Funny timing, I just went to a tanning salon for the first time yesterday. I asked for the weakest bed (level 1), which has the most UVB (for vitamin D production). They were shocked that I wanted to use level 1, apparently no one uses it. They also suggested starting at 5 mins instead of the 1-2 minutes I wanted to do. The machine itself has a notice saying not to go over 3 mins for the first week.
I was following the protocol from this paper, which started people at 2 mins and used low wattage UVB-heavy bulbs.
Sunbeds with UVB radiation can produce physiological levels of serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D in healthy volunteers
Unfortunately the Science Advances paper being discussed is epidemiological and doesn't distinguish between the type of bulb, length of time, and other parameters used while tanning. However it is safe to say that the average tanner cares more about getting dark than anything else.
I think there would actually be a market for vitamin D centered "healthy tanning" where only low wattage, high-UVB bulbs are used particularly in cloudy areas or where the winter is long. I'm that guessing the operating costs for that kind of business would be cheaper than your average tanning salon, too.
Interesting... What benefits does this have over vitamin D supplements?
I've seen this "optimising for some perceived negative effects" thing with toothbrushes/toothpaste, where "whitening" and stiff bristles actually just means removing more (irreplaceable) enamel from your teeth.
Stiff bristles also damage your gum more easily and can lead to gum recessions. I needed gum transplants because of this and a wrong brushing technique. For me even medium stiffness is too hard.
There's a history of finding really strong correlations between vitamin D levels and (many kinds of) health, and then disappointing results for RCTs of vitamin D supplementation. There are lots of possible explanations of this, but it seems like a plausible one is that there are some good things sunlight does for you other than produce vitamin D. So I'm a little nervous about everyone eliminating all sun exposure and then taking vitamin D geltabs to compensate, even though sunlight carries some risks. (But obviously too much ionizing radiation is also a problem, and it sounds like most users of tanning beds are getting a lot of intense exposure)
I wonder how much correlation this has with exercise. Generally if you are getting good levels of sunlight, there is a good chance you are outside exercising, even if it's just walking.
After all, exercise is the undisputed God tier all-time winning champion of "Studies show that ______ is good for xyz."
Exposure to sunlight (or lack of it) affects our circadian rhythm and production of melatonin, which affects our sleep quality. Exposure to morning sun in particular is linked with better sleep quality, leading to better health.
UVA triggers the release of nitric oxide from the skin into the bloodstream. This causes blood vessels to dilate, lowering blood pressure and improving circulation.
> There's a history of finding really strong correlations between vitamin D levels and (many kinds of) health, and then disappointing results for RCTs of vitamin D supplementation.
This might just mean that bodies that are healthier in many other aspects are also better at managing their vitamin D stores which isn't all that surprising.
Excessive UV exposure in general not a great time, tanning is just a way of speedrunning damage unless done in very short intervals.
I'll never understand some people's fetishization with getting darker via tanning though. Theres nothing wrong with light skin, its only a few western countries that seem to have a weird fetishization with cooking your skin longterm to get darker short term.
Meanwhile most other countries and peoples are willing to damage their skin in whole other ways trying to get the opposite.
The popularity of tanning is attributed to fashion designer Coco Chanel, who accidentally got too much sun on a Mediterranean cruise in 1923. Since she was a fashion icon, this made the tanned look fashionable.
As an aside, the chemistry behind UV damage is interesting. You can think of DNA as a sequence of four letters: C, G, A, and T. If there are two neighboring T's, UV can move a bond, linking the two T's together (i.e. thymine dimerization). If you're in the sun, each skin cell gets 50-100 of these pairs created per second. Enzymes usually fix these errors, but sometimes the errors will cause problems during DNA replication and you can end up with mutations. Enough of the wrong mutations can cause skin cancer. So wear sunscreen!
"wealthy people can stay inside while poor people work in the sun" vs. "wealthy people can vacation in sunny countries while poor people stay home in the cold"
The US has 200 million white people that live in a mostly warm and sunny climate. Women often tan before vacations or events so they look better in the pictures.
I live in Asia and I think tanned white people do not look good at all most of the time, to me it just looks weird. I much prefer the pale look. People with naturally tan skin however I think look very good.
It's 100% cultural. I think the pale look is super unattractive and ghostly/ghoulish. Tanned skin is beautiful.
It's not that it is a sign of wealth due to leisure. People who work outdoors are tanned too. It's the warmness. The glowing. The gradients. Something impressed upon me at a young age that this is the standard of beauty.
When I'm in Asia and I see people carrying umbrellas and doing skincare, their skin looks clinical and less appealing to me than those who aren't doing it. I logically know the anti-sun regime is healthier for their skin, but my primate brain tells me it's unattractive.
It's unfortunate that increasing melanin production from the sun causes DNA damage. Because it looks so good to me.
There are a variety of drugs that induce pigmentation or melanocyte production, but none are FDA approved. Most of them can lead to cancer, either by uncontrolled cell proliferation, impact on unrelated cell populations, or disrupting normal hormonal signalling.
Melanotan-II was popular some years back, but there are half a dozen others that use a variety of different mechanisms. None of them are approved.
It's unfortunate that we haven't developed something better than exposing ourselves to DNA damage, but it's probably not the biggest priority.
