STOP Doing THIS! It’s More Dangerous Than Smoking

There was a study in 2011 in Sweden.

Yes.

Is that linked to this?

>> No, this is a completely different

study, but that that's also a very

important study. So, the Swedish study

is is is groundbreaking. Um

This was a study where they asked 20,000

20 to 30,000 Swedish women

about their habits in sunlight.

And they divided these women into three

categories. Those women that did not get

a lot of sun, those that got a moderate

amount of sun, and those that got a lot

of sun. And they followed them for 20

years. And they they kept a track of

each one that died and what they died

of.

And when they were done with that, they

were astonished because what they found

was that

the women who had spent most spent the

large amount of their time outside or

that spent the most amount of time

outside

had

the least amount of mortality from

cancer,

from cardiovascular disease, and

non-cardiovascular disease. And those

that spent the least amount of time

outside had the highest levels of that.

The magnitude difference between those

two was so much

that they were able to show that women

who in Sweden

who spent the most amount of time

outside and smoked

had the same mortality as those women

that did not spend as much time outside

and did not smoke.

They were equal. They were equal. In

other words,

being in that category of not spending

much time outside in the sun was the

same risk factor for death as smoking.

How do they know it wasn't linked to

exercise? How are they able to establish

causation cuz that's a You're absolutely

That's an excellent question. So, the

the difference here as you go up is this

is a this is an association study, okay?

So, the the question is is how can you

get causation from association? You

can't.

But, if you look at the Bradford Hill

criteria, there is a way that you can

potentially make a a strong argument for

causation if there's something called a

dose response curve. In other words, if

you can show you're not just comparing

two things, but you're comparing three

or more, if you can show that as you

increase

the variable, that there is a change in

the

the output, that is strongly suggestive

of potentially causation. By the way,

this is exactly what we did to show that

smoking causes lung cancer. Obviously,

we can't do a randomized control trial

here. You get to smoke, you don't get to

smoke. We'll follow up in 20 years to

see who has lung cancer. This is exactly

what we did. We showed that that there

was such a strong association with

cancer risk with smoking that we were

able to say through association that

smoking causes lung cancer. By the way,

Richard Weller,

who's a dermatologist in England, uh did

just last year a very similar study as

to the Swedish study, except it was 10

times bigger,

and he did it with both men and women.

He found the same results.

It was a UK Biobank study.

What did he discover? He discovered that

either from

from solariums or from um or being

outside, using solar radiation data, uh

he was able to show both on their their

questionnaire and also where they lived

that the more light that they had, the

lower their risk as of of um mortality

uh and um and cancer mortality. So, the

question was

does it increase melanoma?

What's What's melanoma? Melanoma is is a

skin cancer. So, that's the big risk.

That's the big risk that everybody's

concerned about. You go out into the sun

and you're going to get skin cancer.

And he was able to show in that study,

this was like three three 400,000 people

in this study, UK Biobank study, Richard

Weller.

He was able to show that

there was no increased there's no

statistical increased risk of melanoma

incidence, but there was a reduction in

non-skin cancer mortality.

Okay, so so here's the trade-off. If you

want to go out into the sun in England,

okay?

The benefits are you're going to have a

reduction

in non-skin cancer mortality. So,

everything other than skin cancer.

>> Correct.

On the other hand, there's no increase

in melanoma incidence. So, that caused

him to write an a an op-ed and publish

it. And actually, you can look up this

op-ed. It's a great op-ed. Uh published

in a um

in the Journal of Investigative

Dermatology called Sunlight: Time for a

Rethink, where he goes through the

arguments. And he's actually shown and

and there's been a number of changes

that people have making around the

globe. So, public health uh

organizations that are saying now, you

know, before we have said

that, you know, the sun the sun is a

deadly laser.

And you should avoid it at all costs.

We may need to rethink that.

So, you're telling me that essentially

15 minutes in the sun every day turns on

a switch in my body that improves my

mitochondrial function, which is going

to impact a variety of different parts

of my health. Is that essentially what

you're saying? Essentially, yes. And and

we're we're looking and this is in an

environment where where we are spending

less and less and less time.

