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Chapter 1: What are the benefits and risks of sun exposure?
the joe rogan experience train by day joe rogan podcast by night all day Very nice to meet you, man. You too. Thanks for having me. Thank you. And thanks for doing this work because you want to talk about a subject that's confused so many people. Is the sun good for you? Is the sun killing you? Why does it give you vitamin D if it's bad for you?
Why do people get skin cancer if it's good for you?
Yeah, it's super complicated, and the messaging has not sort of admitted that, and that was, yeah, a big impetus for the book.
What was your opinion of sun exposure before you started writing this?
So I had inherited the conventional wisdom from the institutions that it was really bad. At the same time, I will admit that my instincts were that maybe it wasn't as bad as they were leading me to believe because whenever I was in the sun, I felt good. And I live in Vermont. By the time winter was reaching month six, I felt bad, right? Right.
So I was like, there's more here than we're being told.
Yeah, that was my wife's opinion. She's like, the sun can't be bad. It always feels good when you go out there.
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Chapter 2: How does sunlight contribute to vitamin D production?
I'm like, I don't know.
It's a little more complicated than that, but that is the instinct. It feels great when you're in the sun. It's like your body wants it.
Your body wants it. I mean, we now know that it literally triggers the release of opiates in the brain. Sunlight. So yeah, your body wants it and your body rewards you when you get it.
So what is the issue? Well, let's go back to the beginning. So you had this idea that sun exposure is probably giving people cancer and sunscreen is good. You need to wear sunscreen, stay out of the sun. So when you started going into the research, what made you shift your opinion?
So it really started for me like seven or eight years ago. I was on this like science journalism fellowship. So I was just doing research and Some of those studies hit, the one about opiate release in the brain and other studies showing that when light hits skin, cognition actually improves. Like your metabolism cranks up a little bit when the body feels sunlight coming in.
And I thought, that's interesting. That's all good stuff. Then I came across a couple other studies that seemed to indicate that sunlight could lower blood pressure, which was really interesting. So then, you know, I still had the sense sunlight bad, right? So then I remember just like Googling like, so how much does sunlight like shorten your lifespan?
And like the punchline is sunlight seems to extend your lifespan. So when I hit that, I was like, why are we not hearing this? So that was the beginning.
And so what is the problem? Like what is the issue with sunlight? Like when you think about skin cancer, what are the confounding factors that lead to skin cancer? Are we completely aware of that?
It's more complicated than we thought. So sunlight does increase your risk of skin cancer. Depending on the type of skin cancer you're talking about, it's not necessarily like a linear relationship. So yes, in general, too much sun increases your risk of skin cancer. But yeah, the question is, what are the confounding factors? How important is skin cancer compared to these other things?
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Chapter 3: What factors contribute to skin cancer risk?
Damaging. Imagine you get an erection that goes so hard you redline the penis. Medical and dermatological organizations strongly advise against the use of melanotan because it's unapproved. There are no clinically established safe dosages.
Well, weird, because alpha-MSH, the thing that it is mimicking, that's how your body makes melanin. That's how your body's supposed to do it.
You've got to see the before and afters because they're kind of bonkers. I've seen some people get super—well, the problem is it's Instagram. You never know what's real. That guy got a little tan. Let's see if there's any—okay, look how pale that—see, but that's not—how do we know if that's real?
It's just like there's a light on him.
Right. And then he's in a fucking dark closet in the last picture.
That's the best before and after photos I've seen.
That one right there. No, the one, yeah, that one. Look at that guy.
Well, you know, it's a look. It's an interesting look.
He injected himself with unregulated tannin peptide melanotan-2. Click on that. Seems like a joke a little bit. No, no, this guy, this is the guy that I saw online. This guy, he's the test rabbit. This dude went hard. Did he get an erection too? Yeah, he died from that. I don't know. So his before and afters. So let's see what his... He just... Yeah, he just got darker and darker and darker.
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Chapter 4: How do different skin types affect sun exposure outcomes?
It's best absorbed when taken with a meal or a snack that contains some fat and often paired with calcium for bone health. So please put in what are the benefits of vitamin D taken with K2 and magnesium. Let's see if it says that. Because this is what my doctor, who is a vitamin specialist, recommends. Benefits when taken with K2 and magnesium. Okay.
Taking vitamin D together with vitamin K2 and magnesium can make each of them work more effectively, especially for bones and heart, as long as the doses are appropriate for you. The trio mainly improves how your body handles calcium. Interesting. D helps you absorb it. Magnesium helps activate D. And K2 helps send calcium into bones instead of arteries.
