Rowan Jacobson

On the other end of the spectrum, some people who have very dark skin have almost no risk of sun-induced skin cancer.

and could really be benefiting a lot from more sun exposure.

So it's a huge spectrum across the whole gradient of skin tones.

And then where you live and what time of year it is, that all plays into it too.

So when I try to pin down scientists on this, the way you just tried to pin me down, what they mostly have said to me is,

Just don't burn and don't get anywhere close to burning.

But if you have fair skin and you're in Southern California and it's summer, you're going to get enough light exposure just going about your day probably.

If you live in Minnesota and you have a more moderate skin tone,

and it's like spring or fall, you could probably benefit from an hour, you know, in the sun in the middle of the day.

And then, you know, so it's going to range.

But

I don't think unless you have really dark skin, then you can probably go a few hours and still get almost all benefits.

Like Australia a couple of years ago changed their guidelines from one size fits all into basically three different categories based on skin tone and their recommendations for people with dark skin.

And this is Australia, one of the sunniest places in the world.

For people with dark skin, they said you don't need to worry about sunscreen except, you know, in very extreme cases.

Like if it's sunny, it's summer and you're going to be out all day, then, you know, wear a hat and maybe use sunscreen if you want.

But other than that, you're going to get almost all benefits from the sun.

And on the other hand, for people with very fair skin, they said, you know, pretty much use sunscreen all the time just to be safe.

Science dodges.

In that case, there hasn't been a healthy effort to try to explain that one, to wrap our heads around it.