Increasing levels of depression in Western populations over the last 50 years correlates with widespread adoption of UV blocking sun creams that inhibit vitamin D production in the skin.
givesomefucks @ givesomefucks @lemmy.world Posts 82Comments 9,300Joined 2 yr. ago
givesomefucks @ givesomefucks @lemmy.world
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What?
Vitamin D is something we don't get much of from a modern diet, and we need a substantial amount to make very important neurotransmitters, the lack of which causes depression and anxiety, or at least symptoms to be worse, meaning complaints are more likely.
Like, that's a real scientific thing we've known for decades.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9468237/
A correlation with increase use of sunblock, I'm not really sure of. I'd assume it's more that people spend substantially less time in the sun in general regardless of UV blocking.
It was a meme in the Navy, if anyone looked sad or mentioned depression while out to see, the first fucking thing everyone said was "drink more milk" because they put a shit ton of vitamin D in the milk for that reason.
The second was usually "smoke more cigarettes" tho, because most of the time to smoke you had to go stand on a deck in the sun.
But especially for /shower thoughts, there's not a lot to judge OP on here. It's pretty accurate and something that someone very well could have just realized one day