In an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience featuring Dr. Garry Nolan, a professor at Stanford’s School of Medicine, the conversation took an interesting turn toward sun exposure and cancer risk.
During the episode, Rogan posed a question that has become increasingly debated in health circles: Is the narrative that we need more sun exposure—just without burning—actually sound advice?
Rogan questions: “This narrative that you need to be in the sun more and that just don’t get burned? Is that reality?”
Dr. Nolan’s response was nuanced and rooted in both personal experience and scientific understanding. As someone who carries a genetic mutation called MIDF 318K that predisposes him to both melanoma and kidney cancer, Nolan has a uniquely informed perspective. He’s had a dozen melanomas removed over the years, making sun exposure a particularly dangerous proposition for him personally.
“Well, it depends on who,” Nolan explained when asked about the sun exposure narrative. For someone like him with his specific genetic vulnerability and Irish heritage—genes evolved in cloudy climates over hundreds of thousands of years—increased sun exposure is decidedly not beneficial.
He recounted his childhood in the 1960s when his mother would slather him in coconut oil before beach trips, a common practice that essentially amplified UV damage rather than protecting against it.
However, Nolan acknowledged there are genuine positives to sun exposure for the general population. Vitamin D production is an obvious benefit, but he also pointed to circadian rhythm regulation. Getting bright light exposure in the morning can help reset your biological clock more effectively than taking melatonin at night.
He said: “There are positives obviously for the sun. I mean vitamin D as an example, but they’re also you know resetting your clock in the morning rather than taking melatonin at night… Use glass to shield out the ultraviolet and get some bright light. It’s the UV that’s the danger. It’s not light.”
Nolan clarified that it’s specifically UV radiation that poses the danger, not light itself. Using glass to shield out ultraviolet rays while still getting bright light exposure offers benefits without the cancer risk.
The real damage, Nolan emphasized, comes from burning. Rogan agrees and says, “The burning, the damage to the skin, and then it manifests itself as cancer far later in life.”
These aren’t immediate consequences but rather “smoldering mutations” waiting for additional genetic hits or for the immune system to weaken with age before developing into full-blown cancer.
For Nolan personally, the risk is too great. He no longer sits in the sun, a stark change from his younger days when he even used tanning beds.
“I was an idiot when I was a kid,” he admitted, describing how he wanted to achieve a tan appearance without understanding the long-term consequences. Today, with his medical history, sun avoidance is a necessary precaution.
Yet Nolan offered a glimpse of hope for the future. He discussed the potential of CRISPR gene-editing technology, speculating that within perhaps five years, it might be possible to develop a topical CRISPR treatment that could correct the single point mutation in his skin cells, potentially allowing him to enjoy the sun again without elevated cancer risk.
