Have you ever thought about what happens when you flip the light switch on in your house? You get light, right? Did you ever consider that maybe that light is not healthy? Since when is light not healthy you ask?
Story at a Glance:
- Today’s general purpose light bulbs are missing essential UV and infrared radiation. UV and infrared radiation is not bad but actually good for us (no matter what your dermatologist and eye doctor tells you).
- Most light bulbs today create what’s called “dirty electricity” (electrical noise) which is known to be biologically active (linked to disease).
- Most fluorescent and LED light bulbs flicker at a 60 Hz frequency which can cause headaches and even trigger seizures in sensitive people.
- Blue light from LED bulbs, a computer, TV and phone screens mess up our circadian rhythm (sleep/wake cycles) and increase your chances of macular degeneration.
I will cover all the above points in this blog. But why were light bulbs invented in the first place? Humans have developed artificial light to extend the day – allowing them to work after dark, to create and invent things. First there were candles and then the oil lamp, but Thomas Edison invented the incandescent light bulb in 1879. No longer would people have to deal with candles, or filling oil lamps and cleaning sooty chimneys. We could work longer, ignoring the need for sunlight, darkness and sleep.
But humans evolved over millions of years under the sun. Full spectrum sunlight is what our bodies need. And when the sun goes down, we need the darkness of night in order to sleep soundly. The sun is our most healthy source of light. Dr Jack Kruse once said “Humans are the only species bright enough to create artificial light and stupid enough to live under it.” In this post, I will explain some of the problems of artificial light.
THE SPECTRUM OF LIGHT
The light we live and work under every day does have an impact on our bodies. All sources of light emit a spectrum. Different light bulbs emit different wavelengths of light (different spectra). Incandescent bulbs are heavy on the warm red colors, fluorescent lights (CFL’s) emit lots of blues and greens and LEDs emit lots of blues and yellows with almost no reds.
Natural sunlight has all colors of the rainbow as shown in the picture above. None of the above light bulbs match actual sunlight. That said, there are light bulbs available now that come close to natural sunlight- “full spectrum” light bulbs as they are called, however these can be deceiving, as I will show you.
But sunlight is more than just “visible light”. It includes some ultraviolet light and some infrared light, which, for the most part, are not included in ordinary light bulbs. Believe it or not, our bodies need exposure to UV light and infrared (IR) light. These are not bad, unless you overdo it.
Researchers have discovered that there are UV light receptors in the back of human eyes. They are called “pigment epithelial cells of the retina”. They stimulate the retinal-hypothalamic-endocrine system, which influences hormone balance and body chemistry. UV light stimulation of this area likely influences growth and repair of our bodies (John Ott, Health and Light ). This is a good thing.
According to Michigan State University endocrinologist, Dr. Joseph Meites “UV light entering the eyes causes nerve impulses that influence the lower brain and pituitary gland that trigger the release of hormones.” Clearly, our eyes were designed to receive not only visible light, but also UV light which impacts our hormone levels.
So, if our eyes were designed to “see” light (UV and visible), why do we feel as though we should block our eyes from this? Blocking these wavelengths by staying out of the sun for long periods of time or using UV blocking sunglasses causes a biochemical and hormonal deficiency. (More on sunglasses in a future blog post).
And we can’t forget infrared light. Infrared wavelengths are also important, especially near infrared-A. It penetrates deeply into the skin and stimulates mitochondria. Dr Alexander Wunsch a world class expert on photobiology says energy production in your body “involves two mechanisms: energy production in your mitochondria from food, and photonic energy (near-infrared radiation) from sunlight and incandescent light bulbs”. In other words, near infrared from sunlight and incandescent bulbs help the body maintain energy production.
Incandescent light bulbs are good! This means that we should never have eliminated incandescent bulbs from our homes. Incandescent bulbs have very little blue light (which is desirable) and lots of warm reds (also good) with a little near infrared A (which penetrates our skin and produces energy). However, due to a Department of Energy regulation in May of 2022, lightbulbs must use 65% less energy. Incandescent light bulbs do not meet that requirement. Hence, we can no longer buy these bulbs.
