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Comment on Is Sunscreen the New Margarine? (2019)parent

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It claims a link between sunlight exposure and lower death rates (which I can buy), and claims vitamin D is "just a marker [of exposure]".

It also discusses studies that show vitamin D supplements don't change life expectancy.

But it jumps from this to "don't use sunscreen" which is a dangerous jump, completely unsupported by anything discussed in the article.

They have a correlation between low levels of sunlight exposure and higher death rate. They know it isn't shortage of vitamin D that causes that. But they don't know if sunscreen stops whatever it is that reduced the death rate.

As a random hypothesis: we know sunlight reduces depression[1], and that depressed people have lower life expectancy. The mechanism there is serotonin production, which isn't blocked by sunscreen.

I'm not claiming that's the answer - I'm just pointing out that there are many alternative explanations and the evidence for the dangerous advice he is giving ("don't use sunscreen") is missing.

[1] https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20021205/unraveling...

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