How LED Lighting May Compromise Your

Health
Story at-a-glance
 Near-infrared is important as it primes the cells in your retina for repair and regeneration, which
explains why LEDs — which is devoid of infrared — are so harmful for your eyes and health

 One-third of the energy your body consumes comes from the food you eat. The vast majority of
the energy your body needs to maintain the systemic equilibrium comes from environmental
infrared light exposure

 LEDs sabotage health and promote blindness. Limit your exposure to blue light during the
daytime and at night. Swap out LEDs for incandescents or low-voltage incandescent halogen
lights

By Dr. Mercola

Can light affect your health? In this interview, Dr. Alexander Wunsch, a world class
expert on photobiology, shares the hidden dangers of light-emitting diode (LED)
lighting that most people are completely unaware of.

In fact, this could potentially be one of the most important video interviews I've done,
as it has enormous impacts — not only on preventing blindness as you age but it is
also a pervasive hidden risk factor for sabotaging your health.

Largely as a result of energy efficiency, there's been a major transition to using LED
as a primary indoor light source. In this regard, it worked like a charm, reducing
energy requirements by as much as 95 percent compared to incandescent thermal
analog sources of lighting.

However, the heat generated by incandescent light bulbs, which is infrared radiation,
is actually beneficial to your health, and hence worth the extra cost.

There are major downsides to LEDs that are not fully appreciated. LED lighting may
actually be one of the most important, non-native EMF radiation exposures you're
exposed to on a daily basis.

If you chose to ignore these new insights, it can have very serious long-term
ramifications. It could lead to age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which is the
leading cause of blindness in the United States and elsewhere.

Other health problems rooted in mitochondrial dysfunction may also be exacerbated,

and these run the gamut from metabolic disorder to cancer.

What Is Light?
The definition of light, as applied to artificial light sources, is rather distinct. Visible
light is only between 400 nanometers (nm) and 780 nm, but "light" is actually more
than just what your eye can perceive. As explained by Wunsch:
"When we look at sunlight, we have a much broader spectral range, from somewhere
around 300 nm up to 2,000 nm or so. For our energy efficiency calculation, it makes
a big difference if we are talking about this broad natural range or if we are only
talking about … vision performance

[T]he definition that we are only looking at the visible part of the spectrum [given in
the 1930s] … led to the development of energy-efficient light sources like the
fluorescent lamps or what we have nowadays, the LED light sources, because they
are only energy efficient as long as you take the visible part of the spectrum [into
account] …

[F]or example, [lamps providing] phototherapy with red light can be used in medical

therapy to increase blood circulation, and this is a part we are taking away as long as
we only look at the visible part.

Physicists think that infrared radiation is just thermal waste. But from the viewpoint of
a physician, this is absolutely not true; in the last 30 years there have been hundreds
of scientific papers published on the beneficial aspects of a certain part in the
spectrum, which is called near-infrared or infrared-A."

What Makes Near-Infrared so Special?

You cannot feel near-infrared as heat, and you cannot see it, but it has a major
beneficial impact in terms of health. Near-infrared is what's missing in non-thermal
artificial light sources like LED.

There's also a difference between analog and digital forms of light sources, and this
difference is another part of the complexity. In essence, there are two separate but
related issues: the analog versus digital light source problem, and the spectral
wavelength differences.

Starting with the latter, when you look at the rainbow spectrum, the visible part of
light ends in red. Infrared-A or near-infrared is the beginning of the invisible light
spectrum following red. This in turn is followed by infrared-B (mid-infrared) and
infrared-C (far-infrared).

While they cannot be seen, the mid- and far-infrared range can be felt as heat. This
does not apply to infrared-A, however, which has a wavelength between 700 and
1,500 nm.

"Here you have only very low absorption by water molecules, and this is the reason
why radiation has a very high transmittance," Wunsch says.

"In other words, it penetrates very deeply into your tissue, so the energy distributes in
a large tissue volume. This near-infrared A is not heating up the tissue so you will not
feel directly any effect of heat.

This significantly changes when we increase the wavelength, let's say, to 2,000 nm.
Here we are in the infrared-B range and this already is felt as heat. And from 3,000
nm on to the longer wavelength, we have almost full absorption, mainly by the water
molecule, and this is [felt as] heating."
Near-Infrared Is Critical for Mitochondrial and Eye Health
The near-infrared range affects your health in a number of important ways. For
example, it helps prime the cells in your retina for repair and regenerate.

Since LEDs have virtually no infrared and an excess of blue light that generates
reactive oxygen species (ROS), this explains why LEDs are so harmful for your eyes
and overall health.

Chromophores are molecules that absorb light. There's an optical tissue window that
ranges from 600 to 1,400 nm, which means it is almost completely covered by the
infrared-A part of the spectrum. This optical tissue window allows the radiation to
penetrate several centimeters or at least an inch or more into the tissue.

Chromophores are found in your mitochondria and in activated water molecules. In

your mitochondria, there's also a specific molecule called cytochrome c oxidase,
which 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. Remarkably, 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.

Lighting Plays an Important Role in Biological Energy

Production
This is why this issue of 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. As further explained by Wunsch:

"The cytochrome c oxidase, which is this [light] absorbing molecule, is the last step
before the ATP is finally produced in the mitochondria. Here we have this tipping
point where light in a wavelength range between 570 nm and 850 nm is able to boost
energy production, especially in cells when energy production is depleted …

We know today that many signs of aging, for example, are the consequence of
hampered mitochondrial functioning, and so we have a very interesting … tool to
enhance the energy status in our cells, in the mitochondria in our cells, and not only
on the surface but also in the depths … of the tissue. This is one important aspect
and there are hundreds of papers published on these positive effects …

Infrared saunas are another magnificent way to nourish your body with near-infrared
light. But not just ANY infrared sauna. Most offer only FAR-infrared and are not full
spectrum. Most also emit dangerous non-native EMFs. So you need one that emits
low or no non-native EMFs.

After searching for a long time I finally found a near perfect one and hope to have it
made to my customized specs in a few months. And it should be significantly less
than $1,000. So stay tuned for this exciting development.
Wound Healing and Anti-Aging Procedures Make Use of Near-
Infrared
These beneficial effects can be seen in wound healing and anti-aging procedures
where near-infrared is employed. 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. Wunsch expands on this even
more in the lecture above.

According to Wunsch, as little as one-third of the energy your body requires for
maintaining the thermal equilibrium comes from the food you eat. The electrons
transferred from the food, primarily the fats and the carbohydrates, are ultimately
transferred to oxygen and generate ATP. The more near infrared you get, the less
nutritional energy is required for maintaining thermal homeostasis.

That said, a differentiation is in order. Most of the METABOLICALLY USED energy

does come from food. But there is a thermodynamic aspect to it as well. Maintaining
a normal body temperature (37 degrees C or 98.6 degrees F) involves two
mechanisms: Energy production in your mitochondria from food, and photonic energy
(near-infrared radiation from sunlight and incandescent light bulbs) that is able to
penetrate deeply into your tissue, even through clothing.

"The radiation can enter your body and then be transformed into longer wavelengths
in the infrared part. They are very important for supporting the temperature level, the
thermal energy level, of our body which is … a very crucial aspect. A lot of energy
comes in the form of radiation and this is supporting our thermal balance," Wunsch
explains.

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.

Analog Versus Digital Lighting

LED lamps are a form of digital non-thermal lighting whereas incandescent light
bulbs and halogens are analog thermal light sources.

"For a color changing system you have three different LEDs, a red, a green and a
blue LED, and the intensity of these three colored channels has to be changed in
order to achieve different color use, which is perceived by the eye in the end. The
control of the intensity output of an LED is realized in a digital manner because it's
very difficult to have a low intensity in many different steps.

The dimming of LEDs is realized by a so-called pulse-width modulation, which

means the LEDs switch on to the full intensity and then they fully switch off, and then
they switch on again. So we have the constant on and off in frequencies, which are
higher than our eyes are able to discriminate. But on the cellular level, it is still
perceivable for the cells …

[T]his causes a flicker, which is not perceivable for let's say 90 percent of the
population. But it's still biologically active. And flicker is something that is very
harmful to your [biology]."

