antman 10mo agoThe trick is to put sunscreen on the most exposed areas of the body face and upper surfaces, the rest through one layer of clothing e.g. tshirt for enough for vitamin D. It only needs 30mins to one hour exposure arms and legs per week