To give to give you to put in

perspective, if we were on a British

ship 300 years ago, and I came to you

and I said, "Do you see this little

yellow fruit? Just by eating a little

bit of this yellow fruit, all of this

disease that you're seeing around you

with your fellow shipmates is going to

go away." That that would seem almost

incredulous, right? But, that's exactly

the case.

We we are

the scurvy of the 21st century is the

lack of sunlight.

Everything is inside.

Uh we we avoid the outside. We avoid

discomfort. We avoid high temperatures.

We avoid low temperatures. We uh we used

to go out and play sports. We now are

are playing virtual sports on on pads.

We have windows

that are specifically designed,

especially here in Southern California,

to eliminate infrared lights. Because

why? Infrared lights comes in and it

heats up. One of the interesting things

we didn't mention this about infrared

light is the way that we interact with

infrared light. You can you can tell

this on your own. You go outside

and

close your eyes. You can tell which side

of your body the sun is on. And the

reason is is because that infrared light

not only can penetrate through your

body, it's also penetrating through

clothes.

Very easily. And you can feel that. That

that heat that you're feeling is the

infrared light going through the going

through the clothes, going through the

skin, and interacting with your heat

receptors that are well below the

surface.

Um so you all of this.

How long does the average American spend

indoors? The average Brit spend indoors?

Good question. They're almost identical.

Uh I think the Brits spend a little bit

more time outside than Americans. The

the the last number for Americans was

93%

and uh Brits is 92%.

>> Were we born to be outside? I think so.

You think our ancestors probably spent a

huge amount of time outside?

>> Yeah. And and if you think about when I

say outside, that also brings into play

a a a number of other other new start uh

letters that we haven't talked about. Uh

exercise. You're much more likely to do

good exercise outside. You're much more

likely to get air. That's that's the

right type of air outside.

The other aspect about infrared light,

briefly,

is that trees

are highly reflective of infrared light.

In other words, if you're in an

environment where there are trees are

present, you're going to get much more

of this beneficial infrared light than

if you're in a concrete jungle.

So so so plants like this. In fact, the

way that we measure the the forestation

of the Amazon is through satellite

imaging that looks at infrared light

because it reflects infrared light back.

So,

the best thing best situation to be in

is to be outside

on a green

on a day where where there's lots of

green trees. We've known for we've known

for decades that people who live in

green spaces

do much better in terms of diabetes, do

much better in terms of hypertension,

mortality, all of these things.

>> Depression. Depression, all of these

things, yeah. And and when you think

about this, um

you you bring up a point in terms of of

correlation. How do we know it's not

depression?

We used to say, well, people who live in

green spaces have more money.

That people have they have more access

to things. Maybe that's what we're

seeing.

I just have to tell you this study.

There was something called the

GreenHeart study in South Louisville,

Kentucky. They did an amazing thing.

They took this 4 square mile area

in South Louisville, Kentucky, urbanized

area.

And they measured everybody's HS-CRP.

What is HS-CRP? Highly sensitive

C-reactive protein. It's a marker of

inflammation and it's been correlated to

bad things like stroke and heart attack.

So, if you have high levels of of CRP,

that's not good.

So, they measured every they measured

about 700 people.

And then they did something

extraordinary. They purchased 8,000

mature trees,

dug holes, and planted 8,000 trees into

4 square mile area. And these are trees

with leaves on them.

Two years later they come back and they

measure all 700 people in their study,

repeat the HR-CRP.

Dropped by 13 to 20%, which correlated

to about a 10 to 15% reduction in

strokes.

These people didn't change their

socioeconomic status. They didn't

institute an exercise program.

And so really it kind of shoots in the

heart the idea that the advantage that

we see with green spaces has to do with

something else that we're not measuring.

I actually believe that we'll talk about

fresh air, too, that things like

these plants

but much bigger. This is kind of like a

bonsai plant. This But outside they

actually have a benefit and what they

represent again is

these things that

don't leverage the other parts of your

body in in terms of the chains uh

that make all of the chains bigger cuz

they're they're they're having a

benefit. But you can't get the benefit

of this if you're inside a house. So

what should we do about this in terms of

how what changes should I make in my

life to capitalize on this? Um this is a

this brand here is called Boncharge.

They do these these red light devices.

They do like red light saunas, blankets,

um masks. They're actually a sponsor of

mine because I I started wearing this

and I think they they found out.