You've likely experienced this if you're old enough to recall the older TVs that had a
very visible and intense flicker. Modern flat screens do not have this perceptible
flicker, but they're still switching on and off. Scientists are now trying to develop
systems capable of transmitting information via high-frequency flicker in the LED
lighting to replace the wireless LAN system. According to Wunsch, this is a very bad
idea, from a health perspective.

"I call these LEDs Trojan horses because they appear so practical to us. They
appear to have so many advantages. They save energy; are solid state and very
robust,. So we invited them into our homes. But we are not aware that they have
many stealth health-robbing properties, which are harmful to your biology, harmful to
your mental health, harmful to your retinal health, and also harmful to your hormonal
or endocrine health," he says.

Unfortunately, the use of LEDs has been mandated by federal policy in both the U.S.
and much of Europe, in an attempt to conserve energy. While inarguably effective in
that regard, the biological impact of these bulbs has been completely ignored, and by
mandating them, options have been restricted.

Understanding the Dangers of LEDs

Understanding how LEDs can harm your health begins with the recognition that light
emitted from an LED bulb is of a different quality than a natural light source.
Normally, a natural light source is a black body radiator that gives off all kinds of
wavelengths in a more or less continuous manner.

LEDs are fluorescent lamps, consisting of a blue LED, a driver LED, and a
fluorescent sheet that covers the blue LED, transforming part of the blue light into
longer wavelengths, thereby creating a yellowish light. The yellowish light from the
fluorescent layer combines together with the residual blue light to a kind of whitish
light, a large portion of which is an aggressive blue light.

"Blue has the highest energy in the visible part of the spectrum and produces,
infuses, the production of ROS, of oxidative stress," he says.

"The blue light causes ROS in your tissue, and this stress needs to be balanced with
near-infrared that is not present in LEDs. We need even more regeneration from blue
light, but the regenerative part of the spectrum is not found in the blue, in the short
wavelength, part. It's found in the long wavelength part, in the red and the near-
infrared. So tissue regeneration and tissue repair results from the wavelengths that
are not present in an LED spectrum.

We have increased stress on the short wavelength part and we have reduced
regeneration and repair on the long wavelength part. This is the primary problem …
[W]e don't have this kind of light quality in nature. This has consequences. The
stress has consequences in the retina; it has consequences in our endocrine
system."

You probably know by now that blue light in the evening reduces melatonin
production in your pineal gland. But you also have cells in your retina that are
responsible for producing melatonin in order to regenerate the 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 AMD, which is the primary
cause of blindness among the elderly. However, and this is that most fail to
appreciate, LED light exposure that is not balanced with full sunlight loaded with the
red parts of the spectrum is always damaging to your biology. Just more so at night.

So, to summarize, the main problem with LEDs is the fact that they emit primarily
blue wavelengths and lack 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 use these aggressive lower frequencies — blue light — it creates ROS
that, when generated in excess, causes damage. So when using LEDs, you end up
with increased damage and decreased repair and regeneration.

Are There Any Healthy LEDs?

There's a wide range of LED lights on the market these days. Some are cool white,
others are warm white, for example. The former emits higher amounts of harmful
blue light. The warm LEDs can be deceptive, as they give out a warm-appearing light
but do not actually have the red wavelength. The warmth comes from masking the
blue with high amounts of yellow and orange.

There are also LEDs available with less blue, which are closer to the spectral
distribution of incandescent lamps with regard to the blue part of the spectrum.
Unfortunately, without tools to measure it, you won't know exactly what you're getting.
This is in sharp contrast to an incandescent light bulb, where you know exactly what
kind of light spectrum you're getting.

"With LED, the layman is not able to tell if it's a tailored spectrum where you have the
blue part only masked by excessive parts of other spectral regions," Wunsch says.
"There are different technologies … Soraa, for example, have violet driver LED, not
blue … By their technology, the red is a little bit more emphasized compared to the
standard white light fluorescent LEDs.

So there are in fact better and worse LED types around. But the spectral distribution
is just one thing … We are interested in the R9, which represents the full reds. This
information is sometimes given on the package. You have, for example, CRI, which
is the color rendering index of 95 with an R9 of 97 or so. This is the only sign for the
customer that you have a high level or a high index for the R9."

How to Identify a Healthier LED

So, when buying LEDs, one way to get a healthier light is to look at the CRI. Sunlight
is the gold standard and has a CRI of 100. So do incandescent light bulbs and
candles. What you're looking for is a light that has an R9 (full red spectrum) CRI of
about 97, which is the closest you'll ever get to a natural light with an LED. Another
factor to look at is the color temperature. There are two different kinds of color
temperature:

1. Physical color temperature, which means the temperature of your light in

degrees Kelvin (K). This applies to sunlight, candlelight, incandescent lamp light and
halogens. What this means is that the source itself is as hot to the touch as the color
temperature given.

The sun, for example, which has a color temperature of 5,500 K, has a temperature
of 5,500 K at its surface, were you to actually touch the sun. Incandescent lamps
have a maximum of 3,000 K, as the filament would melt if the temperature got any
higher.

2.Correlated color temperature. This is a measurement that tells you how the light
source appears to the human eye. In other words, it is a comparative measurement.
A correlated color temperature of 2,700 K means it looks the same as a natural light
source with a physical color temperature of 2,700 K.

The problem here is that while such a light LOOKS the same as a natural light, it
does not actually have the same quality, and your body, on the cellular level, is not
fooled by what your eye sees. On a cellular level, and on the level of the retina, the
majority of the light is still cold, bluish white, despite its apparent, visible warmth.

Incandescent light bulbs have a color temperature of 2,700 K whereas LEDs can go
up to 6,500 K — the really bright white LED. In this case, the closer you are to
incandescent, the better. Lastly, there's the digital component, which is virtually
unavoidable no matter what. To determine how good or bad a particular LED is:

"You would have to measure somehow if the LED produces flicker or not. Two, three
years ago, it would have been much easier because the camera of an older
smartphone was not as high-tech equipped as they are today. With an old
smartphone camera, when you look into the light source, you can see these
wandering lines, so you can detect if the light source is flickering," Wunsch explains.

A simpler way would be to purchase a flicker detector, which are available fairly
inexpensively. Another way to determine the flicker rate would be to use the slow
motion mode on your camera. Record the light source in slow motion mode and
check it for visible flickering.

Unfortunately, it doesn't always work. 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.

Healthier Solutions
I like being on the cutting edge of technology and I quickly switched out all my
incandescent bulbs for LED lighting. I now realize the enormity of my mistake, but at
the time — going back almost 10 years now — I was completely unaware that it
could have health consequences. Before that, I used full-spectrum fluorescents,
which is equally deceptive, as it is full spectrum in name only.

I'm now convinced LED light exposure is a very serious danger, especially if you are
in a room without natural light. The biological risks are somewhat mitigated if you
have plenty of sunlight streaming through windows. At night, LEDs become a greater
danger no matter whether you're in a windowless room or not, as there is no
counterbalancing near-infrared light.

Personally, I've not swapped all my lights back to incandescent because they're such
energy hogs. But all the lights I have on at night have been switched to clear
incandescent bulbs without any coating that changes their beneficial wavelengths. So
the take-home message of this interview is to grab a supply of the old incandescents
if you can and switch back to incandescent light bulbs.

Just remember to get incandescents that are crystal clear and not coated with white
to give off a cool white light. You want a 2,700 K incandescent, thermal analog light
source. Actually, fragrance-free candles would be even better. Be particularly mindful
to only use this type of light at night. After sunset, I also use blue-blocking glasses.

"It is definitely a good idea to keep away the short wavelengths in the evening, so
after sunset. It's also a good idea not to intoxicate your environment with too much
light. We know that artificial light levels at night have reached insane intensity. The
candle, the intensity of the candle for example, is absolutely sufficient for orientation.

If you have to read in the evening or at night time, my personal favorite light source
for reading tasks is a low-voltage incandescent halogen lamp, which is operated on a
DC transformer. Direct current will eliminate all the dirty electricity and it will eliminate
all the flicker.

There are transformers available where you can adjust the output between 6 volts
and 12 volts. As long as it's direct current, there is no flicker, there is no dirty
electricity, and you are able to dim the halogen lamp into a color temperature that is
comparable to candle light even. This is the softest, the healthiest electric light you
can get at the moment," Wunsch notes.

