I watched my son and his wife prepare for their usual 4 mile walk yesterday. He slathered on sunscreen. When I asked him about it he said he burns easily in just a few minutes. I asked him if he was eating a lot of carbs.
I reminded him that I stopped using sunscreen years ago, and this year with my keto eating I don’t need to cover up all my exposed skin with long sleeves, pants, etc. I wear a hat to slow down face wrinkles, but that’s it. I am out ALL DAY working in a tank top and shorts. I just don’t burn easily anymore. I used to burn within 15 minutes. Being Scandinavian, my fair skin, complete with freckles isn’t supposed to be sun-friendly. Now I know it’s not my fair skin that was the problem, it was my junk food, high carb diet.
Resistance to sunburn on Keto
I live in North East Iowa I don’t fish much anymore as I did as a kid but when I was 9 I caught an 11.5 pound 32 inch Northern in the crick in my back yard.
Don’t burn the same as before but a full day in strong sun and no sunscreen and can get ‘sore’. Interestingly, I don’t peel anymore. Before, excess sun and I’d peel the next day.
A little info on mosquitoes…
Only the females bite (so their eggs can be fertilized later), they first regurgitate into the wound to keep it from clotting and to thin the blood. They have a built in mechanism in their abdomen that signals “now full, pull out”. If you stretch your skin tight with one of those blood suckers attached you can get some sweet revenge. They wont be able to pull out, and they will pop! Once they pop, however; they wont know to leave and will just stay attached dripping. It gross.
They are attracted by CO2. So your own breath is giving you away. This might be the key to Ketoners being immune. I’ve always been a mosquito magnet, so I will be testing this in very scientific methods, well, as well as I can n=1 anyway. But test I shall.
When I was in Korea I witnessed a contest the locals had. The winner was the one that got the most mosquito bites. There were dozens of foo… contestants in the field. Different techniques were used. Lighting technics, smoke, perfumes, and the winner was the guy that set up a partial tent (roof only, walls rolled up) and say in a chair, with a CO2 fire extinguisher. He just kept blasting his clothing, yes, with him in them, every few minutes. His back had more bites than the rest of the contestants combined. It was horrible. One of the observers kept asking me if I wanted to try… 
No thanks, I have enough problems keeping them away as it is, I dont want to give them the wrong idea.
Oh my what a thing to witness. I would not be game for that, lol. I enjoy my immunity that I seem to have from them.
I missed doing the follow up, so here it is. Mogi still love me! Mogi is Korean word for mosquito.
Pronounced “moh-ghee”
I was wondering about this the other day. Bob mentioned the beasties being attracted to CO2 in our breath I have wondered if some keto folks being resistant to mosquitos might be the acetone in the breath either repelling them (well, it seems to repel other humans! 
) or confusing them.
Just a thought, I’ve done 0 research on it. Might experiment some when the mosquitos get bad here.
Oops. I meant to say that in the very paragraph about CO2. Thanks for catching that.
I’ve noticed much better resistance to getting a sunburn. It could be keto, it could be that I’m no longer eating all the processed junk that comes with a standard diet, or it could be all the oily fish and greens that I eat. I have no desire to change my eating patterns, so I don’t actually care what the actual reason is so long as it keeps working.
Interesting. I’m not going to test the theory though. Ha! I am crazy about using sunscreen. It is an absolute must for me (BUT I will only use certain kinds because most are filled with absolute garbage). I am just way too fair to mess around with sunburn.
I’m carnivore for almost 2 years and the drop on Omega 6 has turned me into a tanning machine.
I surf a few times per week. Out in the hot sun. It is so good.
This Australian summer at latitude 33’ S, I have used a local hippy sunscreen twice. I have not had sunburn. It may be the latitude? It may be the hippy sunscreen is the most amazing sunscreen ever invented? I did get sunburn when I lived (and surfed) at 27’S and was LCHF then as well.
Could I add that from what I’ve read, melanomas can occur without the skin having been burned. Also, skin exposed to the sun does tend to look aged more quickly than non tanned skin. And yes, I do know the benefits of sunshine!
I noticed that right away when I went low carb about 10 years ago. The mosquitoes used to love me; on low carb they leave me alone.
I have not had a sunburn either even when I am out in the full sun for hours. I am very fair complected and used to get red, then go back to white, with peeling in between. Such a good look, Lol.
Last weekend I spent a lot of time in the sun constructing a trellis. When I came in late in the afternoon I expected some burn or redness but I had nothing. I found this very odd but it tends to back up that keto affects how your skin behaves in the sun.
I have also noticed a much higher sun tolerance on keto. I’m not sure it is actually the low carb/keto diet as much as the elimination of seed oils and replacing them with more omega-3 abs saturated fats.
Dr. Paul Mason gave a lecture on sunlight and its benefits. His research suggested an enormous health benefit even beyond vitamin D. The greatest benefit came from exposure to sunlight in the early morning and late evening hours. Greater exposure to UV light is associated with lower rates of mortality (even for those with increased history of sunburn) and sun avoidance is associated with increased all-cause mortality.
In fact, smokers who got the most sun had better mortality rates than non-smokers who got the least sun. Video at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvh4D_osFXs
I tested this theory at the beach last week by not applying sun block on the first day. I wore a hat and sun shirt. I mostly hung out under the umbrella but my legs and feet sure got toasted. On the bright side only my nose has peeled …so far.
I definitely don’t burn as easily as I used to. I also tan a lot easier and I’m very fair skinned and I would never get tanned. I’d go from white, to burned, back to white.