>> [laughter]

>> And I started wearing it because of my

girlfriend. Yeah. Uh she was wearing it

every day and I got curious. And so I as

I always do I'm always super skeptical.

Sure. So I went on online and started

looking at some of the research and I

was shocked. Yeah. It made no intuitive

sense to me that a a red light mask or

any like red light device could have a

profound like a what I see as a profound

impact on my health. Like I didn't

believe it. Yes. To start with. It was

like woo-woo stuff to me. I I Yeah. But

I couldn't disprove it. Right. All the

studies, many of which you've

referenced, um

supported that it was having a profound

impact. And as I've said on this podcast

before, my girlfriend's always right.

>> [laughter]

>> She's like always ahead of the curve and

always right. So I started wearing her

mask and now I have my own from

Boncharge.

>> Yeah. Ish. Do you recommend these kinds

of things? I I think it's reasonable to

do. I I will say this. Um if you are

getting enough infrared light from the

sun

What we find in studies, not

particularly with the mass, but we find

in other things is that these these

other areas don't have as much efficacy.

It's almost to say, if you're on a ship

with a bunch of people with scurvy and

you already have a diet that's rich in

vegetables and fruits, eating an extra

lemon is not going to be that

beneficial. So, what do you do? Like a

lot of doctors do, we have shifts that

go from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. So,

you're in the hospital, you're not going

to get outside. So, at lunch, I try to

get outside as much as I possibly can

into the sun for my 15 minutes.

>> What if you live in a cloudy country?

So, that's a good point. Uh clouds,

because they are water molecules, will

absorb a lot of the infrared light. And

the problem is is that that's the

exactly the type of light that you want

to get. However, even on a cloudy day,

being outside, you're going to get more

infrared light than if you were inside.

Okay, so I still get the light I need

when it's cloudy, but I just don't get a

lot.

Yes, exactly.

>> Is there anything I can do to get even

if it's super cloudy and I know I'm

going to be indoors?

What do I do then? Yeah. So, the light

the type of lights that we have inside,

like these ones, like these. Uh and and

and actually, I think the UK and the

United States are very similar in this

regard, is that we really can't get the

old incandescent bulbs. We're on LED or

or fluorescent. And if you think about

what they've done in terms of of these

bulbs,

the old incandescent bulbs used to give

you a very broad uh

spectrum. So, all the way from, you

know, just near blue all the way down

into the into the infrared. The way that

they've made the bulbs more efficient,

they said, "Hey, let's stop using energy

to give off this light that we can't see

and give a very narrow spectrum of light

that we can see."

So, think about what they've done. They

have, for the first time in the history

of humanity

they are now we are now being exposed to

light

in a very narrow spectrum without

anything else. Whenever in the history

of of humankind when we light a candle,

when we would go outside into the

sunlight, when we would have a kerosene

lamp

we were getting full spectrum.

In other words, we were never getting

blue light without red light. Now we're

starting to get blue light without red

light. So So do I change my bulbs?

It's difficult to do that because you

can't pick up in these incandescent

bulbs, which brings me to I mean at

least at least in the United States we

have laws now that outlaw the regular

selling of incandescent bulbs because of

energy efficiency. Oh, yeah. I'm on

Google now. I've typed in incandescent

bulb. So there's something called a

general service lamp, which is what the

type of bulbs that you could plug in,

but if you decide you want to get a

a bulb that you put into your microwave

or a bulb that you would do into a type

of chandelier that's a special type of

chandelier. Those are still available.

You can still get incandescent bulbs for

those. What about these kinds of bulbs?

Is that an incandescent bulb? That's

that is a that is an incandescent bulb

again for these special type of lights,

but I'm I'm talking about the light like

the like the good old fashioned A90 I

think it's called a light bulb that you

just screw in. Those are the 120 watts.

Those are getting more difficult. It's

harder to find. You can't go down to

your Home Depot and and find them there.

So Glenn Jeffrey

and this is this is a preprint that he

is he's done. He actually took

people

with that were working in this

environment with LED bulbs. He's

actually it's not peer-reviewed, it's

not published yet, but it's a preprint

it's available on the internet, so I'm

not speaking out of class.

And what he did with 22 people is he

switched out

these LED bulbs and put in incandescent

bulbs.

And there was a there was a 25%

improvement in in color differentiation

in his study.