Low-voltage halogen lights are also very energy efficient — up to 100 percent more
energy efficient than the standard incandescent lamp. Just be sure to operate it on
DC. Incandescent lights, including halogen, can be operated at both AC and DC, but
when operating on AC, you end up generating dirty electricity, Wunsch explains. On
DC, you get no electrosmog with a low-voltage halogen.

Light Comparisons
The following graphic illustrates the differences in color spectrum between an
incandescent light, which has very little blue, compared to fluorescent light and white
LED.
This next graph illustrates the differences between daylight, incandescent,
fluorescent, halogen, cool white LED and warm white LED. As you can see, there's a
tremendous difference between incandescent and warm LED. While they may look
the same to the naked eye, there's no comparison when it comes to their actual light
qualities.
Looking at the spectral differences between incandescent and halogen lamps, there
seems to be no difference at all. In order to elucidate the disparity, Wunsch did some
measurements of incandescent and halogen lamps using his UPRtek MK350S
spectrometer. The differences are almost imperceptible, indeed.
Spectrum of a standard incandescent lamp: Correlated color temperature (CCT) =
2890 K.
Spectrum of a energy saving halogen lamp: Correlated color temperature (CCT) =
2842 K.

How to Make Digital Screens Healthier

When it comes to computer screens, Wunsch suggests reducing the correlated color
temperature down to 2,700 K — even during the day, not just at night. Many use f.lux
to do this, but I have a great surprise for you as I have found a FAR better alternative
that was created by Daniel, a 22 year old Bulgarian programmer that Ben Greenfield
introduced to me.

He is one of the rare people that already knew most of the information in this article.
So he was using f.lux but was very frustrated with the controls. He attempted to
contact them but they never got back to him. So he created a massively superior
alternative called Iris. It is free, but you'll want to pay the $2 and reward Daniel with
the donation. You can purchase the $2 Iris software here. OLED screen technology
is another development that may be better than conventional screens.

"[With] the OLEDs technology, I'm not sure if the color is really stable in every angle
you can look at the display," Wunsch says. "But definitely, if you have the screen
technology where black is really black, then you have less radiation coming into your
eyes and the OLEDs technology is able to provide this.

So the high contrasts between the black and white, all the black areas in the thin-
film-transistor (TFT) screen or the standard screen are not really black. They are also
emitting shortwave radiation. The OLED screen only emits where you see light,
where there is black on the screen, there is no light. This might be preferable as long
as you have no problems with the [viewing] angle."

To Protect Your Health and Vision, Stick to Incandescent

Lights
LEDs are a perfect example of how we're sabotaging our health with otherwise useful
technology. However, with knowledge, we can proactively prevent the harm from
occurring. In summary, we really need to limit our exposure to blue light, both during
the daytime and at night. So for nighttime use, swap out your LEDs for clear bulb
incandescents, or low-voltage incandescent halogen lights that are run on DC power.

I also strongly recommend using blue-blocking glasses after sundown, even if you
use incandescent light bulbs. Without these modifications, the excessive blue light
from LEDs and electronic screens will trigger your body to overproduce ROS and
decrease production of melatonin, both in your pineal gland and your retina, the latter
of which will prevent repair and regeneration, thereby speeding up the degeneration
of your eyesight.

"One thing to emphasize again, it's not the blue light coming from the sun itself which
we should be concerned about. It's the blue light, the singular high energy visual light
(HEV), which comes from cold energy-efficient non-thermal light sources. This is
what causes the problem, not the blue light which comes together with longer
wavelengths in a kind of natural cocktail that has the beneficial near-infrared
spectrum …
The light surrogates from non-thermal light sources, these are [what cause]
problems, and you have to be clever to avoid these Trojan horses. If you want to
make it [safe], stay with the candles, stay with the incandescents," Wunsch says.

Another Healthy Light Alternative

Candles are even a better light source than incandescent bulbs, as there is no
electricity involved and is the light that our ancestors have used for many millennia so
our bodies are already adapted to it. The only problem is that you need to be very
careful about using just any old candle as most are toxic.

As you may or may not know, many candles available today are riddled with toxins,
especially paraffin candles. Did you know that paraffin is a petroleum by-product
created when crude oil is refined into gasoline? Further, a number of known
carcinogens and toxins are added to the paraffin to increase burn stability, not
including the potential for lead added to wicks, and soot invading your lungs.

To complicate matters, a lot of candles, both paraffin and soy, are corrupted with
toxic dyes and fragrances; some soy candles are only partially soy with many other
additives and/or use GMO soy. There seems to be a strange mind-set that exposure
to small amounts of toxins is OK, even though the exposure is exponential over time!

The soy is non-GMO, is clean burning without harmful fumes or soot, is grown in the
U.S. and is both sustainable and renewable. Also, my candles are completely free of
dyes. The soy in these candles is not tested on animals, is free of herbicides and
pesticides.

It's also kosher, 100 percent natural and biodegradable. All of my fragrances are
body safe, phthalate- and paraben-free, and contain no California prop 65
ingredients. The wicks are simply flat braided cotton coated in a natural vegetable
wax and self-trimming, which reduces carbon build up.

Enjoying a Circle of Life Farms naturally good soy candle and following the simple
burn instructions — located inside the candle lid — will give approximately 70+ hours
of burn time. Every candle is hand-poured with love for you to enjoy a cooler, cleaner
burn, all while being kind to the both the environment and yourself.

You can search online healthy candles, but if you like, you can use the ones I found
at www.circleoflifefarms.com. This is not an affiliate link and I earn no commissions
on these candles; I just thought you might benefit from the ones I now use in my
home.

The Dangers of LED Lighting:

An Interview With Dr. Alexander Wunsch

By Dr. Joseph Mercola

JM: Dr. Joseph Mercola

AW: Dr. Alexander Wunsch

JM: This is one of the most important video interviews I believe you’ll ever see. Hi, this is Dr.

Mercola helping you take control of your health. Today, we are joined by Dr. Alexander Wunsch

from Germany. He is really a world class expert, one of the best I know of, in photobiology.

We’re going to talk about the dangers, the hidden stealth dangers, of light-emitting diode (LED)

lighting that you most likely are not aware of. Welcome and thank you for joining us today, Dr.

Wunsch.

AW: Hi, Dr. Mercola.

JM: I’m really excited for this interview. We had an interview a few years ago, and I knew you

were brilliant in this area but I just wasn’t smart enough to understand the implications of what

you had to teach. I’ve actually grown wiser since our last interview, and I’m really excited about

you sharing with us all the important information you have that can get us up to speed in this

area.

Because – let me just give a brief summary and then we’ll dialogue – but briefly, largely as a

result of energy efficiency, there’s been a major transition to using LED as a primary light

source. And it works, it works on steroids. Literally, it has a 90 to 95 percent reduction in energy

power because the older incandescent thermal analogs sources of lighting generate a lot of their

light as heat. Most of us believe that was inefficient and wasteful. But it turns out that heat is

actually infrared radiation and may be very beneficial for us. Yes, it costs a little bit more but it

might be hugely beneficial.

There are some major downsides about LED lighting that we just don’t appreciate. I know I

didn’t. I was massively exposed to this. This may be one of the most important, non-native EMF

radiation exposures that each and every one of us has. If we don’t take control of this, we are

looking at some very, very serious long-term complications, the least of which is age-related

macular degeneration, which is the leading cause of blindness in the United States, and then

cataracts, of course, too, and other foundational mitochondrial dysfunction components.

What we want to focus on today are the dangers of LED lighting. Why don’t you — I sort of

painted the broad canvas there, Dr. Wunsch — if you could give us some background

information that will help us get up to speed on some of the foundations we need to understand
to appreciate the dangers of this. Obviously, we’ll focus on the last part of this interview with

practical things that we can implement.

AW: How to begin in this large field? The first question we should raise is, “What is light?” It’s

not so easy to give an answer to this question, “What is light?” Do we take into account only

what our eyes can directly perceive? Then we are in line with the standards, which are applied to

our artificial light sources at the moment, which means there is a definition.

