• Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
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    14 days ago

    Pale skin is a specific - and quite recent - adaption to colder climates that enables the body to produce sufficient vitamin D even from limited sunlight. Oh and living “naturally” also means you’re very unlikely to live beyond 40, so skin cancer is less of a consideration. But anybody who believes some dumb Tiktoker over scientific fact probably shouldn’t reproduce anyway.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      To clarify, it wasn’t so much that sun was limited, it’s that skin was limited.

      The further away from the equator, the colder it is, the more skin gets covered by clothes and can’t make the D.

      So skin got so pale that just exposed areas like face/hands could make enough D

      There was some evolutionary changes because there’s more variation in length of daylight, but that was really just a more flexible circadian rhythm if I’m remember correctly.

      And the lifespan thing is commonly misunderstood.

      If someone made it to like 10 years old, they’d probably make it to their 60s. Infant mortality was pretty big for most of human evolution. And the getting past the first couple of years was what really brought down average lifespan.

      But anybody who believes some dumb Tiktoker over scientific fact probably shouldn’t reproduce anyway.

      This is a lot more grey, because (at least in America) we can’t count on the government to prevent toxic shit being in everything.

      So it is plausible that some sunscreens are toxic. But even if they are, there needs to be a cost/benefit analysis to see if it’s so toxic it’s more dangerous than sun cancer.

      And expecting your average Americans to do all of that…

      Is gonna lead to a lot of skin cancer. Be a use we’re lazy and it’s easier to just stop using sunscreen