Why DNA damage from smoking and UV rays cause cancer in some but not others

Posted by gmays 4 days ago

Comments

Comment by dsego 3 days ago

F* cancer. On my mother's side, her mom and sister died of breast cancer, her other sister caught it early, her brother died of cancer (throat or lung, not sure). She removed her breast 20 years ago at almost 50, went through chemo and radiotherapy, she was a survivor, cured. Just a month ago got headaches and turns out new brain tumor. Neurosurgeons removed it, but against all odds nothing to do with the old cancer, not a metastasis, but a new primary wildtype glial grade 4 tumor. It's just not fair.

Comment by bena 3 days ago

If incidences of cancer of any type are 1 in 100,000 for the population at large, then generally any slice of that population will have similar odds. Which includes people with cancer.

So those who already have cancer, have a chance to develop a second cancer.

It is very not fair.

Comment by SoftTalker 3 days ago

We all die eventually. All you can do is live your best life. Unfortunately we don't all get the same hand from the dealer.

Comment by dsego 3 days ago

A grade 4 glioma doesn't even give you a fighting chance, there is only survival from months to maybe over a year.

Comment by coolThingsFirst 4 days ago

Even if smoking didnt cause cancer it would still be terrible.

6 months since i quit using nic gums.

Comment by keeganpoppen 3 days ago

trying to get off vaping, myself, and it is both "not that hard" and... a very sticky habit. good for you. was never a smoker, but that doesn't make it a good habit.

Comment by willy_k 3 days ago

This might not work for your current lifestyle (if you need to be able to properly use your brain for any meaningful portion of the day), but an effective method, at least for people already using thc, is to replace the nicotine vape with a thc cartridge and essentially stupify yourself every time you think about vaping. And be cognizant of the anxiety etc, so that you continue despite it. Stick to that for a week or two and it works surprisingly well.

Comment by johanam 3 days ago

good job!

Comment by aantix 4 days ago

Anecdotally, whenever I go swimming with my kids in the summer, and I don't put sunscreen on right away, but let myself get some intense direct sun, I feel good and sleep really well that night.

As long as I don't let myself get in a red, sunburn situation.

Comment by krrrh 4 days ago

The number one reason I wear an Apple Watch all summer is the UV index complication. If the number is at 4 and trending down I let the kids run free.

Comment by pazimzadeh 4 days ago

Interestingly the best time to go out is at solar noon, when the UVB/UVA ratio is higher. Just go for a shorter amount of time to compensate for the higher overall intensity.

Comment by otikik 3 days ago

My country, Spain, is famous for its beaches. Everyone native leaves the beach in the middle of the day and returns after lunch/siesta, when the rays are less intense.

Tourists stay and get burn to a crisp

Comment by pazimzadeh 3 days ago

Cool anecdote but as I said, in the middle of the day you should go for a shorter amount of time (starting with just a few minutes) to get ideal UVB exposure.

Tourists are an especially bad example since they often work indoors all year or come from less sunny countries, so the sudden sun exposure is doubly bad for them.

Spain is sunnier yet has lower melanoma incidence than Northern Europe..almost like moderate sun exposure is protective, or that going from a cloudy country to a sunny area for a few weeks is especially bad - you can analyze it how you wish.

Comment by anon48293 3 days ago

Or like the people living there for generations have slightly darker skin which protects better against the sun..

Comment by pazimzadeh 2 days ago

For sure that contributes to their higher ceiling for exposure, and also makes it harder for them to get vitamin D, which is why they shouldn't avoid going to the beach until the sun is down, since as a population they are quite deficient in Vitamin D.

Comment by tartoran 4 days ago

That's only if you don't have a lot of time out. If you're planning to be out for a while I'd avoid being too exposed during the 12-3 window.

Comment by pazimzadeh 4 days ago

I agree, but you can titrate your exposure. So at the beginning of the season, in the 12-3 window you can start by going 5 mins without sunscreen for a few days, then 10 mins, then 20 etc. depending on your skin type.