Light is only between 400 nanometers and 780 nanometers or so. This is even shrunk down to

420 to 630 nanometers U2 efficiency reason. There is much more about light. It’s more than

vision. When we look at the sunlight, we have a much broader spectral range, from somewhere

around 300 nanometers up to 2,000 nanometers or so.

For our energy efficiency calculation, it makes a big difference if we are talking about this broad

natural range or if we are only talking about what our eyes directly are able to transmit in terms

of vision performance. And so, it was kind of preset, given in the 1930s, the definition that we

are only looking at the visible part of the spectrum. This led to the development of energyefficient

light sources like the fluorescent lamps or what we have nowadays, the LED light

sources, because they are only energy efficient as long as you take the visible part of the

spectrum.

If we would say, for example, red light for therapy from red light lamps can be used in medical

therapy to increase blood circulation, and this is a part we are taking away as long as we only

look at the visible part. Physicists think that infrared radiation is just thermal waste. But from the

viewpoint of a physician, this is absolutely not true, because in the last 30 years there have been

hundreds and hundreds of scientific papers being published on the beneficial aspects of a certain

part in the spectrum, which is called near-infrared or infrared-A.

You cannot feel it as heat, and you cannot see it. It’s a kind of hidden treasure in the spectral

range. This is what I think we have to look at if we want to understand where the difference

between the artificial light sources, the non-thermal artificial light sources, and natural artificial

light sources like the incandescent lamp.

JM: Excuse me for a moment. I just want a point of clarification here. I’m certainly confused,

and I believe a lot of others are. When we talk about infrared radiation, is that both near and far

infrared, and what are the wavelengths of that? After you answer that question, if you can

perhaps start to explain the difference between analog and digital forms of light sources, because
I think that is a really important part of this whole reason that massively factors into the

complexity of understanding the scope of this problem or the magnitude of the issue.

AW: We have to discriminate the analog and digital problem from the spectral problem, which

concerns these modern light sources. You asked about clarification with regard to the infrared

radiation. When you look at the rainbow spectrum, the visible part ends in the red and the

infrared-A or the so-called near-infrared begins. Then we have infrared-B and we have infraredC.

In another terminology, there is near-infrared, there is mid-infrared, and there is far-infrared.

What we normally would expect from infrared radiation is that we feel the heat, that we feel

warm. But this does not apply to the infrared-A, which is the wavelength part between 700

nanometers and 1,500 nanometers.

JM: Wow.

AW: Here you have no absorption by water molecules, and this is the reason why radiation has a

very high transmittance. In other words, it penetrates very deeply into the tissue, so the energy

distributes in a large tissue volume. This near-infrared A is not heating up the tissue so you will

not feel directly any effect of heat.

This significantly changes when we increase the wavelength, let’s say, to 2,000 nanometers.

Here we are in the infrared-B range and this already is felt as heat. And from 3,000 nanometers

on to the longer wavelength, we have almost full absorption mainly by the water molecule and

this is heating up. So from a lake in spring, it will heat up in the upper inches and still the water

is quite cool down below. This is the kind of natural proof that the longer wavelengths are more

or less totally absorbed and transformed the light energy into thermal energy, which is the water

molecule movement.

[-----10:00-----]

JM: Thank you for that clarification. That greatly helps to clear certainly my confusion, and I

suspect many others, when you differentiated that. I didn’t realize the near-infrared had such a

wide spectrum, 700 to 1,000 nanometers. Maybe if you can touch on – before going to the analog

versus digital discussion – a bit about the importance of the infrared for health, and maybe we

could even go into the retina and how it works with respect to priming the cells for repair and

regeneration. And really, almost forming this justification to switch with – one of our

recommendations at the end is going to be switch back to incandescents, which is an energy hog

admittedly, takes up maybe 20 times as much energy as these energy-efficient LEDs. But it’s not
wasted energy. It’s actually coming out in wavelengths that are actually helping your health.

Can you describe at a biological level what happens when we’re exposed to these wavelengths

from incandescent bulbs or solar radiation from the near-infrared, and how it helps restructure at

a molecular basis, our mitochondria, what happens in the retina, and – the other light source I’ve

neglected to mention was infrared saunas. We can have a discussion on that too.

AW: The first question we have to ask is, “What molecules are we addressing?” or what other

so-called – In photobiology, you call these molecules chromophores. These are molecules which

are capable of absorbing exactly the wavelength you are emitting with the light source.

The first aspect is that we have to consider that there is a so-called optical tissue window, which

ranges from 600 nanometers to 1,400 nanometers. So it’s almost completely covered by the

infrared-A part of the spectrum. This optical tissue window allows the radiation to penetrate

deeply into the tissue. When I say deeply, I’m not talking about a millimeter or two. I’m talking

about several centimeters or at least an inch or even more. The chromophores in the tissue, which

absorb the light energy are – a part of these chromophores is found in the mitochondria and the

other part of the water molecules, which are specifically activated. Not in terms of heat radiation,

of chaotic molecular movement. The water molecules are specifically addressed.

For example, in the realm of membranes in the exclusion zone, which covers, like sheets, the

microanatomical structures within the cells. Talking about the mitochondria first, here we have a

specific molecule, which is called cytochrome c oxidase. This molecule is involved in the energy

production within the mitochondria.

Energy for cells means adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is the end product of the correlation

of the energy production. This is the fuel that our cells need for almost anything, most for

motility, for transporting of ions, for synthesizing products, for metabolism. The ATP

production, if it would stop now at the moment, I could survive for another 12 to 15 seconds. My

body produces about 85 kilograms of ATP in 24 hours.

JM: Okay. Let’s stop there, because I’ve watched many of your videos in English. You have

many more in German. I can tell you that you provide so much information in your videos that I

have to watch them three, four, five times. Because you just state things as facts, which is fine,

it’s just your presentation style. But that is a phenomenally important statement. I’m not going to

let that escape and just let people not appreciate what that is. But 85 kilograms or — that’s your

body weight — we produce in, whatever we weigh in pounds or kilograms, we produce that
amount in ATP.

It’s just an extraordinary statistic but most people are clueless about. It’s a really important

concept and the other thing that you mentioned is that, yes, literally we can last about 15 seconds

without ATP, 15 seconds. We can go four minutes, or we can go maybe 8 or 10 minutes, without

oxygen. We can go a few days without water. We can go for months without food. But 15

seconds without ATP, that’s the important thing. That’s why we want to focus on this because

light is such an important misunderstood part of the equation for energy production, specifically

at the mitochondrial ATP level. I’m sorry for interrupting you, but I just wanted to emphasize

that because it’s really important.

AW: No, no, it was definitely important to highlight this because the cytochrome c oxidase,

which is this absorbing molecule, is the last step before the ATP is finally produced in the

mitochondria. Here we have this tipping point where light in a wavelength range between 570

nanometers and 850 nanometers is able to boost the energy production, especially in cells when

energy production is depleted.

Here we have one important mechanism where this long wavelength part of the spectrum where

the near-infrared light is bolstering the energy situation in our mitochondria. And we know today

that many signs of aging, for example, they really are the consequence of hampered

mitochondrial functioning, and so we have a very interesting and still soft tool to enhance the

energy status in our cells, in the mitochondria in our cells, and not only on the surface but also in

the depths, regions and areas, of the tissue. This is one important aspect and there are hundreds

of papers published on these positive effects.

You can see it in, for example, wound healing, you can see it in anti-aging procedures. There are

many applications developed in the meantime where we use this optical tissue window, and we

shine through this optical tissue window light in the range, which cannot be found in standard

general lighting appliances like LEDs or fluorescent lamps. The cytochrome c oxidase is

responsible for an increased production of ATP. This means in turn that the cell, which has better

energy supply, is definitely able to perform better. So the liver cell with more ATP will be able

to detoxify the body much better. The fibroblast in the skin will be able to synthesize more

collagen fibers and so on, and so on. This is one important brick in the wall.

JM: Let me expand on that brick for a moment if I can. This is information that you shared in

some of your recorded videos online that we’ll have a link to. That literally astounded me. I
mean I literally almost fell down when I heard this because I couldn’t believe it. We had a

discussion about this previously and you confirmed that it was true. This is an important tangent

to the point that you’ve just mentioned.

