The Sun Is Not Your Enemy

Rowan Jacobsen arrived at a conclusion that surprised even himself: after digging through decades of research, the evidence suggests that moderate sun exposure extends lifespan rather than shortening it. The conventional wisdom he inherited — that sunlight is dangerous and sunscreen is essential — began to crack when he stumbled on studies showing that sunlight lowers blood pressure and triggers the release of opiates in the brain. "When I hit that, I was like, why are we not hearing this?" he tells Joe Rogan.

The Complicated Relationship Between Sun and Skin Cancer

The mechanism by which sunlight causes skin cancer is straightforward enough: ultraviolet light carries enough energy to damage DNA molecules directly, and it can also create reactive oxygen species — free radicals — that cause chain reactions of cellular damage. Scientists have known this since the 1940s and 1950s, and it drove the public health message that sunlight is dangerous.