11 thoughts on “Does Exposure To The Sun Damage Your Skin?”
The sun CAN screw up your skin. And a lack of sun can screw us up in other ways. BECAUSE many of us have gone TOO far staying out of the sun. I wonder how many people are in the situation where I was recently.
After eating breakfast, and taking my daily vitamins including Vitamin D because mine has been running low according to my Primary Care Dr. I went into the medicine cabinet to drag out UV Screen and slather up pre-lawn mowing!
I’m standing there…thinking to myself…OK dumb@ss…is this REALLY the way to go?
So, I skipped the sun screen, went out to mow, and finished the thing in around 90 minutes wearing no shirt. Did I get red? Yes. Am I losing sleep over it? No. Could I get skin cancer? Maybe. But I was sun burnt a thousand times as a kid! And, like many adults, I’ve been hiding from the sun for 20 or 25 years because the medical community had me scared of ANY sun on my skin!
In fact, after that rethinking, I’ve started doing yard work sans shirt all the time. And after 25 or more years running from the sun, and wearing a UV Screen level of 3217, all the while depriving myself of FREE Vitamin D, I now have somewhat of a tan, instead of looking like a guy who just got out of prison.
My Vitamin D level is now back to normal, where I couldn’t get it WITH the vitamin addition. And just for the telling on this, if your vitamin D level is low gentlemen, it can and often does drive your testosterone level down too. I was also battling that fun.
My testosterone level is now above normal, I no longer have the urge to wear a tutu and dance the Swan Lake Ballet, and I sold my Volvo and quit eating quiche. 😉
So it’s a win win getting free sunshine.
The interesting thing is that Vitamin D is suspected to prevent cancer and auto-immune diseases. So it may turn out that in the balance you either are no worse off or may even be better off getting the solar exposure. You get wrinkled skin but that does not seem like a big issue to me.
Hope you still put sunscreen on your nose.
Nope, not a drop.
Balancing the need to protect from UV radiation v. getting your Vit D is why there are so many different shades of human skin. And the Caucasian-Americans in the audience (or any Australians) are simply at the wrong latitude. We evolved white skin in Northern Europe, with Poland and Sweden being the “ground zero” lack of pigmentation – about the same latitude as most of Canada. This red-headed Irish lad just ain’t built for Florida (where he lives currently).
It is possible to get so much sun it is harmful to your health but to little sun is also harmful to your health. The worst is getting a lot more sun exposure than you are used to getting. If you have been avoiding the sun for years you should gradually work up to being out all day.
For all the sun scare hype I have yet to see a study that shows higher skin cancer rates for nudists.
The rate is higher in the northern parts of the country. I suspect that this is due to the lower exposure during winter months than being out all day on a weekend in late spring. The higher northern rates may also be due to using more sun tanning beds to keep the tan going all winter.
It is best to be in the shade during the heat of the day.
But my grass doesn’t just grow in the shade Frank.
At a nude resort I once met a guy with skin cancer, but he was a special case- he was one of the troops that marched though ground zero at Yucca Flats back in the day. A big alpha dose to the skin will do that…
On the other hand, there is growing concern that sunblock may be carcinogenic.
Consider the sun to be an unshielded thermonuclear reactor. You do NOT want to bask in that.
Here on Earth we have shielding from a lot of that reactor and need some exposure but I do not recommend sunbathing just being in the sun some rather than being afraid of it.
The sun CAN screw up your skin. And a lack of sun can screw us up in other ways. BECAUSE many of us have gone TOO far staying out of the sun. I wonder how many people are in the situation where I was recently.
After eating breakfast, and taking my daily vitamins including Vitamin D because mine has been running low according to my Primary Care Dr. I went into the medicine cabinet to drag out UV Screen and slather up pre-lawn mowing!
I’m standing there…thinking to myself…OK dumb@ss…is this REALLY the way to go?
So, I skipped the sun screen, went out to mow, and finished the thing in around 90 minutes wearing no shirt. Did I get red? Yes. Am I losing sleep over it? No. Could I get skin cancer? Maybe. But I was sun burnt a thousand times as a kid! And, like many adults, I’ve been hiding from the sun for 20 or 25 years because the medical community had me scared of ANY sun on my skin!
In fact, after that rethinking, I’ve started doing yard work sans shirt all the time. And after 25 or more years running from the sun, and wearing a UV Screen level of 3217, all the while depriving myself of FREE Vitamin D, I now have somewhat of a tan, instead of looking like a guy who just got out of prison.
My Vitamin D level is now back to normal, where I couldn’t get it WITH the vitamin addition. And just for the telling on this, if your vitamin D level is low gentlemen, it can and often does drive your testosterone level down too. I was also battling that fun.
My testosterone level is now above normal, I no longer have the urge to wear a tutu and dance the Swan Lake Ballet, and I sold my Volvo and quit eating quiche. 😉
So it’s a win win getting free sunshine.
The interesting thing is that Vitamin D is suspected to prevent cancer and auto-immune diseases. So it may turn out that in the balance you either are no worse off or may even be better off getting the solar exposure. You get wrinkled skin but that does not seem like a big issue to me.
Hope you still put sunscreen on your nose.
Nope, not a drop.
Balancing the need to protect from UV radiation v. getting your Vit D is why there are so many different shades of human skin. And the Caucasian-Americans in the audience (or any Australians) are simply at the wrong latitude. We evolved white skin in Northern Europe, with Poland and Sweden being the “ground zero” lack of pigmentation – about the same latitude as most of Canada. This red-headed Irish lad just ain’t built for Florida (where he lives currently).
It is possible to get so much sun it is harmful to your health but to little sun is also harmful to your health. The worst is getting a lot more sun exposure than you are used to getting. If you have been avoiding the sun for years you should gradually work up to being out all day.
For all the sun scare hype I have yet to see a study that shows higher skin cancer rates for nudists.
The rate is higher in the northern parts of the country. I suspect that this is due to the lower exposure during winter months than being out all day on a weekend in late spring. The higher northern rates may also be due to using more sun tanning beds to keep the tan going all winter.
It is best to be in the shade during the heat of the day.
But my grass doesn’t just grow in the shade Frank.
At a nude resort I once met a guy with skin cancer, but he was a special case- he was one of the troops that marched though ground zero at Yucca Flats back in the day. A big alpha dose to the skin will do that…
On the other hand, there is growing concern that sunblock may be carcinogenic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_health_risks_of_sunscreen
So, you see, you really can’t win.
Consider the sun to be an unshielded thermonuclear reactor. You do NOT want to bask in that.
Here on Earth we have shielding from a lot of that reactor and need some exposure but I do not recommend sunbathing just being in the sun some rather than being afraid of it.