Sun Tan Innit?

I am a supporter of self

I am a supporter of self-manufacturing products for protection from sunlight. It is much cheaper and much safer, you can take into account their individual characteristics. But first you need to carefully study everything, for example, https://www.tanoholic.com/diy-lotions-oils/ 

If you use a common sense

If you use a common sense with the time you spend on sun, all will be ok

Ozone? Don’t talk to me about

Ozone? Don’t talk to me about Ozone, & that Ronan Keating is spectacularly shite on his own too!

As a youngster I was sent into the sun and got burnt spectaculary 3 or 4 times to the point of heavy and very painful blistering. I soent a good few years in Spain too. I’m probably knackered but the ride in this morning’s warmth and sunshine was absolutely bloody wonderful.

I assume that there are higher rates of skin cancer in countries that see the sun for more than a couple of days per year.

Jackson wrote:

 

You know that’s a load of old horse cr@p, as Mr Trump as carefully explained several times….

That God bloke must be an

That God bloke must be an utter utter bast@rd.  What with the “making sons of Adam go brown just coz they are 8 light mins away from the biggest sunlamp in the Solar Sytem (which I put there)” which is bad for them business.  It’s amazing we’ve lived as long as we have as a species.

Jackson wrote:

Jackson wrote:

I also grew up in NZ where you can’t even buy anything below SPF 50 and skin cancer rates are higher than anywhere. No tanning isn’t safe, no you don’t need sun to get Vitamin D, yes in short the sun does give you cancer. http://www.webmd.com/beauty/features/tanning-myths-whats-true-whats-hype However like others have pointed out it’s a risk based on exposure and time. Given the state of most UK cyclists legs I’d say not too many people need to worry, but no a tan is not healthy.

I’d strongly disagree with your statement “a tan is not healthy”. And also that you can’t buy below 50 SPF in NZ (I have 10, 20, 30 & 50 in the bathroom cabinet.)

You don’t need sun to get vit D, but all the evidence shows that getting your Vit D from moderate sun exposure provides more benefit than risk. This will come with some level of tan. No sun exposure carries significant elements of associated whole life mortality risk. You could say it that a level of tan represents a level of risk, but lily-white skin from no sun exposure represents greater levels of risk.

The sun does give you cancer, but drinking water also kills you. The poison is in the dose. 

Moderation in all things definitely applies to this one (but probably not to crack smoking)

I’m on the unfortunate end of

I’m on the unfortunate end of this. I have fair skin (English) and moved to New Zealand when I was very young where the sun is considerably harsher. As children we got burned well and often, often having competitions after a sunny weekend to see who could pull the biggest piece of sunburnt skin off our back or shoulders. Rolling on 35 years and I have had over 50 lesions removed, 40 of which have been cancerous, 10 of which have been deep skin (SCC’s). I now live smothered in factor 50 sunscreen, which I am sure is going to give me cancer anyway.

Some unadulterated sun exposure is vital to good health. You produce vitamin D from sun exposure, and that’s helpful for all sorts of things, but above all it promotes normal skin cell activity. Tanning is part of the process which is involved in vitamin D production, but it is also a skin defense process to protect your lower skin layers from ultraviolet rays. Tanning does not reduce your likelihood of skin cancer or in fact of burning. Being heavily tanned is suggestive of long sun exposure which can be dangerous, but might not be. 

Burning , obviously, is damaging to the skin, and kills the upper layers of skin which then removes their ability to tan and protect the lower layers of skin from harmful UV rays, which is what makes them prone to cancerous changes. These changes may not take effect for decades after the exposure.

Is tanning dangerous? Normal tanning, from occasional sun exposure is not dangerous, and whatever minor risks it poses are far outweighed by the benefits (of the sun exposure, and the presumed exercise that accompanied it). Tanning to a greater depth / degree than might occur from normal daily exposure to the sun is simply increasing your exposure to UV rays without increasing your protection from them, so it carries greater risk. Getting burned (which can happen to very dark skinned people just as readily as to fair skinned people) temporarily destroys the protective upper layer of skin exposing the lower layers to potentially damaging levels of UV radiation.

In short, enough sun exposure to develop a natural tan is good, and carries more benefit than risk. Extended sun exposure to develop a deep tan or burning carries increased levels of  risk. That initial level of risk is almost entirely dependent on your genetics and skin type.

NB. Sunscreen is considered as, and sold under the regulations of, cosmetics and so there is no restriction or testing on the ingredients or their efficacy. It is not incumbent on the produces of sunscreen to prove that it does indeed provide 10/20/50 times your normal sun protection, and indeed many of them don’t. When I first developed skin cancer I was living in UK and was told to only get Cancer society sunscreen (which was mercifully one of the cheapest) as it was the only one that had been independently tested. Hopefully things have improved in the last 10 years

Nicola Smith, from Cancer

Nicola Smith, from Cancer Research UK, said: “There’s no such thing as a safe tan, from the sun or sunbeds.

“A suntan is your skin’s way of trying to protect itself from too much sun. And a sunburn is a clear sign that your skin has been damaged.

So this contradicts the asertion that a tan is tantamount to skin damage – sunBURN is damage, whereas a tan is the skin trying to protect itself from burning. I did watch a segment on the BBC breakfast programme with a medical expert who seems to back this up. What they were trying to get accross is that a tan is not ‘healthy’ as once thought, but they did stop short of saying a tan was in itself a sign of damage.

You’ve just got to take note of the advice and act accordingly – if you feel immune, then crack on, it’s your life. I must admit I’m from that generation that grew up with the opinion a tan was something desireable, and that attitude will take some shifting. After all there’s a whole industry based around it.

My grandma smoked crack three times a day, drank Absinthe like it was water, ate a diet consisting of pure lard and slept on an asbestos mattress all her life, and she lived until she was 125. So there.