LED Lights

(light emitting diode) lighting does seem to be the wave of the future right now, given the mercury content and light quality issues with the current king-of-the-hill of green bulbs, the compact fluorescent (CFL). LEDs use modestly less energy than incandescent bulbs (according to a Rolling Stone article), and do not contain mercury. And they are becoming economically competitive with CFLs at the point of purchase while yielding superior quality lighting and energy bill savings down the line. However, ​some LED bulbs (GU10) emit VHF radio frequencies, typically in the 30–300 MHz range. There can also be health damage from these the light spectrum frequencies which produce predominantly UV blue light which can damage the eye and cause macular degeneration. In addition, when used at night in the home or in street lighting, LEDs can reduce melatonin in the body and cause circadian disruption.

The amount and quality of light you’re exposed to every day can have an enormous impact on your health. The healthiest light, of course, is natural sunlight, which has a number of benefits beyond the making of vitamin D in your skin. Unfortunately, most of us spend very little time outdoors during the daytime, thereby missing this important health component.

What’s worse, most have replaced their incandescent light bulbs — which most closely resemble full spectrum analog natural sunlight — with energy-saving light-emitting diode (LED) lights, which have a number of detrimental biological effects.

LEDs emit a large amount of aggressive blue light that generates high amounts of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and oxidative stress, and are devoid of near-infrared light that would help counteract some of that damage.

Here, Dr. Mercola reviews some of the top dangers of LED lights, and provides guidance for how to remediate these issues to protect your health. Watch (below) his October 2016 interview with Dr. Alexander Wunsch, a world class expert on photobiology, in which he reveals the hidden dangers of LED lighting that most people are completely unaware of.

The main problem with LEDs comprises two aspects: First, they emit excessive amounts of blue wavelengths, which are embedded in other wavelengths and therefore invisible to the naked eye and, second, their spectrum lacks the counterbalancing healing and regenerative near-infrared frequencies. They have very little red in them, and no infrared, which is the wavelength required for repair and regeneration.

When you are exposed to these higher amounts of blue light frequencies they catalyze excess ROS formation that contributes to biologic damage. So, when using LEDs, you end up with increased cellular damage and decreased repair and regeneration. The end result, as one would expect, is a higher risk for chronic disease and an impaired ability to heal.

Danger No. 1: LED Lighting Deteriorates Vision

As mentioned, virtually all LED lighting bulbs have no near-infrared frequencies to balance their blue light frequencies. The near-infrared frequencies are especially valuable for healing and affect your health in a number of important ways. In your eyes, near-infrared helps priming your retinal cells for repair and regeneration.

In addition, LEDs emit an excess of digital blue light, that in combination with a deficiency of the near infrared frequencies, generates ROS. Taken together, this explains why LEDs are so harmful for your eyes in particular.

You probably know that blue light in the evening reduces your melatonin production in your pineal gland. But you also have cells in your retina that are responsible for producing melatonin in order to help regenerate your retina during the night.

If you use LED lights after sunset, you reduce the regenerative and restoring capacities of your eyes. Needless to say, with less regeneration you end up with degeneration. In this case, the degeneration can lead to age-related macular degeneration, which is the primary cause of blindness among the elderly.

Lack of sunlight exposure during the day has also been implicated in the massive rise in myopia (nearsightedness).¹ Sunlight releases dopamine in your retina, slowing the growth of your eye and therefore possibly slowing the elongation of the eye and changes to your sight.²

Blue light also reduces your production of melatonin which, beyond impeding sleep, also increases your risk of insulin resistance, which also raises your risk of myopia.³

Danger No. 2: LED Light Exacerbates Chronic Disease Through Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Suppressed Energy Production

Importantly, LED light affects your mitochondrial function and may exacerbate health problems rooted in mitochondrial dysfunction, including metabolic disorder and cancer.

Chromophores are molecules that absorb light. There’s an optical tissue window ranging from 600 to 1,400 nanometers, which means it is almost completely covered by the near-infrared- part of the light spectrum. This optical tissue window allows the radiation to penetrate an inch or more into bodily tissues.

Chromophores are found in your mitochondria and in activated water molecules. In your mitochondria, there’s also a specific molecule called cytochrome c oxidase that is involved in the energy production within the mitochondria. Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) — cellular energy — is the end product.