[-----20:00-----]

It’s all about energy production. What I didn’t appreciate until I heard it from you, is that maybe

only one-third, a measly third, of our energy that we produce – and obviously one of those is

ATP – comes from the food that we eat. The electrons that are transferred from the food,

primarily the fats and the carbohydrates, are ultimately transferred to oxygen and generate that

ATP. But only one-third of the energy comes from that. The rest, two-thirds or so, comes from

this light exposure. And if you’re exposed to LED lights, as you just mentioned – but again,

people may [inaudible 20:36] – LEDs don’t have that frequency from 500 to, I believe, 800

nanometers, which is the near-infrared primarily that hit the cytochrome c oxidase and generate

the energy of the ATP. Can you expand on that? Because I think virtually no one has this

appreciation.

AW: Yeah. I think we have to differentiate between the metabolically used energy, which

definitely comes from food intake. But there is a thermodynamic aspect to it as well. When you

think about the body temperature – I don’t know how much it is in Fahrenheit, but in Celsius (I

can tell you in Celsius), it’s 37 degrees. And I can tell you in Kelvin, this is 310 [degrees] Kelvin

– to keep up this body temperature. It’s not only the result of burning carbohydrates in the

mitochondria using the oxygen.

JM: Just for a moment, the 37 degrees centigrade or Celsius that you’ve mentioned is basically

body temperature, which is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

AW: 90.6?

JM: 98.6.

AW: 98.6. Okay. This is what I have to learn for the Americans.

JM: Yeah. The Americans. I mean these Americans are still on the imperial measurement

system for the most part, but the rest of the world is on Celsius.

AW: To maintain this body temperature, it’s not only the result of energy production in the

mitochondria. The heat in our body comes in part from the mitochondria, but the major part

comes from longer wavelengths in the infrared range, and comes from near-infrared for example,

because the near-infrared radiation in sunlight is very present, in incandescent lamp light as well.
This radiation, this energy, this photonic energy, is able to even pass through our clothing

because this is one important property of infrared radiation, that it just goes deep and it goes

through like the terahertz radiation at the airport scanner, and so on. The radiation can enter the

body and then will be transformed into longer wavelengths in the infrared part. They are very

important for supporting the temperature level, of the thermal energy level, of our body which is,

for all the mammals, a very crucial aspect. A lot of energy comes in the form of radiation and

this is supporting our thermal balance more or less.

JM: Okay, good. It’s still a little confusing. You had mentioned earlier, there were some German

studies that are 60 years old that actually support this concept. The key point to take home here is

that it’s not just the food you eat, it’s the energy exposure that’s going to run your metabolism

and you need to get that. That’s why exposure to sunlight is so healthy. It’s one of the hidden

keys and many people interested in natural health will at least acknowledge and recommend it.

It’s part of the recommendations. It’s far more important than you can ever imagine.

We’re only going to be touching the surface of why it is important today. But we do want to keep

our promise and focus on the LED wavelengths. The dangers of LED lighting, which is really a

message that has to be shared, we have to sound the trumpets on this one because no one

virtually understands this. They get it at night, they shouldn’t be exposed to this at night, but it’s

far more than at night. And part of the problem is the analog versus digital mode of

administration of that light. Could you discuss with us the difference between analog and digital

lighting?

AW: You probably remember the dimmer we had in former days when we used the incandescent

lamp to just dim the intensity. This is something which will not work in the same way with LED

lamps. Many of the actual LED lamps are not dimmable anyway because they function kind of

different.

If you reduce, for example, for a color changing system you have three different LEDs, a red, a

green, and a blue LED, and the intensity of these three colored channels has to be changed in

order to achieve different color use, which are perceived by the eye in the end. The control of the

intensity output of an LED is realized in a digital manner because it’s very difficult to have a low

intensity in many different steps.

The dimming of LEDs is realized by a so-called pulse-width modulation, which means the LEDs

switch on to the full intensity and then they fully switch off, and then they switch on again. So
we have the constant on and off in frequencies, which are higher than our eyes are able to

discriminate. But on the cellular level, at least it is still perceivable for the cells. This switching

on and off of the LEDs, this is something – you can compare this with the digital states of fully

on, which is the one, and zero, fully-off.

This is the way how the LEDs are normally controlled in the intensity, for example also, the

backlight illumination of your computer screens or of your TV sets, this causes a flicker, which

is not perceivable for let’s say 90 percent of the population. But it’s still biologically active. And

flicker is something that is very harmful to our system because when you think back to the

cathodes ray tubes TVs – we call them “flimmerkiste” in Germany, this means “flicker boxes.”

When you nowadays are in contact with an old TV set, you might become aware of this intense

flicker, because your system in the meantime is trained to look into modern flat screens, which

do not flicker in this harsh and crude frequency. This demonstrates that our brain is able to filter

out the flicker after a certain while. But this takes a lot of calculation energy in our system. If we

have light, which does not flicker like, for example, the incandescent lamp has metal filament

and it’s glowing, so this is very lazy. It’s not able to transmit the highest flicker frequencies in

comparison to what the LEDs could transmit. We have even developments where scientists try to

transmit information via high-frequency flicker in the LED lighting in the room in order to

replace the wireless LAN system, and I think this is really not a good idea.

[-----30:00-----]

I call these LEDs – I like to call them Trojan horses because they appear so practical to us. They

appear to have so many advantages. They save energy; they are solid state, very robust, for

example. So we invited them into our homes. But we are not aware that they have hidden

properties, which are harmful to our system, harmful to our mental health, harmful to our retinal

health, and also harmful to our hormonal health or endocrine health.

JM: They weren’t even necessarily invited. These are being mandated by federal policy. Not

only in the United States, but as I understand, in much of Europe, in an attempt to conserve

energy. And they’ve been effective. I mean from that perspective, we can’t just argue with them

that this has been an incredibly effective, energy-saving strategy but it’s just absolutely ignored

the impact, as you’re starting to discuss, the biological health.

Maybe you can expand on that, the biological health implications, and then I really want to spend

a good portion of the next discussion to the practical take-home recommendations. Because
there’s a lot – once you understand the basics – there’s a lot of things that you need to implement

to have a personal strategy to circumvent the dangers that each and every one of you watching

this are exposed to.

AW: In order to clarify the dangers in principle, I think it’s a good idea to express, again, that the

LED, the light emitted from an LED, has not the same quality you would expect from a natural

light source. A natural light source normally is a black body radiator, which gives off all kinds of

wavelengths in a more or less continuous manner. The LEDs we have nowadays are fluorescent

lamps, they consist of a blue LED, a driver LED, and a fluorescent sheet, which covers the blue

LED and transforms part of the blue light into longer wavelengths, yellowish light. The

yellowish light from the fluorescent layer combines together with the residual blue light to a kind

of whitish light, which consists of a lot portion of aggressive blue light.

Blue has the highest energy in the visible part of the spectrum, and produces, infuses, the

production of reactive oxygen species, of oxidative stress. The blue light causes oxidative stress

in the tissue, and this stress has to be counteracted. We need even more regeneration from blue

light, but the regenerative part of the spectrum is not found in the blue, in the short wavelength,

part. It’s found in the long wavelength part, in the red and the near-infrared. So tissue

regeneration and tissue repair results from the wavelength, which are not present in an LED

spectrum.

We have increased stress on the short wavelength part and we have reduced regeneration and

repair on the long wavelength part. This is the main problem. Diseases come apart in a way our

organism is not accommodated to, because we don’t have this kind of light quality in nature.

This has consequences, the stress has consequences, in the retina. It has consequences in our

endocrine system.

What I think we know, or many of us know, in the meantime that the blue light in the evening

reduces the melatonin production in the pineal glands. But for example, we have also cells in our

retina, in our eyeball, which are responsible for producing melatonin in order to regenerate the

retina during the night. If we use LED lights after sunset, we reduce the regenerative and

restoring capacities of our eyes. If we have less regeneration, we open the door to degeneration.

This is the age-related macular degeneration you were talking [about] before.

JM: Yes, indeed. Thank you for that explanation. I really appreciate it. I just wanted to get into

some of the details of the dangers of the LED, and maybe just summarize what you just
mentioned, in that these LED digital light sources are primarily focused in the blue wavelengths.