D increases calcium absorption from your gut and supports bone, muscle, and immune function. Magnesium required to activate vitamin D, low magnesium, can blunt vitamin D's effect and also directly support bone structure and many enzymes. K2 activates proteins that move calcium into bones and teeth and keep it out of the arteries and soft tissues, helping bone and cardiovascular health.
Potential benefits of the combo, better bone support, heart and artery protection, more efficient vitamin D use. Okay. So the doctor is correct. So maybe that's the problems that these people were taking it with low magnesium. Low calcium, didn't have K2.
Yeah. I'd be curious if there was an effect on disease incidence for that combination. I don't know. Because the D on its own, yeah, it didn't show any effect. But sun exposure.
Let's put that in. Does vitamin D taken on its own have any health benefits? No. Let's see what it says to that. Because I'd never heard that, that D on its own was not effective at all. I just heard that it was minimally effective, that you had to take it with other.
It seems like it only helps people who are really deficient. Like if you're super low, like below like 16 nanograms per milliliter, then probably it's a good idea. But like for people who already had like at least 20 nanograms per milliliter, it didn't seem to have any of these benefits that they were seeing in people who naturally had high rates through sun exposure.
The way you're looking for it.
It says, yes, vitamin D on its own has several well-proven health benefits, especially for bones, muscles, and immunity.
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Chapter 5: What impact does sunscreen have on coral reefs?
That's one of the things they found after covid. Right. They used to think they used to think that it was the warming of the environment. This was one of the things that climate change people used to say. The climate change was destroying the coral reefs.
And then it turns out, actually, it's all these people that have sunscreen all over their body, and they jump in the ocean, and they're essentially poisoning the reef.
Yeah, I mean, it's all of the above, I'm pretty sure.
Chapter 6: How did COVID-19 affect coral reef recovery?
But yeah, the sunscreen... That kind of concentration, if you've got a bazillion snorkelers in the water, can definitely mess up the coral pretty badly.
Wasn't there some sort of a study that examined what happened to the reef after COVID? There was one particular reef that was in this highly visited area where people would jump in. And they showed a massive increase in the reef after COVID. Yeah.
Yeah, Hawaii banned use of those sunscreen. A bunch of places banned that style of sunscreen.
Chapter 7: What are the potential health effects of sunscreen?
But they don't really check your bags, though.
Yeah, right. When they say banned, people are going to take it anyway.
But it doesn't look like – I don't think it has much impact on us unless you're using a ton of it, which, of course, now some people are.
So it's not great for you, but it's not the worst.
Yeah. There's been a bunch of studies that just looked at, like, lifespan, and sunscreen doesn't seem to have any impact whatsoever, like positive or negative on lifespan.
So it just might have some sort of an impact on hormonal function?
Yeah, it could well.
Endocrine disruption.
Endocrine disruption. There's a guy named Graham Peasley at Notre Dame who found that many, many cosmetic products of all kinds are actually contaminated with forever chemicals.
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Chapter 8: What is the connection between skin microbiome and overall health?
And even if they don't have it on the ingredients, like anything that's like water resistant or super smooth is quite possibly gonna have forever chemicals in it. And some of it is actually coming from the plastic containers.
Because those get, they basically get like fluorinated, like fluorine gas before they get anything in them, which is supposed to make them like a little smoother inside of the containers. But it turns out that actually leaks forever chemicals into the product, whatever's in there. That's what he found.
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, this is a problem with hot coffee when you're drinking it out of a paper cup.
Very similar, yeah.
People don't realize the paper cup is not capable of keeping that liquid. It would turn to mush. And the reason why it doesn't turn to mush is because there's essentially a condom. Like around the inside of the coffee cup. And, you know, Paul Saladino broke a coffee cup down to show what it looks like on the inside.
And you're like, oh, no, you're pouring hot liquid into plastic, which you're never supposed to do. And it's also like most coffee machines. Like a giant percentage of coffee machines have just plastic everywhere. I got rid of mine. That's why we use French press at the studio and I use that at home too. And I have one of those little Aero presses to make an individual cup of coffee.
It's like the plastic is a real problem and heating it is terrible. We know that about water bottles. Like you're never supposed to drink out of a water bottle that you leave in the hot sun in your car.
So now picture that bottle of sunscreen that's sitting in your car cooking and leaching into the material.
Yuck. Yeah, not good. People don't think of the skin as an organ. And I was explaining to a friend of mine the other day, he was using hand wash, that fucking hand sanitizer stuff. And I'm like, man, I don't think that's good for you. I think if you want to wash your hands, you should just use soap and water. And then I read this article about it. Like, oh, yeah, that's a toxic chemical.
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