Excellent, thank you! Looking over the figures I think this has the necessary info for calculating optimal sun exposure length, inputting skin tone, latitude, and month. Sadly, it doesn’t weigh dietary vitamin D against sun exposure or factor in the non-vitamin D stuff (I suspect the nitric oxide stuff and circadian regulation is pretty important), but still!
If If I sufficiently understand this then once I have more time I will try to give back by making an info-graphic which is more accessible to the public.
Judging from what I’m seeing here I think there might be benefit to timing when one’s skin personally begins to “redden”. I wonder if “darkening” is the same as “reddening”. (I’m north-Indian dark and start getting tan lines with only 10 minutes of sun, which disappear within a 1-2 hours of shade. I’m not sure if that’s analogous to the “skin reddening” they describe or if the skin reddening is a separate process indicating damage rather than melanin production. I’ve never actually gotten sunburn so I’m not sure when darkening ends and reddening begins, if it is indeed separate)
Intermittent sun exposure and sunburn history were shown to play considerable roles as risk factors for melanoma, whereas a high occupational sun exposure seemed to be inversely associated to melanoma.
Luckily I’m dark enough to never have burnt, unluckily that means I need more exposure.
Interesting. So 20 minute cycles over 2 hours is probably better than continuous 1 hour exposure. Not surprising, but unfortunately inconvenient from a scheduling standpoint, given that the peak time for D synthesis is supposed to be noon which is during most people’s workday. I kind of thought this might be the case and try to mimic cycling by flipping around frequently.
(That said, the noon people might be wrong, longer exposure over less intense evening sun might be better and intense noon exposure).
Excellent, thank you! Looking over the figures I think this has the necessary info for calculating optimal sun exposure length, inputting skin tone, latitude, and month. Sadly, it doesn’t weigh dietary vitamin D against sun exposure or factor in the non-vitamin D stuff (I suspect the nitric oxide stuff and circadian regulation is pretty important), but still!
If If I sufficiently understand this then once I have more time I will try to give back by making an info-graphic which is more accessible to the public.
Judging from what I’m seeing here I think there might be benefit to timing when one’s skin personally begins to “redden”. I wonder if “darkening” is the same as “reddening”. (I’m north-Indian dark and start getting tan lines with only 10 minutes of sun, which disappear within a 1-2 hours of shade. I’m not sure if that’s analogous to the “skin reddening” they describe or if the skin reddening is a separate process indicating damage rather than melanin production. I’ve never actually gotten sunburn so I’m not sure when darkening ends and reddening begins, if it is indeed separate)
As far as I know, sunburn is associated with skin cancer, while sun exposure without sunburn is not, or at least starts to depend on other factors.
See e.g. this abstract which says
Luckily I’m dark enough to never have burnt, unluckily that means I need more exposure.
Interesting. So 20 minute cycles over 2 hours is probably better than continuous 1 hour exposure. Not surprising, but unfortunately inconvenient from a scheduling standpoint, given that the peak time for D synthesis is supposed to be noon which is during most people’s workday. I kind of thought this might be the case and try to mimic cycling by flipping around frequently.
(That said, the noon people might be wrong, longer exposure over less intense evening sun might be better and intense noon exposure).