I don't know if it's every Asian country, but Thailand absolutely has an obsession with skin whitening products (whiter skin is correlated with wealth/higher-class and not having to work outside). I found it hard to find a non-whitening lotion while there actually. I really doubt many of these products are safe and it looks very uncanny-valley and weird to me, which is maybe what you're picking up on as unattractive too. Definitely a cultural thing.
The women look much much younger than western equivalents though because they avoid the sun. It's hard to look at western girls in twenties who look like they are in their mid 30s. However, the western girls who have used sunscreen tend to look super good with the original skin.
I grew up in Northern Europe and I still think when people back home do tanning it looks so bad and makes them look super old. They look much better with the natural skin as it's not damaged and it's kind of even. Like I see women in their 20s easily looking like 35 no kidding. I am glad I avoided the sun from young age so I get comments now in my 30s that I look like early 20s which is mostly due to the skin.
Like sometimes I watch American news and the fake tans are just yucky and kind of gross to me.
Same with western women I see in Asia occasionally, age in 20s but looks easily 30+ while it's the opposite with many Asians. Eastern Europeans tend to avoid the sun more.
What do you think those numbers represent? Just so everyone is clear, it's still 12% when we are talking about females who frequently outdoor tan of all races with half the group over 45 years old in a tiny test group. Not exactly relevant
I’m naturally pretty pale and don’t get much sunlight, I feel like I look like shit unless I get just a little bit of tan. What most people would consider just a healthy looking “baseline”. It also puts me in a better mood although that may be entirely psychological.
When I was younger I used to intentionally tan for short durations, but now I realize that’s harmful so I just embrace the cave gollum look
I am white as paper, probably one of the palest people and I live in Asia and often get comment that I have the dream skin. While back at home my parents were teasing me about being a ghost and doctors asking am I sick. Interesting how it changes on cultural basis
I think it’s more than just cultural. Yes, it’s definitely a factor, and there are cultures and there were times where paper white was considered beautiful.
But I think on some level we naturally associate severe paleness with being sick or non-social.
Exposing large amounts of skin to the sun has other health risks when it is freezing outside. :)
Vitamin D deficiency is very common in Canada particularly during winter. The government recommends that everyone intentionally seek out vitamin D rich foods, or to take a supplement.
The mood is probably part light and part vitamin D. The latter can be supplemented. The former can be reproduced with a full spectrum bright lamp or brief sun exposure in the morning.
I mean sort of but you should probably just get some sun if you can. There’s such a thing as too much tanning, sure, but getting no sun is not healthy either.
Possibly. Its actually insanely frustrating as someone pale that most western brands rarely approach the level of lightness I need to match my skin, and the few that come close often are almost always rather saturated, highly warm tones.
They almost always just stick to tones within the realm of pantone's skin guide, treating it more like a skin bible instead.
Haus labs and their triclone in 000 is one of the few foundations I've ever had match.
Second paragraph mentions "regulatory restrictions".
Clinuvel Pharmaceuticals intended to offer it as a cosmetic, but abandoned this pursuit in the 2000s due to regulatory restrictions and concerns about the promotion of suntanning. Unlicensed Melanotan II is found on the internet, although health agencies advise against its use due to lack of testing and regulatory approval.
Tanning causes melanocyte production in your epidermis. Melanotan causes it throughout your body in an uncontrolled manner. In a wide variety of unrelated tissues.
It can lead to uncontrolled melanocyte production that doesn't shut off - cancer. Aggressive melanomas.
It disrupts normal hormone signalling which may downstream cause a variety of deleterious health effects and disease states.
There are also crazy reports of kidney failure, which may or may not be caused by the drug.
But that's the thing, it's not about "more melanin", but rather about something like:
The grass on the other side has a different amount of melanin be harder-to-achieve and thus more desirable because it previously signaled belonging to the higher socio-economical strata.
It's indeed, baffling, ignoring health consequences: Get fashionably darker skin now: Make your skin look (reasonably universally) irreversibly uglier/older gradually over time. This is perhaps the most controllable way to affect how old you look.
It becomes unmissable once someone is in their 30s: Some still have youthful skin, while others are wrinkly, splotched, and saggy.
"The young tanning bed users had more skin mutations than people twice their age, especially in their lower backs, an area that does not get much damage from sunlight but has a great deal of exposure from tanning beds."
So in other areas than the lower back, everyone - tan bed users or not - have these supposed seeds of melanoma as well? And that is for a much larger area of the skin than the one mentioned.
Also I wonder about the quote that a mutated cell can never go back. The immune system could kill the mutated cells and thereby promote the unmutated ones. Though nothing is perfect of course. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2020/jan/analysis-protective-lung...
> The immune system could kill the mutated cells and thereby promote the unmutated ones.
This happens all the time. The mutated cells we see are the ones that immune system couldn't detect and kill. Fortunately they are still overwhelmingly non-cancerous, but unfortunately some might be.
I think people way over cook themselves. The economics and amplified power of tanning beds at salons push people to highly overdose.
I estimated that 1 minute of artificial tanning is comparable to the 10-15 minutes of sun a day that is recommended. But has the benefit of the whole body's largest organ kicking in for the health benefits. So I tan at home for 1 minute a couple times a week. You can't do this economically with a salon.
I don't really get tan, just a little more color. But when I do get any lengthy sun time due to outdoor activities, I tan quickly instead of burn.
I love the idea that we believe that we can replicate all of the natural processes involved in getting a tan, and to such a precision that we can then speed up the process 10 fold, and that we can fit it all into a single unit that can be wheeled in and out of the room.