They have very little red in them, certainly virtually no infrared. And it’s this red infrared that’s

repair and regeneration mode. If you provide these aggressive lower frequencies, the blue lights,

they create these reactive oxygen species which can’t be – the damage from them – I mean, we

need that. Let’s not say that all those reactive oxygen species are dangerous. They’re not.

Because that’s what’s important.

I think we don’t have enough time to discuss the importance of setting your circadian rhythm and

exposing yourself to balanced blue light that’s not only has the blue but also has the near-infrared

and the far-infrared, like in the morning. That sets our circadian rhythm. You need that. But the

damage that somebody, by the blue light, is balanced by the red and infrared so it can repair and

regenerate, and everything is just the way it was meant and designed to be.

I’m wondering – because there’s a whole range of LED lights out there, we’re going to step now

a little bit into what you can do with this knowledge. Are there – and many people had this

question – you can get cool white, which is the high blue light LEDs which are bright white

versus the warm white LEDs. I’m wondering if you can – if there are types of LEDs that do have

some of the red and the near-infrared in them or they just don’t exist? And another version of this

question, are there any healthy LEDs?

AW: Well, there’s no easy answer to that.

JM: Like most good questions.

AW: Because when you bought an incandescent lamp, you exactly knew everything about the

spectral distribution, for example. You knew that after a thousand hours that it would fail, it

would break, stop functioning.

JM: Let me just interrupt you for a moment on this, because there’s an interesting component.

Everyone knows that the old incandescent bulbs fail in 1,000 hours. That, folks, is by design.

There’s a movie – a documentary out there. These bulbs can last a hundred years continuously if

they designed it that way. It’s designed to fail in a thousand hours. I’m sorry for interrupting. I

just thought it was an interesting tangent.

AW: With the LEDs, everything is different because there are LEDs outside there where you

have high portions of blue in a warm-appearing light, because the blue is masked by high

amounts of yellow and orange. There are also LEDs available with lower portion in the blue,

which are very close to the spectral distribution of incandescent lamps with regard to the bluish
part of the spectrum. It is impossible to tell without measurement. This is the problem with an

incandescent lamp. You knew what you would get.

With LED, the layman is not able to tell if it’s a tailored spectrum where you have the blue part

only masked by excessive parts of other spectral regions. There are different technologies. You

were sending me a question, I think yesterday, with regards to a specific company, which

produces LEDs with a different technology.

[-----40:00-----]

Soraa, for example, they have violet driver LED, not blue but violet driver LED. And they

achieved, by their technology, the red is a little bit more emphasized compared to the standard

white light fluorescent LEDs. So there are in fact better and worse LED types around. But the

spectral distribution is just one thing, what the customer could use as a kind of information if the

color rendering index, but not the color rendering index are A, which only covers the first eight

testing colors.

We are interested in the R9 which represents the full reds. And this is sometimes, this

information is sometimes given on the package that you have for example, nCRI which is the

color rendering index of 95 with an R9 of 97 or so. This is the only sign for the customer that

you have a high level or a high index for the R9.

JM: Okay. That is the key thing. Maybe we should have discussed that earlier because these are

two important pieces of information you need to understand when you’re looking at lighting.

One is the CRI you mentioned, the color rendering index. But it should be the r9. And ideally,

the goal standard is the sunlight, and that’s 100.

AW: The incandescent is 100, and the candle is 100.

JM: Yes. So that’s the best. Now you’re never going to get that – well maybe never, but you’re

not going to get it through an LED or halogens – not halogens but fluorescents. You got to know

that. The other is the color temperature, which is the incandescence 2,700 Kelvin and then 6,500

degrees Kelvin for the LEDs, which is the really bright white LED. Why don’t you talk about

that? I guess if you use those two metrics, you can identify healthy lighting. But then we’d still

have to address the analog versus digital component. We don’t want to be screwing up our cells

by getting them these digital signals that they were never designed to be exposed to.

AW: You would have to measure somehow if the LED produces flicker or not. Two years ago,

three years ago, it would have been much easier because the camera of an elder smartphone was
not so high-tech equipped as they are today. With an old smartphone camera, when you look into

the light source, you can see these wandering lines, so you can detect if the light source is

flickering.

What else could be a kind of work-around is the slow-mo mode of a smartphone camera, if you

film the light source with the slow-mo modus, then you might also see the switching on and off

of the light source, just in slow-mo. This is one thing that works sometimes quite well. But it

depends on the type of the smartphone camera that you are using. Because the cameras in the

meantime, they have an algorithm implemented, which detect the flicker frequency and the light

and then changes the shutter frequency of the camera in order to avoid these interferences. So the

cameras in the meantime are made in a way that they block out the flicker even if it’s there.

JM: Excellent. Can you maybe touch on the color temperature of the lighting source? Because

that seems to be another useful tool. Or is it too complex a topic?

AW: The color temperature, in fact, is a useful tool to fool the customer because there are two

different kinds of color temperature. The one is the physical color temperature, which means

your light source has exactly the temperature in Kelvin. This applies to the sunlight. This applies

to the candlelight. This applies to the incandescent lamp light, halogen, and standard

incandescent. These light sources are truly that hot, so if the color temperature is 5,500 Kelvin

for the sun for example, the sun’s surface is 5,500 Kelvin hot. You cannot reach higher colored

temperatures using incandescent lamps in 3,000 Kelvin because otherwise the metal of the

filament would melt and evaporate, so this will not work. There is a kind of natural limit given

by technology.

The other type of color temperature is the correlated color temperature. This means you calculate

a lot until you can tell this light source might appear to the human eye in a similar way than light

source with a true color temperature of, let’s say, 2,700 Kelvin. This is the problem because you

can tailor the color temperature however you want to. For example, you have probably seen

these filament LED lamps. In the meantime, they are entering the market and they look very

similar like the standard incandescent lamp because they have these very thin and elongated LED

filaments installed inside. Do you know what I’m talking about?

JM: Sure.

AW: Have you seen them? If you look into these with a grey filter, with a strong grey filter, you

can see that you have three cold white LEDs on the screen and then one red LED. Then another
three cold white LEDs and one red LED. In fact, this is a cold white light source. But by the

additional red LEDs which are integrated into the filament, our eye, and also the measuring

instrument, as a result, this appears to be a warmer light. But in fact, on a cellular level and on

the level of the retina, the majority of the light is still bluish white, cold white.

This is the problem with the correlated color temperature, that you have a lot of tricks to tailor

the value in a way that you still are using cold white light sources, that you’ve masked the light

in a way that it appears warmer to the human eye. But the impact on the physiology is still the

same, or more or less the same, as you would expect from a cold white source.

JM: You’ve got two things. You’ve got that sort of metrical – not metrical but transition – or

deceptive solution or interpretation of the data that these companies are providing. And you also

have the digital component, so the LEDs really are not in any way, shape, or form a healthy

biological form of life.

Let’s talk about solutions now and focus on them. Let me first mention that a lot of what I’m

sharing with you is based on mistakes. I’m one of the early technology adopters, and I was one

of the first people to really switch out all of my incandescent bulbs for LED lighting.

[-----50:00-----]

When they first came out, it was at least almost 10 years ago now that I had switched over to

LEDs, and before that fluorescent lights, full-spectrum fluorescent, which is another deception

name. If we have time, I want to talk about that.

But what we want to focus on now is that literally, the danger. There’s no question there’s

danger in LED light exposure all the time of the day, but it’s a relative one, so that if you’re

exposed to LED light and there’s lots of biological full-spectrum sunlight through the windows –

which is a whole other issue too, that we can talk about because sunlight outside and through the

window are two different animals – but if you have that as a component, it’s not as biologically

dangerous because I believe that that compensates specially with the higher frequencies and the

sunlight. But it becomes really dangerous at night.

From this perspective, I haven’t changed out all of my lights back to incandescent because

they’re such energy hogs and really the only ones that I use at night because I have a big house

and there’s lots of lights and people, contractors and stuff, come over all the time. They leave

lights on all the time. It would be crazy. That’s just a magnificent and extraordinary waste of

energy if they did that. But I never use these lights. I just leave them in there.
But the ones you use all the time that you really, really – this is the take home message of this

presentation – is that you have got to switch back to incandescents. And not just any

incandescents, these are incandescents that are clear transparent outer bulb. Not the ones that are

coated with white to keep a cool white light. You don’t want that. You want the 2,700 degree

Kelvin incandescent, thermal analog, energy source of that light. It’s the only light you use at

night.

