The case that avoiding the sun could be as deadly as smoking, and why Australia disagrees
A 2019 feature argues sun-avoidance researchers found that people who spent more time in the sun had lower blood pressure and were less likely to die — including from skin cancer. From the skin-cancer capital of the world, the rebuttal was three words.
The article's core finding is counterintuitive: across cohorts, more sun exposure tracked with lower blood pressure and lower all-cause mortality, and high blood pressure kills far more people than melanoma does. The implied driver isn't vitamin D the pill, but the sunlight itself.
An Australian in the thread cut it short: "the skin cancer capital of the world — no, no it is not." Another pointed to the ozone hole Stone Age humans never lived under, so sun exposure is simply more harmful now than the evolutionary argument assumes.
The argument: sun-avoidance might be a mortality risk of its own
The 2019 Outside feature, "Is Sunscreen the New Margarine?", makes a contrarian public-health case. Its central claim, distilled by a reader who actually walked through the findings: high blood pressure leads to a great many deaths; people who spend more time in the sun have lower blood pressure; skin cancer is caused by sun exposure but kills far fewer people; and people who spend more time in the sun have a lower rate of dying from skin cancer than those who spend less.
"more sun exposure makes you less likely to die on at least two fronts! It's really very simple. Your skin adapts to sunlight and doesn't burn if you increase your exposure gradually." — a reader who summarized the study for the half of the thread that hadn't read it
The piece pushes further than vitamin D. It quotes researchers arguing that high vitamin D levels were merely a marker of health, not the cause — the real driver being sunlight itself, including wavelengths a supplement can't deliver.
"Infrared light has beneficial effects on deep tissue, including the brain. There's no way to get that from a pill." — a reader citing the article's argument that vitamin D is a marker, not the mechanism
The thread: from the skin-cancer capital of the world, a flat no
The sharpest rebuttal needed no study. An Australian — writing from the country with the highest melanoma rates on earth — rejected the framing outright.
"Coming from the skin cancer capital of the world (Australia) - no, no it is not" — a commenter in Australia
A more technical objection followed: the evolutionary "we lived outside for 200,000 years" argument ignores that the atmosphere has changed.
"At least in Australia a big difference is that there is a hole in the ozone layer that stone age people did not have. Sun exposure is much more harmful now." — a long-tenured user pointing to atmospheric change
Others argued the article ignores what dermatologists actually worry about. It frames sun-avoiders as pasty office workers blocking a life-giving force, but never engages the visible cost of UV: photoaging — wrinkles, sun spots, discoloration — is cumulative UV damage, which the piece doesn't address.
"aging is UV damage. Sometimes called photoaging… all of that shit that you associate with someone visibly looking old is sun damage." — a commenter who pointed to Kurzgesagt and Veritasium explainers on photoaging
One reader read the whole thing as a generational pendulum. Boomers tanned with oil and reflectors, got skin cancer en masse, then swung to preaching 24/7 sunscreen — and the new contrarianism is the swing back. The honest middle, several agreed, is the dullest possible takeaway: a few minutes of unprotected sun, then cover up. Everything in moderation, which is exactly where most threads about health advice land.
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