Sun Tan Innit?

I am a supporter of self-manufacturing products for protection from sunlight. It is much cheaper and much safer, you can take into account their individual characteristics. But first you need to carefully study everything, for example, https://www.tanoholic.com/diy-lotions-oils/ 

If you use a common sense with the time you spend on sun, all will be ok

Ozone? Don't talk to me about Ozone, & that Ronan Keating is spectacularly shite on his own too!

As a youngster I was sent into the sun and got burnt spectaculary 3 or 4 times to the point of heavy and very painful blistering. I soent a good few years in Spain too. I'm probably knackered but the ride in this morning's warmth and sunshine was absolutely bloody wonderful.

I assume that there are higher rates of skin cancer in countries that see the sun for more than a couple of days per year.

That God bloke must be an utter utter bast@rd.  What with the "making sons of Adam go brown just coz they are 8 light mins away from the biggest sunlamp in the Solar Sytem (which I put there)" which is bad for them business.  It's amazing we've lived as long as we have as a species.

I'm giving factor 50 a miss in future. Went to Lanzarote for a week last year and managed a couple of bike rides and came back looking like I hadn't been anywhere .

I also grew up in NZ where you can't even buy anything below SPF 50 and skin cancer rates are higher than anywhere. No tanning isn't safe, no you don't need sun to get Vitamin D, yes in short the sun does give you cancer.
http://www.webmd.com/beauty/features/tanning-myths-whats-true-whats-hype
However like others have pointed out it's a risk based on exposure and time. Given the state of most UK cyclists legs I'd say not too many people need to worry, but no a tan is not healthy.

I'm on the unfortunate end of this. I have fair skin (English) and moved to New Zealand when I was very young where the sun is considerably harsher. As children we got burned well and often, often having competitions after a sunny weekend to see who could pull the biggest piece of sunburnt skin off our back or shoulders. Rolling on 35 years and I have had over 50 lesions removed, 40 of which have been cancerous, 10 of which have been deep skin (SCC's). I now live smothered in factor 50 sunscreen, which I am sure is going to give me cancer anyway.

Some unadulterated sun exposure is vital to good health. You produce vitamin D from sun exposure, and that's helpful for all sorts of things, but above all it promotes normal skin cell activity. Tanning is part of the process which is involved in vitamin D production, but it is also a skin defense process to protect your lower skin layers from ultraviolet rays. Tanning does not reduce your likelihood of skin cancer or in fact of burning. Being heavily tanned is suggestive of long sun exposure which can be dangerous, but might not be. 

Burning , obviously, is damaging to the skin, and kills the upper layers of skin which then removes their ability to tan and protect the lower layers of skin from harmful UV rays, which is what makes them prone to cancerous changes. These changes may not take effect for decades after the exposure.

Is tanning dangerous? Normal tanning, from occasional sun exposure is not dangerous, and whatever minor risks it poses are far outweighed by the benefits (of the sun exposure, and the presumed exercise that accompanied it). Tanning to a greater depth / degree than might occur from normal daily exposure to the sun is simply increasing your exposure to UV rays without increasing your protection from them, so it carries greater risk. Getting burned (which can happen to very dark skinned people just as readily as to fair skinned people) temporarily destroys the protective upper layer of skin exposing the lower layers to potentially damaging levels of UV radiation.

In short, enough sun exposure to develop a natural tan is good, and carries more benefit than risk. Extended sun exposure to develop a deep tan or burning carries increased levels of  risk. That initial level of risk is almost entirely dependent on your genetics and skin type.

NB. Sunscreen is considered as, and sold under the regulations of, cosmetics and so there is no restriction or testing on the ingredients or their efficacy. It is not incumbent on the produces of sunscreen to prove that it does indeed provide 10/20/50 times your normal sun protection, and indeed many of them don't. When I first developed skin cancer I was living in UK and was told to only get Cancer society sunscreen (which was mercifully one of the cheapest) as it was the only one that had been independently tested. Hopefully things have improved in the last 10 years

I remember my first cycling tour in France in 1990, July, absolutely scorching, never dropped below 80F over the 10 days and it was 104F in Paris on the final day of the tour, even the Parisians were saying it was bloody hot!

I started off with a factor 6, (start high right!) and went down to a 4. arms and legs like a resident born indian subcontinent type, made the mistake of taking my jersey off midway through a days ride (I averaged 70 over 10 days)), jesus my back was really burnt.

luckily had brought my aftersun and a very very nice young lady applied it to my back from the cafe/hotel I was staying at. Big life lesson learnt that day!

I was never a sun worshipper, in the North of England it was really only just a few weeks worth with the odd year a bit more sunnier ('76 being the exception). School holidays I had always caught the sun on the tops of my ears and back of my neck as a kid, peeling your burnt skin off your shoulders was seen as a ritual to be shared, almost like the zit popping of today but less gross.

Nowadays I wouldn't go below a 10 and that would be for lower index days, clear sky and really high index days I'm on a 20.

We need the sun on our skin, it's actually rather important so though using protection is a good thing, actually getting out in it even when it's weak winter sun is good for you and riding a bike is ideal for that.

Nicola Smith, from Cancer Research UK, said: "There's no such thing as a safe tan, from the sun or sunbeds.

"A suntan is your skin's way of trying to protect itself from too much sun. And a sunburn is a clear sign that your skin has been damaged.

So this contradicts the asertion that a tan is tantamount to skin damage - sunBURN is damage, whereas a tan is the skin trying to protect itself from burning. I did watch a segment on the BBC breakfast programme with a medical expert who seems to back this up. What they were trying to get accross is that a tan is not 'healthy' as once thought, but they did stop short of saying a tan was in itself a sign of damage.

You've just got to take note of the advice and act accordingly - if you feel immune, then crack on, it's your life. I must admit I'm from that generation that grew up with the opinion a tan was something desireable, and that attitude will take some shifting. After all there's a whole industry based around it.

My grandma smoked crack three times a day, drank Absinthe like it was water, ate a diet consisting of pure lard and slept on an asbestos mattress all her life, and she lived until she was 125. So there.

It's all to do with risk management.

Any kind of sun tanning is causing damage to the skin and is thus "unhealthy". Whether it's worth worrying about it depends on a number of factors including your skin-type and the type of exposure. It might be that your chance of getting skin cancer would be significantly less than being struck by lightning in which case there's little point in worrying about it. If on the other hand, you might be fair-skinned and have a 10% chance of melanoma in the next 5 years, then it's worth taking precautions.

The modern rates of skin cancer are increasing which may be down to a number of factors. e.g. people taking more foreign holidays; thinner ozone layer; better detection rates; fancy skin care products etc.

So, I'd recommend to take the "easy" precautions - make your kids wear hats and protective clothing, and apply SPF lotions when feasible. Keeping them inside could possibly increase their risk of getting obese, type II diabetes, heart disease etc, so I'd guess that would be more harmful than exposure to the sun.

My grandmther drank silver topped milk, sunbathed a lot, ate butter and smoked like a chimney for many years and lived healthily until she was 94. I will NOT be giving  up my cycling tan any time soon .