Is a Suntan Just as Bad as a Sunburn? Isn’t it Good to Get Some Vitamin D From Sun Exposure?

Is a suntan just as bad as a sunburn? Isn’t it good to get some Vitamin D from sun exposure?

How bad is a suntan, really? And how do UV rays affect your skin? Although rates of indoor tanning have been dropping in the United States, many people still try to get a tan outdoors.

According to a National Cancer Institute analysis of data from the 2020 National Health Interview Survey, about 39 per cent of women and 29 per cent of men in the United States had intentionally sought an outdoor tan in the past year. Yet while bronzed skin may not hurt or peel like a sunburn, it still is not safe, experts say. “If your skin could talk, it would say, ‘Ouch!’ when you get a tan,” Dr Maral Skelsey, a dermatologist at Georgetown University, said.

In fact, she said, skin bronzes precisely because it has been injured – the extra pigmentation is the skin’s attempt to protect itself from further damage.

In Việt Nam 20 years ago colds and flu and depression ̣(these maladies were known there as "women sickness")and manic depression were not uncommon among urban women, Manic Depression only in younger women because the cycles increase in severity with time and they didn't get to be older women. The reason it was a women thing was that women covered up when they went outside in the year round tropic sun because they had heard from their mothers since birth, "Don't let the sun touch your skin or you will turn black and never get a husband." Men wear short sleeves all the time and don't have to worry about dark skin precluding marriage.

Depression and virus have abated drastically from about fifteen years ago when young women began adopting western fashions with bare arms and legs. And they don't burn except the ones with a heavy admixture of French or American genes- they tan. I started that "cure" in one small town in 2005 because I gave a moody young woman a year's supply of D3 because she was always sniffing and coughing. Within a few days of starting on the gelcaps her whole personality changed. She was not moody any more. It struck me that maybe the gelcaps did something for that and I researched it and found a couple of doctors and a medical researcher who say that sunshine(vitamin D) is the only effective medication for Depression. Trang told all her friends and relatives about the miracle cure she got from her American "uncle" and they all started baring some skin when they went out and it spread rapidly.

For us Europoids we have to limit our exposure to sun but should get some in the AM and PM daily while the sun is at a high summer angle and we are wearing short sleeves. We should be taking D3 supps he rest of the year or all the time if we work at night as I do. I have since read that lack of D is why Swedes and Eskimos have a higher suicide rate than hose of us farther south.

In the 60s when I was a wharf rat on the fishing docks one of the charter boat deckhands, Bobby Joe, was a beetle browed big jawed long armed muscular thirtyish fellow with thick curly blond hair all over his head and body. In the summer when he only wore shorts and cut off rubber boots his skin turned a deep red hue and his golden hair became appliance white. It was suntan(sun maroon?) and he never burned. By mid autumn he was back to yellow blond hair and pale skin. Cell phones were not ubiquitous then or I surely would have got a picture of that odd fellow. He was pretty striking in any season.

I don't burn and do get pretty dark, myself.

The dermatologist I see twice a year says my skin cancer issues are rooted into sun BURN I had as a kid. Don’t know if that is true. I tried looking it up but there are 1000 approved government beliefs for every article discussing things with reasons and evidence. For example, an Internet search will tell you it is almost suicidal to eat a hamburger than hasn’t been cooked to an internal temp of 160 degrees (grey) - but that “standard” came about around 2010 to 2015 and my Dad NEVER cooked a hamburger to death and none of us ever got sick from eating hundreds of medium rare hamburgers!

That said:

“Further analyses using sunburn counts at different body sites as categorical variables in the entire study population supported the more apparent association of melanoma risk with sunburn on the trunk than with sunburn on the face/arms or lower limbs (Table 4). The heterogeneity among associations for melanoma with site-specific sunburns in the entire population was marginally significant in men (P =0.05) but not in women (P = 0.15). Further tests suggested that there were statistically significant differences between associations with sunburn on the trunk and sunburn on the face (P = 0.04) and between associations with sunburn on the trunk and sunburn on the lower limbs (P = 0.02) in men; and the difference between associations with sunburn on the trunk and sunburn on the face was also marginally significant in women (P = 0.05). In addition, only sunburn on the trunk was still significantly associated with melanoma risk in both sexes in a joint model including 3 different site-specific sunburn variables simultaneously (data not shown).”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4851991/

I’ve had one pre-cancerous melanoma mole removed. It was on my rib cage in a spot where I’ve never had a sunburn in my life. OTOH, as a kid, I fried my shoulders many times on Florida beaches. And as an adult, I’ve jogged thousands of mile in deserts (including Saudi Arabia). I’ve never needed a mole removed (in 10+ years at the dermatologist) from my arm, shoulders or legs.

My face was exposed to intense sunlight at 20-30,000 feet where it wasn’t covered with an oxygen mask during my years in the military, and 90% of the stuff he removes are developing squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinoma on the parts of my face not covered by my mask. The remaining 10% would be my ears, one on the neck and one on my hand (all SCC/BCC).

And...the one melanoma type pre-cancerous mole that could have killed me, on my rib cage.

You diet (or lack thereof) and/or topical skin exposure to chemicals is what causes skin cancer, not sun exposure.

But, hey, don’t believe me, slather on that crap they tell you to wear (sunscreen).

I bet you didn’t know that 97% of the brands of sunscreen contain a chemical proven to be broken down (by the sun’s ultraviolet rays) into a known carcinogen?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9113541/

Moderate sun exposure is GOOD for you. Spraying chemicals on your skin is not. Neither is not eating your good fats (that’s what enables your skin’s mechanism to protect itself).

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