The worst thing to do is to go from low exposure (i.e. winter months, or just constant indoor time) to long periods of exposure, even with sunscreen.

Comment by Rnonymous 4 days ago

Care to explain? Isn't UVB more harmful than UVA?

Comment by pazimzadeh 4 days ago

No, UVA is stronger and more harmful. UVA penetrates deeper in the skin, since it's stronger. UVB stimulates Vitamin D production, while UVA doesn't.

So almost anything that is "UV-blocking" (sunscreen, UV-treated glass) gets rid of all of the beneficial UVB before UVA starts getting reduced. So you are actually enriching your exposure to the most harmful UV type, and not making Vitamin D.

This might explain the paradoxical finding that people who use sunscreen more can have higher rates of skin cancer

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10840669

Comment by miladyincontrol 4 days ago

Confounding by indication.

People who spend more time outdoors are more likely to try to wear sunscreen, as are people who already got a lot of pre-existing risk to excessive sun exposure.

Key word on try as its greatly assuming there isnt a wide audience who do use sunscreen, then just apply it in poor amount, or never re-apply but enjoy staying out far longer than most do in the sun feeling they're oh so very protected.

Spray sunscreens for example are just about useless, as are those solid stick applicators. They only get a fraction the amount you need for the rated protection. The biggest issue with sunscreen relates to companies selling sub par "convenience" slop, often right beside their other products some of which might actually be half decent.

Comment by pazimzadeh 3 days ago

Sure that’s a theory, but hasn’t been proven. If I recall, the study showed that heavy sunscreen use amongst sunscreen users was associated with higher cancer rates.

Secondly, if sun exposure is really that bad then how do you explain why most skin cancers are on the trunk and thighs rather than more exposed areas like hands and arms?

The simplest answer is it’s not sun exposure that’s bad but sudden high exposure after non-exposure (repair mechanisms can’t keep up with damage).

Not sure why I’m being downvoted. I guess there’s a lot of sheep among us. If anything I said is incorrect, please show me the evidence.

Comment by piguin 3 days ago

The arms represent very little surface area: https://wikem.org/wiki/Estimating_body_surface_area

A critical factor for doing a screening is how many bad burns you've had on the chest and back which would probably be similar to many times the burns on the arms in terms of surface area x added probability.

Comment by pazimzadeh 3 days ago

I like the idea of checking for that, but not sure the numbers add up.

Anterior head + legs + arms = 31.5% Anterior + Posterior torsos = 36%

> which would probably be similar to how many times the burns on the arms in terms of surface area x added probability

I disagree, my whole point is that frequent low/moderate exposure (such as arms) reduces the chance of burning during high exposure

I looked up the number, and after normalizing by surface area it looks like the skew towards torso is only for basal cell carcinoma (BCC) not (SCC).

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamadermatology/fullarticle...

For melanoma the trunk was the dominant site in men, while the legs were the dominant site in women

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2939095/

Unfortunately, that I know of there are not many studies that compare 'frequent low/moderate exposure followed by high exposure' vs 'very low exposure (high sunscreen use) followed by high exposure'

Here is what I found:

1. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9335442/

  These results show the specificity of the positive association between melanoma risk and intermittent sun exposure, in contrast to a reduced risk with high levels of occupational exposure.

2. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-48477-4

  Both the low-intermittent (HR = 1.26; 95%CI = 1.17–1.38) and high exposure groups (HR = 1.13; 95%CI = 1.01–1.26) had higher rates of melanoma than indoor workers. 

  The low-intermittent exposure group had elevated melanoma rates on the arms and trunk (body), while the high exposure group had an elevated rate on the head and trunk.