Unless of course our calculations are a bit off, then we accidentally created a bed version of the wrong chalice from raiders of the lost ark, but I think it's fine.
Some cell and animal studies show that there is a slight possible effect. It hasn't been shown in humans, and even in extrapolation from animals, the protective benefit does not seem particularly significant.
Nude? :) I do think getting a bit of sun everywhere has to enhance the benefits. Thus my solution.
I also walk a lot when I can and weather allows. I started walking with a weighted vest occasionally and it was like my body went into some kind of good shock. I was surprised how little soreness or fatigue I felt even the first time, after a two hour walk wearing 20 lbs. And the physical energy boost was dramatic. I switched to 40 lbs the second time and since.
Sure! Walk out of the sauna, over the garden, down the dock, then jump into the lake for a naked swim.
Do that daily for about four weeks, come rain or shine, whilst enjoying your summer vacation.
Of course that probably doesn't work for every country, but here in Finland it's normal enough. Too bad I'm a pale-skinned redhead, covered in freckles, and I get burned if I'm not too careful.
> I do think getting a bit of sun everywhere has to enhance the benefit
Why? This is not how we naturally insolate.
I’m not saying you’re wrong. Just that the status quo is different parts of your body getting sun each day. You’re not replicating that, which places the burden of evidence on you.
Depends where you live but where I am it's not unacceptable to go for a run in essentially swim wear so you'd be sunning not much less than what you'd get in a public tanning salon
If you know something everyone else doesn't, it would be great to see your paper describing how you do that and demonstrating efficacy. So far, the evidence seems to suggest it's not sufficient: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022202X2...
We can do better than "known for decades, on a layman's level" folklore and the answer actually isn't as straightforward ([1]). Recently there's even been discussion (by a Brit scientist I believe but I have no reference) on skin cancer vs more serious forms of cancer, and also about skin pigmentation playing a role here.
"known" is the wrong word. Laymen know a lot of things, like ingesting lead, radium, mercury and arsenic. Up until a couple of years ago, people "knew" that one glass of wine a day was healthy, when infact every drop is poisonous to the body.
In reverse, people thought (and too many still "know") that MSG and pasteurization is bad.
Don't use the word know, when in fact you mean "assume".
A glass of wine a day is within epsilon of the most healthy possible option. You're making this out as if this is a big shift, but it isn't. There are just huge error bars on the measurements relative to the effect of the intervention.
Is MSG not bad for you in the way aspartame is not bad for you? I totally get that MSG is naturally present in dashi but the chemistry of dashi (a very messy and complex mix of substances) vs purified msg is going to be different, and the concentrations the japanese consume food containing dashi are very different to the way UPFs and chinese restaurants gratuitously smother your food in it. MSG is to many cuisines what butter is to western cuisine (ie moar is always bettah)
MSG is very safe in normal quantities with a similar safety profile to salt. You can drink MSG water to kill yourself but it’d be like drinking a gallon seawater. It’s monosodium glutamate. Monosodium as in NaCl (table salt) and glutamate as in the amino acid and neurotransmitter. Once they disassociate in water, they’re both some of the most basic molecules used by all life, including for protein production.
There’s no evidence linking MSG specifically with any chronic health issues and little reason to suspect there would be in healthy people at the quantities generally consumed. Funnily enough many people who are wary of MSG and try to avoid it would be better off looking at their sodium intake, which we know for sure has long term health risks.
Well it seems pretty accepted that refined sugar is worse for you than consuming sugars locked up in fibrous fruits. From a similar intuition glutamates locked up in natural sources probably has a different bioavailability profile to refined MSG, incidental sodium intake notwithstanding.
In any case, everyone is different and catchall health advice lacks nuance. I have to very consciously consume more and more salt because I habitually cut it out to the point that I now suffer from hyponatremia especially as I exercise and sweat bucket loads.
I am someone who is sensitive to MSG and the new substitutes they put in food to replace it.
It is not "dangerous", and I think that is the problem with the messaging, but it does increase my anxiety, insomnia and fibromyalgia symptoms. And I also thing for most people it is fine, but it certainly does not work with my family's genetics. My mother had the same issue.
Many things in food now replace MSG. Any time you see a protein isolate, what they are isolating is the glutamate. Malted Barley Flour also contains high levels of glutamate and purines (like inosine) that work synergisticly with it to enhance flavor.
Glutamate is an excitatory neurotransmitter, and it makes your taste buds more "excited". My mouth tastes like metal whenever I have foods with glutamate. It is not pleasant for me at all.
salt was always advised to be limited, especially for those with high blood pressure. This hasn't changed, there are just vocal diet ideologues (mostly carnivore/keto) that are trying to post-hoc rationalize otherwise.
I actually live in southern Europe and most of my friends who are >35 and have been out and about for most of their lives do indeed look much older than they are.
I think that’s because locals have some level of adaptation to their region. In Australia, you can really see how the high levels of sunshine affect the Northern Europe descendants who live there today. Some 30 yo women look easily 40.
The UV damage from tanning beds has been well documented for decades, but what's novel here is the genetic methylation analysis showing accelerated aging at the DNA level.
What's wild to me is the economics. Tanning salons charge $30-50/month to give you skin cancer. Meanwhile vitamin D supplements cost $10/year and achieve the same health benefit people claim to seek from tanning.