What does that mean? They were able to

distinguish colors 25% better than they

were when they were exposed to LED LED

When I say LED bulbs, these are the

bulbs that are high on the blue end.

Um so why would that be?

The retina, which is the back of your

eye, where in the light is coming in,

there's these cones that are

tremendously metabolically active.

They're constantly updating, sending

neuro signals to the brain.

And there's it's the it's the one tissue

in your body with the most amount of

mitochondria. And it's because they have

to supply a lot of energy. As somebody

gets older,

that mitochondria is not producing the

same amount of energy. And so the the

ability of the energy that those cones

have to draw on to do their work is

less. And so they're not going to do the

job as well.

If you can perhaps increase the

the

the amount of output of energy from

those mitochondria, you could improve

the the the the ability to visually

perceive. And and and

Glenn Jeffery's done the study already,

where he

for just 3 minutes

670 nanometer light, very similar to

that mask, in the eye, only in the

morning,

improved

those people's ability to to to

visualize and actually see.

And what does that mean for the broader

picture of our health?

>> would be able to distinguish colors

better and actually improve their

vision.

That's basically what it means. Um and

so the question goes back to the first

question that you had at the very

beginning of the podcast, which is what

is the effect of low energy output from

the mitochondria? Well, it depends on

what tissue the mitochondria is in. And

so if it's in the eye,

then it's going to be better visual

perception. If it's in the brain, it's

dementia. If it's you know, you see what

I'm saying? So what we start to see

is we start to see that a myriad of

different diseases are affected by the

sun.

I I challenge anyone to do this. If you

look at a publication in the United

States, I've seen it, where they map out

the amount of deaths

per in a calendar day.

Cardiac disease,

respiratory disease, kidney disease, uh

pneumonia, um

all sorts of diseases, infectious

diseases, non-infectious diseases. You

will see a very clear pattern.

The maximum amount of deaths every year

occurs

within a month after the shortest day of

the year.

So we're talking December, January.

We see the most amount of influenza

deaths at that time. We see the most

amount of cardiac deaths at that time.

We see the most amount of kidney deaths

at that time.

So you might ask, well, that that's

because uh that's because people get

together at Christmas time and they

spread the germs around more and we have

Thanksgiving in late November here in

the United States. And and and and

that's what's going on.

The problem is is if you look at

Australia,

which is on the other end. So when is

their longest day of the year?

Their longest day of the year is in

December.

And that's when they have the least

amount of deaths, despite the fact that

they're all getting together for

Christmas in December. So that doesn't

fly.

It's exactly the opposite. The most

amount of deaths occur in Australia in

the southern hemisphere in June to July.

That's their winter.

And so what you see is deaths are

correlated to the length of the day.

This is the reason why whenever they

have to whenever they show you deaths in

the year, they always have to seasonally

adjust it.

And the length of the day is a proxy for

the amount of sunlight.

>> Absolutely. You're much more you're much

more likely to get sunlight

on the longest day of the year than the

shortest day of the year, especially

when and and this is well known. There

there are some months, especially in

people who are doing shift work, like

7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., there's

literally like December and January you

will not see the sun because you are

going off to work before the sun gets up

and you're you're coming home after the

sun is long set.

So, you're not you're not able to see

the sun. And so, you could go literally

weeks without seeing the sun at all.

Is there an optimal time of day to get

sunlight? Yes. So, optimal time of day

to get sunlight would be for those that

are concerned about getting damage from

ultraviolet radiation. As we talked

about, when the sun is low in the sky,

that's going to be beneficial because

the ultraviolet cannot penetrate

obliquely through the atmosphere as well

as long wavelength radiation. So, when

the sun is coming up, So, in the

mornings? In the mornings and when the

sun is going down in the evenings.

That's going to be the time where you're

going to get proportionally more

infrared light and the least amount of

ultraviolet light. Now, when the sun is

directly overhead at noon, you're going

to be getting the most amount of

infrared light at that time, but you're

also going to be getting a lot of

ultraviolet radiation. And so, if you're

not someone that's gone out into the sun

a lot, you may want to avoid this period

of time or

as we talked about, put on a

broad-brimmed hat, put on clothes. I

mean, more clothes

because

through clothes very well.

But infrared light can. If you love the

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