Digging into the data, the moderate exposure group had no detectable increase at any body site and a weak suggestion of lower risk (not statistically significant):

  Head: 0.99; Arms: 0.95; Trunk: 1.00; Legs: 0.90

Plotted: https://imgur.com/a/HBp8SnH

Why would the low-exposure group have a higher rate on the arms and trunk? Could it be because when they do go to the pool/beach, their arms are not protected? Whereas in the high exposure group, their arms are protected due to everyday exposure, but their trunk is only exposed when they go to the pool? Then again, you would think the low-exposure group would also have high trunk incidence, so there might be some confounding factors like ethnicity/behavior/dress.

Anyway, hopefully I convinced you that it's not as simple as more sun = always bad.

Comment by piguin 3 days ago

My point is more that you are fishing for confirmation of your theory instead of answers that fit the data.

High sunscreen use (assuming rational choices for when to use it) and left arm truck driver risk is very consistent with a microeconomics model of UVR x filter factor on each cell determining probability for any given cell.

Some other problems with a study of Ontario work exposure are covered in the study itself. In essence this is low exposure compared to leisure time sun bathing that may be more desirable depending on work environment.

Comment by pazimzadeh 2 days ago

> you are fishing for confirmation of your theory instead of answers that fit the data

If you say so.

> left arm truck driver risk

Truck driver sunlight exposure is spectrally different from ordinary sunlight. It is all UVA, over many hours a day. To repeat myself, moderate exposure to preferentially UVB likely yields the highest reward/risk.

> a microeconomics model of UVR x filter factor on each cell

I'm not quite sure what you mean by the economics stuff but in addition to not mentioning the UVA/UVB difference, your model doesn't seem to take into account host repair pathways, which actually require some moderate damage to be activated, but are overloaded by too much damage (similar to the effect of exercise on the body).

Enhancement of UVB-induced DNA damage repair after a chronic low-dose UVB pre-stimulation

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S15687...

> Some other problems with a study of Ontario work exposure are covered in the study itself.

Some other potential problems, sure, along with a mention of potential benefits of vitamin D from optimal sunlight levels.

Since sunlight is associated with a lower risk of almost all cancers (including recovery from melanoma), not to mention autoimmune diseases, and skin cancers are amongst the easiest to catch early and to treat when caught early, it is very irresponsible to argue against the benefits of sun exposure. The idea that every additional unit of "UVR" carries an identical marginal risk is especially harmful.

Comment by piguin 2 days ago

If we live long enough to reproduce and usually impart some guidance to offspring evolution has done the optimization it will do. You seem to want to believe in a lot of systems that may sort of work but really we are not right to expect that every dose of UVR isn't a roll of the dice for a game plan that works out to less than 30 years in the sun while having hair or taking reasonable precautions for having no hair.

Trying to hide low but perpetual UVR risk for people who think they are going to be immortal is counterproductive compared to fixing the delusion that would make someone avoid life expecting to get more of it.

Comment by pazimzadeh 2 days ago

you lost me, you seem to keep trying to guess my intentions and you ignore the data you don't like

you might want biology be really simple and describable by simple equations but in my experience it's not

paradoxically your sentences are complicated and hard to parse, I have less of an idea of what you are saying the more you say

I'm not hiding anything, if anything your gibberish hides the nuances of biology, causes unnecessary stress, and is probably actively harmful

"every dose of UVR is a roll of the dice" is an insane position not supported by the data

Comment by KetoManx64 2 days ago

Vitamin D levels are directly tied to melatonin production, that's why the less sun you get the worse your sleep gets. Vitamin D also lowers inflamation throughout the body.

Comment by bob1029 4 days ago

I can spend a solid hour in the sun before I start to burn, assuming I have a hat on my head.

I've also noticed some correlation between my diet and how fast I burn. Whenever my metabolism is running at/near ketogenesis, it seems like it takes a lot longer for the sun to affect me.

Comment by IshKebab 4 days ago

Just so you know, burning & cancer isn't the only reason to avoid strong sunlight - it also causes skin aging (i.e. wrinkles). If you don't want to be super wrinkly when you're old, wear suncream!

