Talk:Health effects of sunlight exposure

Variations in skin color

Revision as of 03:34, 5 July 2010:

"Homo sapiens evolved near the equator, and human skin colour is a visible indication of direct sun exposure due to the pigmentation level."
(Undid revision 371783888 by 24.150.235.128 I think this was creationist vandalism) -Hordaland (talk)

I'm not a creationist. I removed the bit about skin color being a direct indication of geographical origin because there was no citation and it's a controversial topic. Also people in the far southern hemisphere as well as native north Americans have dark skin. It seems more likely that the distribution of skin color globally is more linked to imperial expansion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.150.235.128 (talk) 15:43, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I've insulted you then. Sorry 'bout that. I've put the sentence back in, now with [citation needed]. You're right that there should be a source for the claim(s) in that sentence. And it probably exists; hope someone adds it soon. If I see the sentence is gone again, I won't put it back. But we might wait a decent interval. --Hordaland (talk) 16:16, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

5 years is certainly a decent interval! It would be quite appropriate to add a paragraph summarizing key scientific points from the Human skin color article, including some citations and the "Geographic variation" map. I'll do this eventually, if nobody else gets to it first. —Patrug (talk) 02:07, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Done. I tried to focus on "minimally controversial" facts from health & biology. Further improvements welcome. —Patrug (talk) 07:56, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Other chemicals beyond D3

It is often assumed - but not shown that all the health effects of the sun are due to D3. (Some might be due to the lowering of the provitamin ( 7-dehydrocholesterol). Somewhere I read that there were a total of 10 known photo-chemicals generated by the sun shining on the skin. I have not been able to find the source of that information - thus I'm mentioning it in the talk section in hope someone else knows of the source I read and might post it in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.243.106.82 (talk) 03:51, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

At http://www.noblechiropractic.com.au/news/free-vitamins-for-life/ , a similar claim is attributed to Holick's book "The Vitamin D Solution", apparently paraphrased by a blogging chiropractor:

Latest research has identified 10 other “photo-chemicals” i.e. vitamins similar to vitamin D that are also produced in skin cells when the skin is exposed to Ultraviolet B (UVB) light rays. The purpose and importance of these vitamins is currently unknown but they are now the focus of cutting edge research.

No idea if any of this has been published in a reliable medical text or journal. —Patrug (talk) 02:31, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

I think I remember this being talked about in connection with the correlation between multiple sclerosis and latitude. People living closer to the equator have a lower incidence of multiple sclerosis, and it has/had been thought it was a result of higher vitamin D levels resulting from more sun exposure. But I remember reading in some articles that it was being questioned whether other effects of sun exposure might also be involved. There's an article at http://www.news.wisc.edu/17856 touching on it. --Joseph Lindenberg (talk) 18:25, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Good info, thanks. I added a new section to the Wikipedia article to reflect this, including direct citations from the medical journals. Further reliable citations for non-vitamin-D sunlight benefits are always welcome. —Patrug (talk) 04:59, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Treatment of Acne

Someone probably should mention in the article that exposure to sunlight is probably the only effective treatment for acne. For some reason the medical community refuses to acknowledge this fact [I can`t imagine why.] It is not in the article although it has always been common knowledge. 97.82.196.11 (talk) 19:09, 7 December 2015 (UTC)