We’re going to insert some of these graphics that you have in your PowerPoint slides that really

powerfully illustrate the color spectrum of an incandescent, which has very small levels of blue. I

mean it’s extraordinary. There’s some, but there’s not hardly any blue light in that, which is

exactly what you want at night. You do not want blue light exposure.

Now personally, it’s the only light that I use after sunset. Even then, once the sun goes down, I

put on my blue blockers. I neglected to keep them here now because it’s the middle of the day, I

wouldn’t put them on. I call them reverse sunglasses. I don’t care what company you get them

from. You can get them for under 10 dollars. You can get them and spend 100 dollars for them.

Get whatever you like. But the moment the sun goes down, these blue blockers go on even if

there’s incandescent sources. That’s my summary, and I’m wondering if you can expand and

really amplify those comments.

AW: It is definitely a good idea to keep away the short wavelengths in the evening, so after

sunset, as you said. And it’s also a good idea not to intoxicate your environment with too much

light. We know in the meantime that artificial light levels at night have reached insane intensity.

The candle, the intensity of the candle for example, is absolutely sufficient for orientation.

If you have to read in the evening or at night time, my personal favorite light source for reading

tasks is a low-voltage incandescent halogen lamp, which is operated on a DC transformer. Direct

current will eliminate all the dirty electricity and it will eliminate all the flicker. There are

transformers available where you can adjust the output between 6 volts and 12 volts. As long as

it’s direct current, there is no flicker, there is no dirty electricity, and you are able to dim the

halogen lamp into a color temperature which is comparable to candle light even. This is the

softest, the healthiest electric light you can get at the moment. No LED will ever be so energy

efficient, because you were talking several times about the energy efficiency.

If we extend the spectral range to the non-visible part of the near-infrared radiation – let’s say if

you would calculate the energy efficiency from 400 nanometers to a 1,400 nanometers, then the
light source with the highest energy efficiency, would you like to make an educated guess?

JM: Probably the shorter wavelengths, I would think.

AW: The light source with the highest efficiency in the range from 400 nanometers to 1,400

nanometers would be —

JM: Would be incandescent.

AW: Halogen incandescent lamp.

JM: Yeah. Many people – I didn’t know this either until you explained it to me that halogen is

an incandescent lamp. It’s an analog thermal light source. It’s not digital.

AW: Yes. It is up to 100 percent more energy efficient compared to the standard incandescent

lamp, so you have better energy use. You have less energy waste. And if you take into account

the near-infrared radiation, and if you decide for your eyes, for example, for light hygiene for

your retina, that you want to have these long wavelengths. In addition to the visible part, then the

halogen, the low voltage halogen lamp, is the best and it reaches 4,000, 5,000 and in a dim stage,

even 10,000 hours of lamp life.

JM: Is that on halogen – the AC halogen, or only with DC?

AW: It is only with DC because the AC halogen – No. We only can talk about high voltage and

low voltage. Because you can operate the incandescent lamp – the incandescent lamp can be

operated on AC as well as on DC. But if you operate the low-voltage incandescent lamp on DC,

you have zero dirty electricity. If you operate it on AC, you have 20 times more dirty electricity

compared to the AC high-voltage one.

JM: Okay.

AW: It’s a little bit complicated. It’s physicists’ stuff. But AC, alternating current, always

produces dirty electricity. And in the low-voltage ones, you need much more amperage. It’s the

currents and the other factor in —

JM: The resistance?

AW: No. The resistance, the current, the volt, and the ampere.

JM: Okay.

AW: So and the ampere value raises at a factor of 10 if you are working with AC on lowvoltage.

The best is low-voltage halogen lamps with DC, because those are ones which reach

5,000 and even more hours of lamp life.

JM: Okay. That gives us a pretty broad picture of some practical information we can now use to
light ourselves at night. I mean, ideally. This is why our ancestors were so much healthier. Not

only did they have more access to better food typically, they weren’t processed or

commercialized, they had better biological healthy analog light sources that were thermally

based, not digitally based. That would be the best. Now, the other danger that most of us are

exposed to pretty much every waking hour is our devices. Our computer screens, our tablets, our

phones. They’re almost all LED based and there’s a lot of components here – and our e-readers

too.

[-----1:00:00-----]

I use an e-book reader on the beach. It’s called Kindle, the e-ink reader. Although it has an LED

backlight that you can use at night, you can turn it all the way off and just look at the sunlight,

which is reflected. I think that’s really the ideal type of computer monitor that you could use.

They are made -- I’m in the process of trying to find one. But in the meantime, I just recently

purchased a notebook that has an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screen and not an LED

monitor.

It’s really interesting because I’m a firm believer that you should use f.lux on your monitor not

just at night. The default setting for that is to just come on at sunset, and yes that’s helpful. It’s

probably the time that it’s most important. But I keep it on all the time. There’s no way I’m

going to expose myself to that type of bright intensity light. But even though I can change a color

temperature, it still has this digital pulse faking out my biology.

I want you to talk about the difference between OLED, LED, e-ink, f.lux, and also if we are

outside and we have this LED or OLED screen and we’ve got the f.lux on, what I find personally

is that I don’t need to keep it all down at 2,700 degrees. I can essentially deactivate f.lux and put

it up to 6,500 degrees if I need more light because you got all this light coming in. It sort of

drowns out that monitor. I’m wondering if that’s biologically healthy. A lot of stuff at you but

these are really important questions.

AW: Talking about our digital screens, I prefer personally to reduce the color temperature, the

correlated color temperature, also during the daytime for my notebook. As you already said, the

e-ink would be a perfect solution because in this case, you can exactly control the quality of the

incident light. By that, you control the quality of the light which will be reflected by the e-ink

display. The problem is for motion pictures. It’s just too slow. It’s good for reading tasks but it’s

not good for watching videos or so.

The f.lux is one option you have. It depends a bit on the quality of your screen and the settings

you are using if it really comparable to effective extinction of the blue light component, and what

you could achieve with screen blue light protection glasses. Because they allow to eliminate the

short wavelengths even better. The OLEDs technology, I’m not sure if the color is really stable

in every angle you can look at the display.

But definitely, if you have the screen technology where black is really black, then you have less

radiation coming into your eyes and the OLEDs technology is able to provide this. So the high

contrasts between the black and white, all the black areas in the Thin-film-transistor (TFT)

screen or the standard screen are not really black. They are also emitting radiation, also emitting

shortwave radiation. The OLED screen only emits where you see light, where there is black on

the screen, there is no light. This might be preferable as long as you have no problems with the

looking angle.

JM: It’s magnificent. I really love my new notebook. What I’ve noticed – I’ve compared the

notebook side by side in the same settings outside and I put f.lux on both at 2,700 degrees

Kelvin, which is an advanced setting that you have to go. It’s in the upper right hand corner. It

only goes down to 3,500 normally, which is the color temperature of halogen. You have to go to

2,700 and do it in advanced setting. But when you do that, Dr. Wunsch, it’s amazing. The OLED

is actually the same color you would see when you put on the blue blockers. And then the LED

conventional notebook is like, you can tell it’s like a blue light. You can see it night as day when

you compare it. It looks orange when you have it by itself, but when you compare it with an

OLED, there’s a dramatic difference.

I’m also wondering, do you minimize the digital impact on the cell biology that you were

referring to earlier with the OLED versions and LED?

AW: This depends again on the technology of dimming. I bet that you can get OLEDs displays

with the pulse-width modulation dimming technology and you can also get OLED screens with

the improved dimming technology, where you have reduced flicker or even eliminated flicker

activity. These are the factors you would have to look at, and this is not so easy. Normally, you

would need a flicker meter when you purchase or when you buy your notebook, and you should

check – this is a recommendation – you should check every electrical lighting appliance before

you buy it and bring it into your home.

JM: You can get a flicker meter or can you use the slow-motion mode of your cellphone, the
more advanced cellphones, to do that detection?

AW: I would say if you are able to compare your smartphone to the reading of a flicker meter,

then you can get a kind of confirmation of how reliable your smartphone is in detecting flicker.