The only rational argument I've heard for controlled UV exposure is building a base tan before vacation to prevent burning. But even then, 1-2 minutes in a low-wattage bed would suffice - not the 20+ minute sessions people actually do.
A Google search for vitamin d results in ads, ahem "sponsored results", for 180 servings for $27, which is about $55 for a full year assuming it's one serving per day, which is the same decimal order of magnitude as $10 (but, I suppose, since we are on HN, is three or four orders of magnitude in binary)
There was this lady who started going to the tanning salon across the street from my place. In 4-5 months her skin had turned from pale white into tanned leather. It was shocking watching this happen.
The UVB portion of sunlight indirectly increases dopamine levels. You find it mainly near noon-day sunlight, and tanning beds. So the feel-good effects may encourage users to come back for more.
If you travel around you can see with your own eyes that countries that have both A) more sun and B) culture of intentional exposure (e.g. at the beach) people by the age they're 40 have on average noticeably worse skin. More wrinkles, more dark patches etc.
Melanotan makes your skin react to light more effectively and you can get a full tan quite quickly with it (even in a few days). I don't know whether that means it ages you less because it takes less UV exposure to get a good tan with it or if it has some other adverse side effect. But I have tried it once and it is definitely effective.
After workout, i sit in the mild sun each morning before having my breakfast and have done so for many years now. I live near Himalayas and sun is always there, except for some weeks of winter.
In my experience, people who tan know this but the argument is always they don’t care it’s part of life and it’s better to just enjoy now than spend time worrying about looking wrinkly in the future, because what’s the point of being old and having smooth perfect skin?
Fucking stupid, there is nothing better in life than looking young and beautiful forever IMO.
Most people can barely think a month ahead, they will wake up one day and be like oh shit why do I look so old and panic hard and do all sorts of surgeries, skin creams etc. nonsense while they could have just avoided the sun or used the suncreen..
Most people thinking aging is something that happens to other people, but that they will always pass for 20 something. Then they get offended when you correctly guess their age in the late 30s or 40s.
I live in Ireland, there's practically 0 opportunity to get exposed to the sun unless you work outdoors, and even then only your face and hands and perhaps forearms get exposed. I just take vitamin D tablets.
Also I know UV goes through clouds, but when its raining all the time you tend to stay indoors and only go outside with raincoat / umbrella.
Funny timing, I just went to a tanning salon for the first time yesterday. I asked for the weakest bed (level 1), which has the most UVB (for vitamin D production). They were shocked that I wanted to use level 1, apparently no one uses it. They also suggested starting at 5 mins instead of the 1-2 minutes I wanted to do. The machine itself has a notice saying not to go over 3 mins for the first week.
I was following the protocol from this paper, which started people at 2 mins and used low wattage UVB-heavy bulbs.
Sunbeds with UVB radiation can produce physiological levels of serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D in healthy volunteers
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5821157/
Unfortunately the Science Advances paper being discussed is epidemiological and doesn't distinguish between the type of bulb, length of time, and other parameters used while tanning. However it is safe to say that the average tanner cares more about getting dark than anything else.
I think there would actually be a market for vitamin D centered "healthy tanning" where only low wattage, high-UVB bulbs are used particularly in cloudy areas or where the winter is long. I'm that guessing the operating costs for that kind of business would be cheaper than your average tanning salon, too.
Interesting... What benefits does this have over vitamin D supplements?
I've seen this "optimising for some perceived negative effects" thing with toothbrushes/toothpaste, where "whitening" and stiff bristles actually just means removing more (irreplaceable) enamel from your teeth.
Stiff bristles also damage your gum more easily and can lead to gum recessions. I needed gum transplants because of this and a wrong brushing technique. For me even medium stiffness is too hard.
There's a history of finding really strong correlations between vitamin D levels and (many kinds of) health, and then disappointing results for RCTs of vitamin D supplementation. There are lots of possible explanations of this, but it seems like a plausible one is that there are some good things sunlight does for you other than produce vitamin D. So I'm a little nervous about everyone eliminating all sun exposure and then taking vitamin D geltabs to compensate, even though sunlight carries some risks. (But obviously too much ionizing radiation is also a problem, and it sounds like most users of tanning beds are getting a lot of intense exposure)
I wonder how much correlation this has with exercise. Generally if you are getting good levels of sunlight, there is a good chance you are outside exercising, even if it's just walking.
After all, exercise is the undisputed God tier all-time winning champion of "Studies show that ______ is good for xyz."
Also gives you a brief respite from sitting in a climate-controlled environment and staring at screens.
Exposure to sunlight (or lack of it) affects our circadian rhythm and production of melatonin, which affects our sleep quality. Exposure to morning sun in particular is linked with better sleep quality, leading to better health.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12502225/
UVA triggers the release of nitric oxide from the skin into the bloodstream. This causes blood vessels to dilate, lowering blood pressure and improving circulation.
> There's a history of finding really strong correlations between vitamin D levels and (many kinds of) health, and then disappointing results for RCTs of vitamin D supplementation.
This might just mean that bodies that are healthier in many other aspects are also better at managing their vitamin D stores which isn't all that surprising.
Here’s a podcast on this:
https://www.artofmanliness.com/health-fitness/health/podcast...
There are multiple studies showing infrared enhances mythocondria function, and this is already used therapeutically.
Excessive UV exposure in general not a great time, tanning is just a way of speedrunning damage unless done in very short intervals.