Comment by causalmodels 4 days ago

When we were dating, the first thing my now wife did was get me on a regimin of sunscreen and tretinoin. I now have significantly fewer wrinkles than my younger siblings (2-3 years).

Comment by emmelaich 3 days ago

I'd be wary of that! Tretinoin has been linked to birth defects in women and they are warned against it. I wouldn't trust it for the father either.

Comment by tony_cannistra 3 days ago

This is a common misconception. Topical tretinoin has been shown to have no effect on the fetus. Oral tretinoins (like isotretinoin) have been linked to congenital defects. This is due to the differing rates of absorption and the resulting ability for the retinoid to cross the placenta at higher concentrations.

With that said, folks who are pregnant are discouraged from using any retinoids out of an abundance of caution.

Comment by Ralfp 4 days ago

Yes, some stuff make your skin more sensitive to light than others. For example, you should avoid vitamin A creams and some herbs during summer because they increase risk of permanent skin discoloration.

Comment by pazimzadeh 4 days ago

Which herbs

Comment by butvacuum 3 days ago

also: citrus- wash your hands after.

Comment by spacephysics 4 days ago

I experienced similar reaction when i was doing keto. It became far more difficult to burn that summer

Comment by ShinyLeftPad 4 days ago

Why did you stop?

Comment by milesvp 4 days ago

Most likely that’s the nitric oxide (not to be confused with nitrous oxide) that is a biproduct of vitamin d synthesis which requires UV light. It is a natural muscle relaxer and is generally considered good for blood pressure and heart health in general.

Comment by porridgeraisin 3 days ago

Nutri oxide production is triggered by UVA, vit d which happens due to UVB.

Comment by ThrowawayTestr 4 days ago

Vitamin D deficiency

Comment by GlickWick 4 days ago

Definitely not. Vitamin D takes a while to synthesize and build up. A quick fix like this isn't possible.

Comment by pixel_popping 4 days ago

It's just that getting sun is healthy (in moderation) and our body reward us, we have this new anti-sun obsession which is likely to cause many health (and mental health) issues

Comment by GlickWick 4 days ago

I don't think it's that simple, and making it seem that way is counter-productive towards understanding what we should/shouldn't be doing.

There's no anti-sun obsession, either. Sunscreen isn't anti-sun, and people are well aware that Vitamin D synthesis is an issue in farther northern/southern latitudes. There's definitely an increased recognition scientifically that excessive sun is extremely bad, though.

Comment by pixel_popping 4 days ago

I would assume that many are taking Vitamin D, but there is still a major difference, if I spend few days no-lifing and I suddenly go out in the hot sun and comeback home 30min later, I feel much better, something happens internally, could be from the light itself, unsure, but I'd say for example to fight off depression, getting under the sun is quite powerful and will definitely improve your chances of getting out of it.

I let my 2-year old child (she is also taking Vit D - 300iu a day) under the sun in the garden quite a lot on/off (I'd say probably 1h a day in total) and I find that she sleeps much better and is more calm in the evening as well, I can't say the same if we do an outing to the mall, something is clearly different/rewarding.

Comment by 3 days ago

Comment by 4 days ago

Comment by brightball 4 days ago

I typically do the same thing. I only wear sunscreen if I am planning on being in direct sun for an extended period of time where I can't easily get back in the shade.

The more you're able to build up a base tan the less you need it to avoid a burn at least.

Comment by vondur 4 days ago

I'm pretty light skinned and the burn pretty easily. I just put on sunscreen by default when going hiking/mountain biking. I'm really excited for the new sunscreens coming out here in the US that have those new to us ingredients that the Euro's have had forever.

Comment by brightball 4 days ago

Agreed completely. I also leverage sun shirts quite a bit.

Comment by nomel 3 days ago

I discovered sun shirts very recently, with a hood. It's so much nicer to slip it on than apply sun block, which I'm trying to reduce since I don't really want it in my blood stream [1]. Mine is white, so I usually end up a bit cooler than without!