But in the slow-mo mode, you normally should be able to find out if there is a significant flicker

level in the light source present.

JM: Maybe you can give us some links where we can pick up these flicker meters. I imagine

they’re not terribly expensive.

AW: They are not terribly expensive. You can get flicker – not meters – flicker detectors, which

are, in my understanding, are even better than the meters, because if you get a certain value, it

tells nothing. But if you hear an awful buzz or an awful noise, this makes absolutely clear that

your light source is flickering and distributing dirty photons.

JM: In one of our earlier discussions, you actually told me about one of that you invented, didn’t

you? Do you actually have that for sale?

AW: I built something I think 12 or 15 years ago, because I just wanted to know what’s going on

around me. I still manufacture this. But hopefully, there will be an improved version soon. I

don’t know when it will be ready, but I’m working on that.

[-----1:10:00-----]

JM: Okay, good.

AW: I mean it’s not around 100 dollars. It should be around 30 to 40 dollars or so.

JM: As I mentioned in the beginning, if it’s not obvious by now, you are just a wealth of

information in this area. We’re definitely going to have you on multiple times to expand on this

because there’s so much information that people need to know to absolutely have a better

understanding.

What I really love about some of your videos – we’re going to have links to those videos, the

English ones – is that you put this in a historical framework, which is just so magnificent because

once you understand the historical framework, you can start to begin to develop a deeper

appreciation of how we veered on this path toward literally sabotaging ourselves with what we

think is useful technology. But it has these enormous downstream biological side effects that

we’re exposing ourselves to.

With knowledge, we can proactively prevent most of this. But I think, to summarize this,

because we’re just kind of wrapping up, we really need to limit our exposure to this blue light.
And it’s not, not, not just at night, it’s all day long. That’s why you want to avoid these

exposures. It’s really important that you do that. Get the incandescent lights at night, blue

blockers. Remember, it’s so simple. As soon as the sun sets, I don’t think you disagree with this,

you put on those blue blockers. Nothing beats it. Don’t take them off unless there’s an

emergency or you have to read something really carefully. It’s just that you’re sabotaging

yourself when you don’t.

You’re increasing your reactive oxygen species and your retina pigment epithelium. You’re

producing your production melatonin not only in your penial gland, but also in your retina and

other tissues. It’s just so critical, and we never even touched on the other hormonal components.

That’s a whole other interview. I think that’s about all we have time for. But I want you to

summarize things from your perspective and emphasize any points you’d like to.

AW: I think you just made a perfect summary of the most important aspects. One thing to

probably add or emphasize again, it’s not the blue light coming from the sun itself which we

should be concerned about. It’s the blue light, the singular HEV or high energy visual light,

which comes from cold energy-efficient light sources. This is what causes the problem, not the

blue light which comes together with longer wavelengths in a kind of natural cocktail. So the

light surrogates from non-thermal light sources. These are problems and you have to be clever to

avoid these Trojan horses. If you want to make it sure, stay with the candles, stay with the

incandescents.

JM: Yeah. The Trojan horses are really pernicious. Let me just—as you were mentioning that, it

reminded me of one important one that most people don’t realize, and these are the people who

need it most. These are people with impaired and damaged vision. They go to their optometrists,

they go to their ophthalmologists, and what do they do? They dilate their eyes. They open them

up so you have no control. And then what do they do next? They shine a high blue light spectrum

LED with no balanced red or infrared right onto the back of the retina. Now couldn’t that be a

worse prescription for damaging the retina? And they are clueless.

I definitely want you to comment on that, but there is a solution. Don’t worry. Don’t get upset.

Just have them shine that through one of those blue blocking glasses and it’s less dangerous. Can

you comment on that because a lot of people are exposing their retinas to these dangerous

radiations from their eye-care professionals?

AW: Sometimes, if I want to see if the lens of the eye of the patient is affected from cataracts,
the blue LED light for just a second or so is very helpful because you can see kind of fluorescent

effects in the lens. For diagnose purposes, it might be helpful. But of course, when we look at the

exposure times, I think the higher impact comes from these Trojan horses – how do you

pronounce it?

JM: Trojan. Trojan.

AW. The Trojan horses we invited into our households and from the light sources we are looking

into continuously on a permanent basis, like our displays, smart phones, tablets, and so.

JM: Yeah, the chronic exposure is bad but I would have thought because of the high intensity of

the illumination and the fact that the iris is maximally dilated or constricted, and it is such an

impact on the retina that there’s acute exposure. It’s kind of like looking at an arc welding light,

which can cause blindness or just being up on a mountain at 15,000 feet and taking off your

goggles and getting blind. I would imagine that that acute high intensity exposure would be

highly dangerous and would be ameliorated quite significantly if they were just to filter it with a

blue blocking sunglass.

AW: Yeah. To reduce the exposure to the lowest level, which is possible, is for sure the best

strategy.

JM: Okay, alright. Thank you so much. I am sure this is going to help so many people because,

again, age-related macular degeneration is a serious, serious issue. I’m telling you, I just hope

and pray to God that we can spread this message far and wide. Share this video with every one of

your friends and family because they need to know. Otherwise, we are going to have – We

already have an epidemic of obesity. We have an epidemic of heart disease. Cancer.

Alzheimer’s. We’re going to have an epidemic of blindness unless we can get ourselves away

from these chronic unopposed blue digital light sources, especially at night.

You’ve got to spread this message far and wide if we want to prevent this blindness epidemic.

Just like cigarettes, it’s not going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year. It’s

this chronic exposure. We need decades of this exposure before we’re going to see it. For most

of us, it’s less than 10 years that we’ve had this exposure. We’re not going to see it for a while.

But it doesn’t diminish the danger and the damage any less. So please spread this message far

and wide.

We are definitely having you back on again, Dr. Wunsch, because you’ve got so much incredible

information to share and there’s going to be a lot of questions on this too. Thank you so much.
AW: Thank you very much, Dr. Mercola.

[END]
Please do not stare into the LEDs (translation from german)

Feedback

DISPLAY

Also for some light-emitting diodes (LEDs), what we have long been aware of light bulbs is that they
can damage the eye if you are staring too long. Fortunately, the risk of private spending is relatively
low.

By Christopher Schrader

Even with modern lamps, the old admonition, which many have already heard of their mother as
children: do not stare too long into the bright light.

Scientists from the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Baua) in Dortmund have
now produced an expert opinion on LED lamps. Of the 43 tested products, 13 are included in the so-
called risk group 2, in which the safety is based only on involuntary abatement reactions.

However, if you are staring into the light against the impulses of your body, the threshold value for
eye protection will be exceeded within ten to 73 seconds. Short exposures add up over a working
day, says Marco Janßen of the Baua, one of the authors. Particularly in the LED industry and in the
installation of lighting systems, employers and users would have to pay attention to this, according to
the agency.

The models in risk group 2 emit all blue or cold white light with a high blue content. It triggers
photochemical reactions in the eye. They can release oxygen radicals that attack the sensory cells of
the retina. The limit value controlled by the Baua in the measurements applies to an unprotected
view of 20 centimeters distance in the lightest range of the light source, which consists of LEDs from
a semiconductor chip.

DISPLAY

For this reason, private users are hardly affected by the warning: firstly, they rarely come close to the
lamps in everyday life; secondly, the light-chips themselves are hidden behind a matt-white or
yellow-orange disk that scatters the light in many modern products.

The exception among the consumer products are two of the three LED flashlights tested, which are
also classified into the risk group 2 by Baua. 13 of the tested products also belong to risk group 1,
where the limit value is reached only after a few minutes of staring into the light. On the rest, the
auditors have no reservations whatsoever.

LEDs are by no means the only lamps that can harm health. In the case of incandescent bulbs and
halogen lamps, the blue fraction is low, but they can cause thermal effects in the eye, which also lead
to classification into a risk group.

Mercury vapor lamps in stage lights can cause burns when the UV filter is absent. This had been the
case, for example, in the year 2002, when a television interview with Sandra Maischberger, then with
n-tv, interviewed the Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon and Mette Marit. Despite the bright sun, the
scene was illuminated with spotlights; Both of them got heavy sunglasses in their faces.