I'll never understand some people's fetishization with getting darker via tanning though. Theres nothing wrong with light skin, its only a few western countries that seem to have a weird fetishization with cooking your skin longterm to get darker short term. Meanwhile most other countries and peoples are willing to damage their skin in whole other ways trying to get the opposite.
The popularity of tanning is attributed to fashion designer Coco Chanel, who accidentally got too much sun on a Mediterranean cruise in 1923. Since she was a fashion icon, this made the tanned look fashionable.
As an aside, the chemistry behind UV damage is interesting. You can think of DNA as a sequence of four letters: C, G, A, and T. If there are two neighboring T's, UV can move a bond, linking the two T's together (i.e. thymine dimerization). If you're in the sun, each skin cell gets 50-100 of these pairs created per second. Enzymes usually fix these errors, but sometimes the errors will cause problems during DNA replication and you can end up with mutations. Enough of the wrong mutations can cause skin cancer. So wear sunscreen!
https://pdb101.rcsb.org/motm/91
They're both imitations of status symbols
"wealthy people can stay inside while poor people work in the sun" vs. "wealthy people can vacation in sunny countries while poor people stay home in the cold"
The US has 200 million white people that live in a mostly warm and sunny climate. Women often tan before vacations or events so they look better in the pictures.
I live in Asia and I think tanned white people do not look good at all most of the time, to me it just looks weird. I much prefer the pale look. People with naturally tan skin however I think look very good.
It's 100% cultural. I think the pale look is super unattractive and ghostly/ghoulish. Tanned skin is beautiful.
It's not that it is a sign of wealth due to leisure. People who work outdoors are tanned too. It's the warmness. The glowing. The gradients. Something impressed upon me at a young age that this is the standard of beauty.
When I'm in Asia and I see people carrying umbrellas and doing skincare, their skin looks clinical and less appealing to me than those who aren't doing it. I logically know the anti-sun regime is healthier for their skin, but my primate brain tells me it's unattractive.
It's unfortunate that increasing melanin production from the sun causes DNA damage. Because it looks so good to me.
There are a variety of drugs that induce pigmentation or melanocyte production, but none are FDA approved. Most of them can lead to cancer, either by uncontrolled cell proliferation, impact on unrelated cell populations, or disrupting normal hormonal signalling.
Melanotan-II was popular some years back, but there are half a dozen others that use a variety of different mechanisms. None of them are approved.
It's unfortunate that we haven't developed something better than exposing ourselves to DNA damage, but it's probably not the biggest priority.
I don't know if it's every Asian country, but Thailand absolutely has an obsession with skin whitening products (whiter skin is correlated with wealth/higher-class and not having to work outside). I found it hard to find a non-whitening lotion while there actually. I really doubt many of these products are safe and it looks very uncanny-valley and weird to me, which is maybe what you're picking up on as unattractive too. Definitely a cultural thing.
The women look much much younger than western equivalents though because they avoid the sun. It's hard to look at western girls in twenties who look like they are in their mid 30s. However, the western girls who have used sunscreen tend to look super good with the original skin.
I grew up in Northern Europe and I still think when people back home do tanning it looks so bad and makes them look super old. They look much better with the natural skin as it's not damaged and it's kind of even. Like I see women in their 20s easily looking like 35 no kidding. I am glad I avoided the sun from young age so I get comments now in my 30s that I look like early 20s which is mostly due to the skin.
Like sometimes I watch American news and the fake tans are just yucky and kind of gross to me.
Same with western women I see in Asia occasionally, age in 20s but looks easily 30+ while it's the opposite with many Asians. Eastern Europeans tend to avoid the sun more.
Men (7.4%) and women (11.5%) both do it, but yes women in the US in larger numbers. Worth mentioning it’s still a substantial % of men.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5664932/#:~:text=9....
What do you think those numbers represent? Just so everyone is clear, it's still 12% when we are talking about females who frequently outdoor tan of all races with half the group over 45 years old in a tiny test group. Not exactly relevant
I’m naturally pretty pale and don’t get much sunlight, I feel like I look like shit unless I get just a little bit of tan. What most people would consider just a healthy looking “baseline”. It also puts me in a better mood although that may be entirely psychological.
When I was younger I used to intentionally tan for short durations, but now I realize that’s harmful so I just embrace the cave gollum look
I am white as paper, probably one of the palest people and I live in Asia and often get comment that I have the dream skin. While back at home my parents were teasing me about being a ghost and doctors asking am I sick. Interesting how it changes on cultural basis
I think it’s more than just cultural. Yes, it’s definitely a factor, and there are cultures and there were times where paper white was considered beautiful.
But I think on some level we naturally associate severe paleness with being sick or non-social.
I say this as the original commenter
Just eat/drink a lot of carrots instead.
Why don't you just spend time outside a little bit?
Exposing large amounts of skin to the sun has other health risks when it is freezing outside. :)
Vitamin D deficiency is very common in Canada particularly during winter. The government recommends that everyone intentionally seek out vitamin D rich foods, or to take a supplement.
The mood is probably part light and part vitamin D. The latter can be supplemented. The former can be reproduced with a full spectrum bright lamp or brief sun exposure in the morning.
I mean sort of but you should probably just get some sun if you can. There’s such a thing as too much tanning, sure, but getting no sun is not healthy either.
