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Comment by martokus | Hacker News Reader

To;Dr: As with anything, balance is needed. Use your judgement wisely.

That's not the takeaway at all.

The article basically insinuates that you shouldn't use sunscreen, that you should expose yourself to the sun for health reasons and that Vitamin D supplements are actually useless.

Insinuates is the correct word here, as the article dances around the point without providing much evidence. I can believe that people with sun exposure tend to be healthier. But at no point does the author make the case that these people would be even healthier if they didn’t use sunscreen. The link is tenuous at best, and the whole sunscreen part seems thrown in to genrerate a headline.

Eh, the author did give some examples of bad chemicals in some sunscreens, so it's possible that there are negatives to using them.

Here's what I took away:

- don't use sunscreen most of the time (though if you care about aging effects, go for it on your face) - avoid getting sunburns, and use sunscreen as necessary given your desired time in the sun - check labels of sunscreen and get familiar with the common active ingredients

That's basically what I do already, though I'm going to make an effort to spend more time in the sun because I work at home, and therefore get minimal sun exposure normally.

I'd argue that sunscreen on the face might not be a bad thing if there's enough exposure on the rest of the body.

As someone who lives in a sunny Mediterranean country, there's nothing wrong with a few minutes' walk without sunscreen in the midday sun, but the hours of sunbathing (even with sunscreen) don't look very pleasant to me.

People's own feeling on how the sun feels on their skin without sunscreen might be a great indicator of how good it is for you and an individual. Most people don't pay much attention to that, I would guess, but as a person with fairly light complexion (German, French, English, Irish, + minor unknown other) that grew up in sunny northern New Mexico, I find that the direct sun on a summer day feels good for just 5-15 minutes, while on a cold winter day I enjoy it much longer.

I agree, that's what I go by as well. After a few minutes it becomes uncomfortable in the summer, and I look for shade. The only exception is when you're swimming in the sea, when you don't really feel the sun's rays.

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