So, if you spend lots of time indoors at a job, you will be missing some of these “essential nutrients” from the sun. It used to be that 75% of us worked outside jobs (a hundred years ago) and we were healthier. Today 75% of us work and live mostly inside. If this describes you, then you may be at a higher risk for certain diseases, such as cancer (see below).
SKIN CANCERS
Most skin cancers are basal cell carcinomas and are innocuous (almost never metathesize). The more sun you get the more chances you have of getting these. Some skin cancers are squamous cell and if removed in a timely manner do not metathesize. However, skin cancers such as melanoma (the worse kind) are actually more common in indoor workers than outdoor workers. Yes, you heard that right. They are more common with indoor workers than outdoor workers.
A (mostly forgotten) 1982 study of 274 women found that fluorescent light exposure at work caused a 2.1 times increase in their risk of developing malignant melanoma, with this risk increasing with more fluorescent light exposure. Another excellent article is “Dermatology’s War Against the Sun, (A Midwestern Doctor).
And, this study showed that there is a higher incidence of malignant melanoma occurring in folks that get low annual UV exposure (by being indoors all the time). Not only that, the melanomas are occurring in anatomical locations where the sun does not shine (more here and here).
Why would people get more melanomas “where the sun doesn’t shine?” Isn’t melanoma caused by sun exposure? Researchers hypothesized that (low) UV exposures result in low skin levels of vitamin D3. Those folks with the lowest vitamin D3 levels have more cancers. Clearly these folks might benefit from getting outside to increase their vitamin D3 levels and reduce their incidence of melanomas. Consider this comment below by a clinician who treats melanomas-
Of course, getting outside for more sun exposure has to be done slowly to build up a tolerance. Avoid sun burns. The slight reddening of the skin is your body saying “enough” for now.
DIRTY ELECTRICITY
Today’s light bulbs seem innocuous, but they create what’s called “dirty electricity” in the power lines of the house. Fluorescent lights are very bad at this and LEDs are no better. Dirty electricity is voltage spikes or high-frequency electric transients in the power lines of the house. They come and go. Your house gets 60 Hz electricity from the grid, but it is not clean electricity. It can look like this-
The steady black line in the picture above represents the 60-cycle clean electricity. The noisy red lines are the voltage spikes. What causes this? Light bulbs (such as the ballast in older fluorescent bulbs), LED’s as well as nearby generators, motors, battery chargers, and invertors that are on the grid. Dirty electricity can even come to your house from neighboring houses and motors running in distant industrial areas.
Dr Samual Milham first discovered its impact on health way back in the 1960’s 70’s and 80’s(“Dirty Electricity: Electrification and the Diseases of Civilization,”). He discovered that clusters of cancers could be traced to specific buildings and even rooms in buildings where the exposure to dirty electricity was very high. Dirty electricity “impacts your biology, specifically your mitochondrial function, which we’ve now come to appreciate is at the heart of virtually all chronic disease” (Mercola and Dr martin Pall).
Dirty electricity can be mitigated with special plug-in filters. This topic warrants another blog post, but for now, suffice it to know that you can choose light bulbs that are low in dirty electricity and I give you sources to purchase these at the end of this post.
FLICKER
Most fluorescent and LED light bulbs flicker. (Incandescent light bulbs flicker also, but less.) These bulbs flicker at a 60 Hz frequency which can cause headaches and even trigger seizures in sensitive people. You cannot see the flicker with the naked eye, but your brain “sees” it and has to cope with it. Imagine a room full of overhead fluorescent bulbs all flickering away. To see what a flickering light looks like, click on these 10 second videos that I took of the lights in my house-
You can check the flicker in your own home. Use your cell phone to take a 10 second Slo-Mo video of a light bulb in your house. Play it back. It may amaze you! (Note: Some newer cameras and smartphones have a built-in algorithm that will detect the flicker frequency and change the shutter speed accordingly to improve the recording, thereby eliminating the interference. If your camera has this algorithm, it will not record a visible flicker even if it’s there.)