Be sure you're taking care of your skin doing it, though. Get the good European sunscreens and so on, you don't want to age yourself prematurely.
I've tried all kinds of Vitamin D/bright bulbs/staring at the sun over the years and they do nothing for my mood
Cosmetic companies to blame? In the east, they fetishize white / fair skin, while in the west they fetishize dark skin.
Possibly. Its actually insanely frustrating as someone pale that most western brands rarely approach the level of lightness I need to match my skin, and the few that come close often are almost always rather saturated, highly warm tones.
They almost always just stick to tones within the realm of pantone's skin guide, treating it more like a skin bible instead.
Haus labs and their triclone in 000 is one of the few foundations I've ever had match.
People with dark skin do also still struggle to find their tones in most western countries unless they live in a huge city.
No, people who do it are to blame.
You can always use Melanotan II instead to get a good tan while also increasing libido and sleep quality; )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanotan_II says it is banned in the United States, and anything you get on the black market isn't guaranteed to be pure.
Where does it say it's banned?
Second paragraph mentions "regulatory restrictions".
Clinuvel Pharmaceuticals intended to offer it as a cosmetic, but abandoned this pursuit in the 2000s due to regulatory restrictions and concerns about the promotion of suntanning. Unlicensed Melanotan II is found on the internet, although health agencies advise against its use due to lack of testing and regulatory approval.
It’s banned for cosmetic use. You can still buy it as a “research chemical”.
Do not buy it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46345971
BEWARE.
Melanotan is dangerous, sadly.
Tanning causes melanocyte production in your epidermis. Melanotan causes it throughout your body in an uncontrolled manner. In a wide variety of unrelated tissues.
It can lead to uncontrolled melanocyte production that doesn't shut off - cancer. Aggressive melanomas.
It disrupts normal hormone signalling which may downstream cause a variety of deleterious health effects and disease states.
There are also crazy reports of kidney failure, which may or may not be caused by the drug.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7148395/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23121206/
https://www.actasdermo.org/en-eruptive-dysplastic-nevi-follo...
I’m pretty sure Melanotan carries the risk of retinal pigmentation, or at least that was the case with the original. Not sure if II is different.
> I'll never understand some people's fetishization with getting darker
> ...
> Meanwhile most other countries and peoples are willing to damage their skin in whole other ways trying to get the opposite.
The grass has more melanin on the other side.
But that's the thing, it's not about "more melanin", but rather about something like:
The grass on the other side has a different amount of melanin be harder-to-achieve and thus more desirable because it previously signaled belonging to the higher socio-economical strata.
It's indeed, baffling, ignoring health consequences: Get fashionably darker skin now: Make your skin look (reasonably universally) irreversibly uglier/older gradually over time. This is perhaps the most controllable way to affect how old you look.
It becomes unmissable once someone is in their 30s: Some still have youthful skin, while others are wrinkly, splotched, and saggy.
I often see women in their mid 20s looking like 35 simply because of the skin.
The book by Dr. Seuss, “The Star Bellied Sneetches” explorers the phenomenon.
And what's funny is Western countries idolise tanned skin whereas Asian countries tend to idolise lighter skin.
> I'll never understand some people's fetishization with getting darker via tanning though
While some darker skin people want to have lighter skin.
Maybe at some deeper level it’s something about being human. We always want something the other person has
I'm pretty sure it's just cultural. They don't want to be fairer, or darker, they want the social status that it, allegedly, signals.
> We always want something the other person has
This. Same with curly vs straight hair.
"The young tanning bed users had more skin mutations than people twice their age, especially in their lower backs, an area that does not get much damage from sunlight but has a great deal of exposure from tanning beds."
So in other areas than the lower back, everyone - tan bed users or not - have these supposed seeds of melanoma as well? And that is for a much larger area of the skin than the one mentioned.
Also I wonder about the quote that a mutated cell can never go back. The immune system could kill the mutated cells and thereby promote the unmutated ones. Though nothing is perfect of course. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2020/jan/analysis-protective-lung...
> The immune system could kill the mutated cells and thereby promote the unmutated ones.
This happens all the time. The mutated cells we see are the ones that immune system couldn't detect and kill. Fortunately they are still overwhelmingly non-cancerous, but unfortunately some might be.
This reminds me of the "Tanning Mom".
[0] https://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/26/justice/new-jersey-tannin...
I think people way over cook themselves. The economics and amplified power of tanning beds at salons push people to highly overdose.
I estimated that 1 minute of artificial tanning is comparable to the 10-15 minutes of sun a day that is recommended. But has the benefit of the whole body's largest organ kicking in for the health benefits. So I tan at home for 1 minute a couple times a week. You can't do this economically with a salon.
I don't really get tan, just a little more color. But when I do get any lengthy sun time due to outdoor activities, I tan quickly instead of burn.
I love the idea that we believe that we can replicate all of the natural processes involved in getting a tan, and to such a precision that we can then speed up the process 10 fold, and that we can fit it all into a single unit that can be wheeled in and out of the room.
Unless of course our calculations are a bit off, then we accidentally created a bed version of the wrong chalice from raiders of the lost ark, but I think it's fine.
Replicate the natural processes? It's literally just UV light.
UV comes in an huge variety of strengths outdoors.
There are no calculations to be a "bit off". It's just strong UV. You're making it sound a lot more complicated than it is.
Sun also emits infrared which seems to cause positive effects counteracting some of the UV related problems.