[1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2733085?gu...

Comment by NikolaNovak 4 days ago

Isn't tanning basically body's reaction to cellular damage? It reduces further damage but that's due to damage done?

(It's largely irrelevant to myself, I pretty much burn immediately and don't / can't really tan, but my wife and her family tan well).

Comment by HedonicEscal8r 4 days ago

Yes, tanning is downstream of the activity of the p53 tumor suppressor protein in response to UVB-induced damage: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/EFiCGc3YwadZBzvZ3/contra-byr...

Comment by worldsavior 4 days ago

The damage gets healed at sleep. Tanning reduces the need to heal.

Comment by brightball 4 days ago

30 years ago I was a lifeguard and got to experiment with this some. I can't tell you the biology specifically, but I have always tanned quickly. The less tan I am, the more easily I burn.

Always been that way for me at least.

Comment by JoshGlazebrook 4 days ago

So we're just out here perpetuating myths on here now as well?

Comment by brightball 4 days ago

Correction - The less you need it to avoid a burn.

Comment by stevekemp 4 days ago

I'm a pale-skinned redhead, covered in freckles. For me there is no such thing as a "base tan".

I get can get sunburnt from as little as 30 minutes in the sun at times, and I almost always wear sunscreen in the summer for that reason.

(Biggest issue is wearing sandals and forgetting to cover my feet, or when jumping in the lake after sauna and not covering up again quickly enough.)

Comment by Noaidi 4 days ago

This is why Zinc is needed to prevent cancer[1].

The gene they are focusing on in the study [2] is Methylated-DNA--protein-cysteine methyltransferase (MGMT) and it needs zinc as a cofactor [3].

Not enough zinc, lower MGMT, and less DNA protection and repair.

Nutritional deficiencies and genetic differences increase the risk of cancer.

[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12011-023-03818-6 [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10821-z [3] https://www.uniprot.org/uniprotkb/P16455/entry

Comment by SketchySeaBeast 4 days ago

That would imply that red meat eaters would be less likely to get cancer which doesn't seem to be the case. I'm not saying that zinc isn't a factor, but I think that saying a blanket "Zinc is needed to prevent cancer" is irresponsible. We should be so lucky that we can narrow it down to a single dietary element or be able to blame it simply upon nutrition.

Comment by kelipso 4 days ago

That’s not how statistical implication works… Learn about sufficient condition vs required condition before you start criticizing people. Taking zinc and smoking cigarettes still increases your chances of cancer, for example.

Comment by SketchySeaBeast 4 days ago

I understand that entirely. I'm saying that the way that GP is presenting their information it sounds like a "one neat trick", which of course it isn't because nothing ever is, which you and I are in agreement upon.

Comment by TaupeRanger 4 days ago

Very common press release/headline meme: the question in the title of the article is literally never answered (or the opposite of the headline's claim is true). This research plainly DOES NOT explain why certain mice got cancer and others didn't, let alone why smoking/UV rays cause cancer in some humans but not others. There was no control group for exposed mice that would've allowed them to look at which biological differences made one group get tumors and the others not (the study doesn't appear to actually be interested in that question).

The language here is also pretty hyperbolic. We've known for decades that certain gene mutations cause increased cancer risk in the context of a certain genetic background (BRCA1/2, etc.). Using language like "for the first time" is just juvenile, or purposeful lying at worst.

Comment by asdff 3 days ago

Authors seemed to have considered genetic implications of the driver mutation and downstream effects, but there are considerations to be made ahead of this point too. This sort of damage for example is typically detected and repaired. The fidelity of that repair mechanism is liable to vary among the population for many reasons.

Comment by TomMasz 3 days ago

My mother smoked from age 12 until she was diagnosed with lung cancer at age 45. But the lung cancer was the result of metastasis from an advanced uterine cancer. A friend's mother, another long-time smoker, developed bladder cancer. Smoking's damage can manifest itself in multiple ways.