ATP is the fuel your cells need for all of their varied functions, including ion transport, synthesizing and metabolism. Your body produces your body weight in ATP every day. And, while you can survive for several minutes without oxygen, were all ATP production to suddenly stop, you’d die within 15 seconds. This is why lighting is so important.

Light is a sorely misunderstood and overlooked part of the equation for biological energy production, specifically at the mitochondrial ATP level. Since the cytochrome c oxidase is responsible for an increased production of ATP, the cell has a better supply of energy, which allows it to perform better, and this is true no matter where the cell resides.

This means liver cells with more ATP will be able to detoxify your body more efficiently; fibroblasts in your skin will be able to synthesize more collagen fibers and so on, because ATP is crucial for all cellular functions.

The key take-home message here is that your body’s energy production involves not just food intake. You also need exposure to certain wavelengths of light in order for your metabolism to function optimally. This is yet another reason why sun exposure is so vitally important for optimal health, and why LED light bulbs are best avoided.

Danger No. 3: LED Light Impedes Your Sleep

LED light, including that from electronic screens, also suppresses melatonin production, thereby disrupting sleep, and this too can have far-reaching consequences for your health. Light-sensitive cells in your eyes track blue light, which in turn triggers different processes in your suprachiasmatic nucleus, a small region in your brain’s hypothalamus.

Among them is relaying to your pineal gland the news that when there is a lot of blue light, the production of melatonin should stop to facilitate wakefulness. Under normal conditions, as the sun sets and blue light decreases, production of melatonin increases, which helps you fall asleep.

However, if you’re exposed to unopposed blue enriched LED light, especially if it is bright, in the evening this sequence is interrupted, resulting in sleep problems. Indeed, research⁴ confirms that “blue light from LEDs elicits a dose-dependent suppression of melatonin in humans.”

Looking at a tablet for even two hours in the evening is enough to suppress your body’s natural nighttime rise of this hormone,⁵ and research^6,7 shows using an electronic device within one hour of bedtime can delay falling asleep for more than an hour.

Another study⁸ that compared melatonin profiles in individuals exposed to standard room light (<200 lux) versus dim light (<3 lux) found exposure to room light before bedtime shortened the time of elevated melatonin levels by about 90 minutes.

That means it may take you an extra hour and a half before you’re sleepy enough to fall asleep once you’re in bed. Combine room light and electronic displays right before bed and it’s easy to see how sleep may remain elusive for hours on end.

Most of us enjoy watching TV in the evening as a form of relaxation before bed. I certainly do and watch many great Netflix documentaries. The key here is most TVs can’t filter out blue light, but if you use a computer monitor as your TV screen you can use Iris; simply install the blue light filtering software on your computer. This will allow you to safely watch TV at night without suppressing your melatonin.

LED Lights are Spying on You

There are cases when a LED light can spy by covertly listening and then send that audio over 300 meters away to the eavesdropper. But this time, it is the LED fixtures that are the “backbone” of a new surveillance system scrutinizing and recording us. The New York Times reported in 2014 that 171 LED fixtures inside Terminal B at Newark Liberty International Airport are “watching” us.

Using an array of sensors and eight video cameras around the terminal, the light fixtures are part of a new wireless network that collects and feeds data into software that can spot long lines, recognize license plates and even identify suspicious activity, sending alerts to the appropriate staff.

It’s not the “green” side of saving energy by automatically turning the lights off and on that has the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey excited and “already talking about expanding it to other terminals and buildings.” Instead, the excitement comes from the mountains of data captured by sensors and analyzed by software about “the habits of ordinary citizens.” Right now Port Authority, which operates Newark Airport, “owns” the data collected, but law enforcement can obtain it via a “subpoena or written request.”

Conversely, Sensity Systems, the company that designed Port Authority’s light fixture surveillance system, believes its lighting provides the “perfect infrastructure” to build a new network “to gather information about people and the planet.” If you are interested, the video below is an interview from October 2013 with Sensity CEO Hugh Martin who gave the Times the gather info quote above.

These companies are not the only players claiming to analyze data from their Internet-connected LED light fixture systems to provide actionable intelligence. The Times said executives claim “the potential for the advanced lighting is nearly boundless,” but that “potential” seems much less about saving energy and more about collecting data.

(Source)

For Optimal Health, Address Your Daily Light Exposure

The good news is that you can remedy all of these health dangers by modifying your light environment and resynchronizing your body to the natural cycles of light and dark. Here are four key considerations:

Source: Dr. Mercola