Some cell and animal studies show that there is a slight possible effect. It hasn't been shown in humans, and even in extrapolation from animals, the protective benefit does not seem particularly significant.
Yeah. There are so many variables already. From angle to time of year to skin pigment to duration
I just walk outdoors.
Nude? :) I do think getting a bit of sun everywhere has to enhance the benefits. Thus my solution.
I also walk a lot when I can and weather allows. I started walking with a weighted vest occasionally and it was like my body went into some kind of good shock. I was surprised how little soreness or fatigue I felt even the first time, after a two hour walk wearing 20 lbs. And the physical energy boost was dramatic. I switched to 40 lbs the second time and since.
Sure! Walk out of the sauna, over the garden, down the dock, then jump into the lake for a naked swim.
Do that daily for about four weeks, come rain or shine, whilst enjoying your summer vacation.
Of course that probably doesn't work for every country, but here in Finland it's normal enough. Too bad I'm a pale-skinned redhead, covered in freckles, and I get burned if I'm not too careful.
I too have played My Summer Car
> I do think getting a bit of sun everywhere has to enhance the benefit
Why? This is not how we naturally insolate.
I’m not saying you’re wrong. Just that the status quo is different parts of your body getting sun each day. You’re not replicating that, which places the burden of evidence on you.
Depends where you live but where I am it's not unacceptable to go for a run in essentially swim wear so you'd be sunning not much less than what you'd get in a public tanning salon
There are tan-thru clothes, if you want to be serious about it.
This isn't super useful for UV exposure in winter, due to low angle of the sun, clouds, and of course clothing.
I just take vitamins if needed, saves time and no cancer.
If you know something everyone else doesn't, it would be great to see your paper describing how you do that and demonstrating efficacy. So far, the evidence seems to suggest it's not sufficient: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022202X2...
The tricky part is defining "needed".
After all, supplements are also artificial compounds
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33584011
how do you tan at home? you bought some UVB bulbs?
I suppose the specifics are novel enough to warrant a paper, but on a layman’s level it has been known for decades that UV ages your skin rapidly.
We can do better than "known for decades, on a layman's level" folklore and the answer actually isn't as straightforward ([1]). Recently there's even been discussion (by a Brit scientist I believe but I have no reference) on skin cancer vs more serious forms of cancer, and also about skin pigmentation playing a role here.
[1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022202X2...
Yeah of course scientists can still learn more, but at some point the layman can’t really get any new information from the press release.
That link does not refute the claim that UV ages your skin, which it unquestionably does.
"known" is the wrong word. Laymen know a lot of things, like ingesting lead, radium, mercury and arsenic. Up until a couple of years ago, people "knew" that one glass of wine a day was healthy, when infact every drop is poisonous to the body.
In reverse, people thought (and too many still "know") that MSG and pasteurization is bad.
Don't use the word know, when in fact you mean "assume".
A glass of wine a day is within epsilon of the most healthy possible option. You're making this out as if this is a big shift, but it isn't. There are just huge error bars on the measurements relative to the effect of the intervention.
Is MSG not bad for you in the way aspartame is not bad for you? I totally get that MSG is naturally present in dashi but the chemistry of dashi (a very messy and complex mix of substances) vs purified msg is going to be different, and the concentrations the japanese consume food containing dashi are very different to the way UPFs and chinese restaurants gratuitously smother your food in it. MSG is to many cuisines what butter is to western cuisine (ie moar is always bettah)
MSG is very safe in normal quantities with a similar safety profile to salt. You can drink MSG water to kill yourself but it’d be like drinking a gallon seawater. It’s monosodium glutamate. Monosodium as in NaCl (table salt) and glutamate as in the amino acid and neurotransmitter. Once they disassociate in water, they’re both some of the most basic molecules used by all life, including for protein production.
There’s no evidence linking MSG specifically with any chronic health issues and little reason to suspect there would be in healthy people at the quantities generally consumed. Funnily enough many people who are wary of MSG and try to avoid it would be better off looking at their sodium intake, which we know for sure has long term health risks.
Well it seems pretty accepted that refined sugar is worse for you than consuming sugars locked up in fibrous fruits. From a similar intuition glutamates locked up in natural sources probably has a different bioavailability profile to refined MSG, incidental sodium intake notwithstanding.
In any case, everyone is different and catchall health advice lacks nuance. I have to very consciously consume more and more salt because I habitually cut it out to the point that I now suffer from hyponatremia especially as I exercise and sweat bucket loads.
I am someone who is sensitive to MSG and the new substitutes they put in food to replace it.
It is not "dangerous", and I think that is the problem with the messaging, but it does increase my anxiety, insomnia and fibromyalgia symptoms. And I also thing for most people it is fine, but it certainly does not work with my family's genetics. My mother had the same issue.
Many things in food now replace MSG. Any time you see a protein isolate, what they are isolating is the glutamate. Malted Barley Flour also contains high levels of glutamate and purines (like inosine) that work synergisticly with it to enhance flavor.
Glutamate is an excitatory neurotransmitter, and it makes your taste buds more "excited". My mouth tastes like metal whenever I have foods with glutamate. It is not pleasant for me at all.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9883458/
https://www.eurofins.com/media-centre/newsletters/food-newsl...
salt is bad again?
salt was always advised to be limited, especially for those with high blood pressure. This hasn't changed, there are just vocal diet ideologues (mostly carnivore/keto) that are trying to post-hoc rationalize otherwise.
