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Comment by the__alchemist | Hacker News Reader

Note: preventing photo aging by limiting exposure to UV, is currently the single biggest thing you can do to slow [an aspect of] visible aging.

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I'm 60, and from mostly Irish descent -- meaning I burn easily and don't really tan much. I've never been a beach-goer/sun-bather. The sun I get is just incidental to mowing the lawn, walking the dog, etc.

The skin on my arms looks like a typical 60 year old -- spotted, thin, little elasticity. But lift up my sleeve and the skin of my upper arm and shoulder look like that of a 20 year old. My torso skin is young too, but it is weird to demonstrate that to young people.

Ben Franklin said about the same of older women!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advice_to_a_Friend_on_Choosing...

I recently went 10 years without seeing the sun, and I definitely think it had an anti-aging effect on my skin.

I worry about what aging effects it had inside my body, though, being without for so long.

10 years, how?

Jail :( No windows. Lots of county jails in the USA have no windows or very tiny windows, or fake windows, because they are inside cities and they don't want people looking in or out.

Isn't sunscreen use enough?

It can be.

Very few people use the recommended amount of sunscreen (it's more than you think) and even when you do, no sunscreen blocks 100% of the photo-aging UV energy that hits your skin (note: still wear sunscreen - absorbing 5 or 10% is better than 100% of the radiation you would otherwise absorb). This also means that (contrary to what weird sunscreen-truthers will tell you) wearing sufficient sunscreen does not prevent you from producing vitamin D - sunscreen is not the same as never seeing the sun.

Well by extension, you're still exposed to diffuse UV indirectly if you get natural light.

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