Professor Pelle Lindqvist has followed 29,000 Swedish women for 34 years. His conclusion: in northern countries, avoiding the sun may be as risky as smoking.

About this episode

Almost every guest on Sunlight Matters has quoted Pelle Lindqvist's work. In this episode Dave finally talks to the man himself.

Pelle is a professor and senior consultant at Södersjukhuset, Stockholm's South General Hospital. An obstetrician who specialises in blood clots, he has spent the past 20 years researching a question most of medicine stopped asking in the 1980s: what are the benefits of sun exposure?

He explains how a hunting trip with an oncologist friend led to one of the field's most-cited studies. He shares new findings that melanoma risk linked to sunbeds is higher among people who also overexpose and burn. He also explains why, after 20 years, he still struggles to get funding for research on sunlight's benefits.

In this episode

• How a hunting trip started a 34-year study of 29,000 Swedish women
• New findings: why melanoma risk among sunbed users is driven by overexposure, not sunbed use itself
• Why sunbed users in the cohort had around 18% lower all-cause mortality
• How Pelle uses a sunbed for a couple of minutes a week through the Swedish winter, "not to get a tan, just to continue to be in good health"
• Beyond vitamin D: the roles of nitric oxide and endorphins
• Sun habits and blood clots, and why the problem in the north is winter, not summer
• How sun exposure made its way into Swedish guidelines for pregnant women at risk of blood clots
• Why non-smoking sun avoiders had a similar life expectancy to smokers who got the most sun
• The growing evidence on sunlight, blood sugar and type 2 diabetes
• Why research into the sun's benefits goes "against the wind", and the risk of a structural bias in the science

Sunlight Matters is a podcast that explores the Sun's role in human health, architecture, cities, and everyday life.

Through conversations with scientists, architects, and technologists, the series examines how natural light shapes our bodies, our buildings, and how we live indoors.

Hosted by Dave Wallace, Sunlight Matters asks a simple but overlooked question: what happens when we disconnect from the Sun?

Because sunlight isn’t optional. It matters.

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Disclaimer: Sunlight Matters is for information and general interest only. Nothing discussed on the podcast should be taken directly as medical, architectural or other professional advice.