Comment by JoeAltmaier 4 days ago

In mice

Comment by htek 4 days ago

Mice are used for inhalation and skin studies because they're cheap, we know their genome, they have a short lifespan for whole lifecycle observation and they're ideal for mapping to human respiratory and skin responses.

Comment by add-sub-mul-div 4 days ago

These comments are filled with people who believe that everyone else here is dumber than they are. Leaving shallow dismissive comments explaining something that doesn't need to be explained is like crack to them.

Comment by manarth 4 days ago

It's a bit more than that.

The migration from mouse models to human understanding is long and complex, and although it's a meme, "in mice" is a good shortcut for saying "This is a good start, but it's not ready to extrapolate into conclusions against the impact to human beings".

https://www.in-mice.com/

Comment by willy_k 3 days ago

That was a good example of their point, thank you!

Comment by baxtr 4 days ago

Mice smoke?

Comment by theoreticalmal 4 days ago

Only the cool ones

Comment by manarth 4 days ago

  > "Mice smoke?"

The experiment summary:

  > "The team bred four strains of mice.
  >  They then exposed the mice to a single dose of the liver carcinogen diethylnitrosamine (DEN).
  >  DEN is found in tobacco smoke."

They simulated the "consequences" of smoking in mice.

Comment by pasc1878 4 days ago

When near the lab's Bunsen burner.

Comment by kraquepype 4 days ago

Only if they grew up near a BBQ joint

Comment by asdff 3 days ago

So sick of this fake "gotcha" qualifier in HN comment sections.

Comment by tombert 4 days ago

I've only ever smoked like a quarter of one cigarette when I was eighteen and I thought it was fucking gross so I never picked up the habit (fortunately).

That said, I'm a pretty pale dude and my sister has gotten skin cancer twice now [1], so I've started getting a bit worried that that's going to happen to me. I've started wearing a baseball cap every time I go outside to protect my scalp (since my body has decided I don't need nearly as much hair anymore), I almost never go outside without jeans and often now a hoodie even when it's relatively warm outside. If I think I'm going to be outside for more than ~30 minutes, I wear sunscreen on the exposed parts.

I have to admit that I kind of hate it. I don't like the slimy feeling of sunscreen on my skin, I don't really like how hats feel on my head, and of course wearing a lot of clothes when it's warm outside isn't terribly comfortable.

[1] Fortunately caught very early since she gets frequent checks, so she's fine.

Comment by pilgrim0 4 days ago

Also share the icky for greasy sunscreen. But there are some with a matte dry texture that not only serves the purpose but also make your skin looks nicer, since it levels out those small color variations. It’s a big market, so they really do research on those things.

Comment by Mezzie 4 days ago

Strong recommend a UV umbrella. I also hate the feeling of sunscreen and will also fry the minute I so much as look at the sun.

Also, linen clothing. Far more comfortable in heat while keeping you covered. Hoodies and jeans sounds miserable.

Comment by tombert 4 days ago

I've more or less gotten used to the jeans.

Probably due to a combination of undiagnosed autism and some very mild bullying in middle school (due to me growing rapidly and people making fun of me for wearing "short shorts"), I have been almost exclusively wearing jeans for everywhere but the gym since eighth grade.

The hoodies are a more recent thing and are more miserable. I'll check out linen clothing.

Comment by Mezzie 4 days ago

Yeah, there are linen pants too, so you don't have to wear shorts if you don't feel comfortable showing your legs. Linen in general is a great option if you want to not die of heat and you don't feel like showing your whole body to the world.

Since you're autistic, you might want to buy them in person: the tactile sensation of linens can be pretty different, so you might want to touch them before buying if sensory issues are a clothing concern.

One thing to look out for is that a lot of clothing that will come up when you search for linen are linen blends, which are better than a hoodie by far, but aren't going to have the same breeziness as 100% linen. Also, 100% linen wrinkles, so you've got to hang it right out of the dryer if you care about that.