Some folks will never be impacted by the flicker. Others may get headaches after being in “the office” all day and sitting under the fluorescent light panels. One day I went to a location where I sat in a waiting room for about an hour under a large panel of lights. I did not get a headache, but I sure felt jittery when I left the building. Lights? Dirty electricity? Who knows!
You can purchase light bulbs that are low flicker, and I give you sources to purchase these at the end of this post.
BLUE LIGHT
Natural sunlight has a lot of blue light in it. But as the day progresses, the blue light fades and the reds are dominant (think sunset). Yet as humans we flip on the LED lights in our house and immerse ourselves in “screen time” long after sunset, which means we are saturated with blue light from phones, televisions, and computer screens.
LEDs are mostly blue light. Even the ones that say they are “full spectrum”. The manufacturer attempts to mask the blue with a fluorescent sheet that covers the blue LED.
Blue light has higher energy and shorter wavelengths. It causes higher oxidative stress in your tissues (ROS, reactive oxygen species). Researchers at the University of Toledo are now thinking that eye diseases such as Macular degeneration may actually be due to exposure to the blue light from man-made LED’s and screens in addition to a lack of sunlight in the UV region (see their work here). Another excellent article is here (Blue Light Contributes to Blindness).
While macular degeneration is more common in older folks, the researchers discovered that blue light essentially poisons the photoreceptor cells in the eye. Kasun Ratnayake, a Ph.D. student from the research group, commented: “It’s toxic. If you shine blue light on retinal, the retinal kills photoreceptor cells as the signaling molecule on the membrane dissolves. Photoreceptor cells do not regenerate in the eye. When they’re dead, they’re dead for good.” You can purchase light bulbs that effectively block the blue light, and I give you sources to purchase these at the end of this post. You can also turn your computer and phone screens to certain settings to block blue light.
SO WHAT DO WE DO?
With all the problems stated above, what do we do? If you want to take action to improve the lighting in your home, where do you start? I spent some time talking with the folks at Shielded Healing (discovered them at a Weston Price Foundation conference). They sent me a great Lighting Guide. This guide has lots of great information on healthier lighting options. It is worth the read.
They also referred me to a company that specializes in specific bulbs. It is called BlockBlueLight.com. All of their bulbs have low dirty electricity, low flicker, and low blue light (and they are LEDs to save energy). The company even has replacements for the long fluorescent bulbs found in laundry rooms and basements. (I sent some of these to my brother who works under fluorescent lights in his workshop and is prone to headaches).
Then, turn all your computer and phone screens to “night light” or “block blue light”. Use blue light blocking glasses to watch the TV in the evening. (Yes, everything will look a bit yellow).
Myself? I am slowly transitioning away from the conventional, harsh lighting in my house to better light bulbs. It costs more but it is worth it. (Yes, I still have a stash of incandescent bulbs in my closet that I am using judiciously). I even have a couple of UV lights (we used to call them “black lights”) in my house as there is compelling evidence that exposure to ultraviolet can add to indoor health (John Ott, Health and Light). If you spend a lot of time indoors in a home office, you might set up a small lamp in the corner of the room and keep it on all the time. I got my black light UV light bulb at HomeDepot. Another one is here.
CONCLUSION-
“One of the defining characteristics of modern life is the continual exposure to unnatural light. While this is viewed as being relatively benign, in reality, forgotten research demonstrated that it may be a root cause of a myriad of inexplicable modern physical and behavioral illnesses” (A Midwestern Doctor).
Here is what I suggest – Go outside, get as much natural light as possible each day (being cautious not to get sunburned). When inside- switch to light bulbs that are healthier. Be confident that you have improved your home and your life.
I hope I have shed some light on this important topic. Scroll down to leave a comment (reply).
You never cease to amaze me with your diligence and research! Thank you!!