[Scotswife]

I’m tired of reading articles about the evils of being outdoors because of skin cancer and aging the skin.

We’re supposed to be afraid of fresh air and sunshine?
We’re supposed to coat ourselves with manmade chemicals (sunscreen) the instant we step foot outside?
That way, even when we do get outside, our skin will not absorb the necessary ingredients for vitamin D production.

None of that advise ever made sense to me.

I don’t burn easily, so I rarely put on sunscreen.
2 of children have fair skin, so I let them go 1/2 hr to 1 hr without sunscreen and then apply it so they don’t burn.

Everything in moderation - that goes for the sun too.

[trisham]

We’re supposed to be afraid of fresh air and sunshine? We’re supposed to coat ourselves with manmade chemicals (sunscreen) the instant we step foot outside? That way, even when we do get outside, our skin will not absorb the necessary ingredients for vitamin D production.

None of that advise ever made sense to me.

I don’t burn easily, so I rarely put on sunscreen. 2 of children have fair skin, so I let them go 1/2 hr to 1 hr without sunscreen and then apply it so they don’t burn.

Everything in moderation - that goes for the sun too.

*****************

Exactly! I'm out in the sun gardening during Spring, Summer and Fall. I don't usually use a sunscreen except when I go south of New England, where I will burn to a crisp within an hour. There may be a correlation between increased use of sunscreen and all of these autoimmune diseases.

[ThePythonicCow]

I’m tired of reading articles about the evils of being outdoors because of skin cancer and aging the skin.

Agreed. For those (most people, I hope) who do not have one of the chronic Th1 (innate immunity system) diseases considered here, sunlight and Vitamin D are likely good, and sunscreen trades off protecting us from serious internal, less treatable cancers for protecting us from the easily diagnosed, seldom fatal skin cancers. Sunscreen thus likely has caused more cancer deaths than it avoided, by suppressing Vitamin D production.