Comment by tombert 4 days ago

I don't really have sensory issues and I don't get too picky about the textures of clothing. As I said, never actually diagnosed as autistic, I think I'm more borderline if I am.

Anyway, I'll take a look at some linen stuff. Probably worth an experiment if nothing else.

Comment by pipe2devnull 3 days ago

By hoodies do you mean the cotton ones with fleece linings or a lightweight breathable one? If it’s a thicker cotton one I can’t imagine wearing that in summer

Comment by tombert 3 days ago

They are cotton but it’s cheap thin ones I bought at Walmart.

Comment by Krssst 4 days ago

I would bet on the sunscreen being a better protection since it also protects against reflected light, but UV umbrellas are so much more convenient. Takes 2s to take out rather than 5min to apply sunscreen properly.

(except when it's windy. Rain usually follows the wind, sunlight does not)

Comment by Mezzie 4 days ago

Good point re: wind. We don't really get substantial wind + sunlight where I live often. Definitely something to keep in mind.

I'm not sure re: the sunscreen being better. Maybe as a platonic ideal, but it's really easy to miss places when applying sunscreen, whereas a UV umbrella does cover everything with no fuss.

Comment by ShinyLeftPad 4 days ago

How is UV umbrella different from any normal umbrella?

Comment by jerlam 3 days ago

UV umbrellas should be woven tighter to block out more sunlight, but even a non-UV umbrella will block a significant amount of sunlight.

I bought one of those UV-C detection cards that also detect UV-A and UV-B. Both a UV umbrella and a non-UV umbrella blunted the midday sun down from very high levels to low/medium levels.

I also bought a Japanese umbrella (brand Wpc) that is rated for UV and it blocks the UV levels down to zero.

Comment by Scoundreller 3 days ago

A lot of plastics aren’t great at blocking/absorbing UV. And normal umbrellas, not being designed for UV, may lose a lot of their strength with heavy UV exposure from what they do absorb.

Comment by brightball 4 days ago

Sun shirts are a great option for me at least.

Comment by itsmartapuntocm 4 days ago

A fairly bad sunburn was the reality check I needed to start scheduling annual screenings. 30 minutes or so a year for peace of mind.

Comment by thisoneisreal 4 days ago

Check out mineral based sunscreens, I have sensitive skin and I find them infinitely more tolerable.

Comment by zamadatix 4 days ago

Timing is also a big part. Going out for an hour at 1 pm can be a burn while going from 7 to sunset for the week might not even register.

If you must go out at certain times then the clothing selections from others are probably the best bet.

Comment by sebmellen 3 days ago

Take a look at sun protective gear like Coolibar. It’s actually very pleasant to wear even in summer.

Comment by leawi 4 days ago

A bit offtopic, but have you tried different sunscreen types? There are quite a lot of formulations from matte creams to solid sticks. Mentioned because I remember avoiding sunscreens precisely because of that slimy feeling I got from the drugstore ones, that is, until I found an "invisible" one that doesn't feel like anything at all on my skin.

Comment by tombert 4 days ago

I have not. Do you have any recommendations for specific brands? I'll order a bottle and try it out.

Comment by joe5150 4 days ago

Different person here, but I've been using various Supergoop products for years and think they're all excellent. Their "Unseen Sunscreen" dries completely matte but is kind of pricey per ounce. I mostly use it on my face. "Play" is cheaper (especially if you get the 18oz pump bottle) and still a lot less greasy than most drug store sunscreens. I use it every day.

Comment by jerlam 3 days ago

Trader Joe's sells a dupe of the Supergoop sunscreen for much cheaper:

https://www.cheapism.com/trader-joes-supergoop-sunscreen-dup...

Comment by leawi 4 days ago

There are honestly quite a lot of them, I usually take whatever's on sale. My favorite so far is Haruhatu Airyfit, but I was also happy with La Roche-Posay (Athelios dry-touch) and Neutrogena (dry-touch or matte). I also like to take Abib stick with me when I travel, it's just really easy to reapply and fits in the pocket.