From what I understand it's only really a problem for a specific set of high blood pressure folks. Something genetic I think.
I'm on blood pressure medication, and haven't received any advice about sodium intake.
MSG is only bad for you because it makes things taste amazing so you are going to eat more than you actually should. Nothing wrong with butter btw.
As with most food stuffs if not consumed in moderation it can become a problem.
I don’t think it’s super straightforward. Another thing laymen know: Most younger people in southern Europe don’t look old.
I actually live in southern Europe and most of my friends who are >35 and have been out and about for most of their lives do indeed look much older than they are.
I think that’s because locals have some level of adaptation to their region. In Australia, you can really see how the high levels of sunshine affect the Northern Europe descendants who live there today. Some 30 yo women look easily 40.
The UV damage from tanning beds has been well documented for decades, but what's novel here is the genetic methylation analysis showing accelerated aging at the DNA level.
What's wild to me is the economics. Tanning salons charge $30-50/month to give you skin cancer. Meanwhile vitamin D supplements cost $10/year and achieve the same health benefit people claim to seek from tanning.
The only rational argument I've heard for controlled UV exposure is building a base tan before vacation to prevent burning. But even then, 1-2 minutes in a low-wattage bed would suffice - not the 20+ minute sessions people actually do.
Where are you seeing vitamin D supplements for $10/year? That’s several orders of magnitude less than most OTC supplements.
A Google search for vitamin d results in ads, ahem "sponsored results", for 180 servings for $27, which is about $55 for a full year assuming it's one serving per day, which is the same decimal order of magnitude as $10 (but, I suppose, since we are on HN, is three or four orders of magnitude in binary)
There was this lady who started going to the tanning salon across the street from my place. In 4-5 months her skin had turned from pale white into tanned leather. It was shocking watching this happen.
Yeah very similar story. A friend of my wife's started tanning and now she looks like an old bag of brown leather. Too much is never enough for her.
Isn’t that precisely the expected outcome of going to a tanning salon?
Shockingly unnatural, I assume, not shocking scientifically.
The UVB portion of sunlight indirectly increases dopamine levels. You find it mainly near noon-day sunlight, and tanning beds. So the feel-good effects may encourage users to come back for more.
Frequent tanning bed users all have this addict level rationalization for using them when everyone knows it's harmful.
It’s like someone wrote an article in 1992 and finally decided to submit it.
It's news for many Americans.
No it isn't.
If you travel around you can see with your own eyes that countries that have both A) more sun and B) culture of intentional exposure (e.g. at the beach) people by the age they're 40 have on average noticeably worse skin. More wrinkles, more dark patches etc.
More skin cancer
What a stupid thing. Probably on par with people bleaching their skin with chemicals.
But my b-hole is b-hole coloured and what if somebody sees it?
Why go to the expense of a tanning bed when you can get skin cancer for free.
My job requires me to work indoors during high-UV hours. But I'll look into weekend exposure, thanks!
Geographically this is unpractical at some locations. Mild understatement. Do you happen to live in a year round sunny place?
This is true. As a society we often overlook the barriers to get skin cancer in many communities.
It’s currently -10C with 50km/h wind gusts. The cloud cover suggests I’ll see some snow today. There is no sun.
I’ll lend you my balcony if you want to try for a tan. Do you think it will happen before sunset? That’s 430pm and it is currently 10:30am.
As a naturist I’ve always wondered whether there’s a difference in prevailing skin cancer rates, but I’ve never found any data.
How does this compare to Melatonan peptide?
Melanotan makes your skin react to light more effectively and you can get a full tan quite quickly with it (even in a few days). I don't know whether that means it ages you less because it takes less UV exposure to get a good tan with it or if it has some other adverse side effect. But I have tried it once and it is definitely effective.
Most of you would not even be close to guessing the top ten states with the highest skin cancer rates.
Utah Minnesota Vermont Arizona Iowa Idaho New Hampshire South Dakota Nebraska Kentucky
https://statecancerprofiles.cancer.gov/incidencerates/index....
Skin damage, and skin cancer, is not just about the sun. It is about genetics and nutrition as well.
After workout, i sit in the mild sun each morning before having my breakfast and have done so for many years now. I live near Himalayas and sun is always there, except for some weeks of winter.
It’s not just the working out — it’s the sun lounging that has really made you comprehend the differences.
And?
He's very fit but looks like he's 120 years old.
In my experience, people who tan know this but the argument is always they don’t care it’s part of life and it’s better to just enjoy now than spend time worrying about looking wrinkly in the future, because what’s the point of being old and having smooth perfect skin?
Fucking stupid, there is nothing better in life than looking young and beautiful forever IMO.
Most people can barely think a month ahead, they will wake up one day and be like oh shit why do I look so old and panic hard and do all sorts of surgeries, skin creams etc. nonsense while they could have just avoided the sun or used the suncreen..
Most people thinking aging is something that happens to other people, but that they will always pass for 20 something. Then they get offended when you correctly guess their age in the late 30s or 40s.
I live in Ireland, there's practically 0 opportunity to get exposed to the sun unless you work outdoors, and even then only your face and hands and perhaps forearms get exposed. I just take vitamin D tablets.
Also I know UV goes through clouds, but when its raining all the time you tend to stay indoors and only go outside with raincoat / umbrella.