Edit: I'd also say avoid anything that says "moisturizing" unless you have a really dry skin, they all claim their product is not greasy, and they are all lying, from my experience.

Comment by crims0n 4 days ago

As a millennial growing up it was beaten into our head that smoking was a death sentence. I recently looked up what the actual cancer rate among smokers was... about 125k people in the US die of lung cancer annual. 25 million people smoke annually. That is a 0.5% chance for occasional smokers. Even if you smoke a pack a day your entire life, the cancer rate is less than 15%.

I am in no way saying it is okay to smoke, there are obviously other health risks associated with it... but researching that made me feel much better about that one pack a year I buy for vacation.

Comment by volkl48 3 days ago

Cigarettes kill about 480,000 people in the US annually. Lung cancer isn't the only kind of cancer you get from smoking cigarettes, and cancer isn't the only way it can lead to your death, so it seems very strange to only pay attention to lung cancer here.

You don't need lung cancer to have an absolutely miserable decline and death from COPD, for example.

https://archive.cdc.gov/www_cdc_gov/tobacco/data_statistics/...

Comment by pdntspa 4 days ago

The actual infection rates for some STIs are also similarly low, per-encounter. But they are high enough that if you are promiscuous and have a large number of at-risk encounters then you will eventually get a bad roll of the dice.

Comment by wpm 4 days ago

And that 125k includes people who don't smoke and never have. Sometimes the DNA in a single cell just gets fucked up in just the right way to cause cancer. Smoking just increases the odds.

Comment by Georgelemental 3 days ago

A pack a year is unlikely to kill you, but as others have said lung cancer is not the only worry. I work in healthcare, I see COPD all the time. It may or may not kill you, but it's a guaranteed PITA even if well-managed

Comment by DontchaKnowit 3 days ago

Not to mention heart disease

Comment by dblohm7 4 days ago

Cancer is not the only complication...

Comment by gdulli 4 days ago

Exactly. Hypertension, emphysema, people who don't smoke not wanting to be anywhere near you,

Comment by jeffreyrogers 3 days ago

Jim Simons (mathematician turned billionaire trader) was a chainsmoker and claimed that he had his genome analyzed and found he was unlikely to get cancer. I always wondered whether he'd really done that or whether it was just a flippant response to an interviewer's question about his smoking habits.

Comment by Aardwolf 3 days ago

Is there any info for a way to check this on your SNPs from genome sequencing data?

Comment by doctoboggan 4 days ago

Isn't this sort of like asking "Why does getting shot kill some but not other?" It depends on which part of the body was shot, and which part of the DNA was damaged.

Comment by mr_mitm 4 days ago

The way I read the article was that cancer is caused by deficiencies in the body's repair mechanism. It appears as if some have a more robust mechanism than others, depending on genetics.

Comment by dyauspitr 4 days ago

My mom had 14 siblings and only one of them got breast cancer (she was a nun and never breastfed which drastically increases a woman’s odds of breast cancer). But prior to that, her mother’s family, which was also large never had a case of cancer. My mom’s siblings also had around 30 kids between them some now in their 60s. There hasn’t been a single case of cancer amongst the kids either. So it’s something like 150 people with only one instance of cancer over the last 3 generations. There is definitely a strong genetic component to this.

Comment by tartoran 4 days ago

Yes, genetics play a big part but my understanding that cancer is influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. It's possible to have similar habits in the family with respect to sun exposure, alcohol consumtion, diets etc..

Comment by dyauspitr 4 days ago

Oh definitely, there’s a huge environmental component as well but good genetics really helps.

Comment by Noaidi 4 days ago

No. Genetics and nutrition make a big difference here. It is like one person is wearing a bullet proof vest and both were shot in the same place.

Comment by KellyCriterion 3 days ago

Glad, so I can continue smoking :-))

Comment by aaron695 4 days ago

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