Fastest Way To Decreased Lifespan – & You’re Doing It Daily! (Prevent Disease With This One Habit)

1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:00

   Right at the top, I wonder if we could start with the common signs that might indicate someone has a deficiency of sunlight in their life.

2. RSDr. Roger Seheult0:12

   It could be a whole host of things. When you look at the studies of lack of sunlight or the studies where people get enough sunlight, we're literally talking about mortality. Um, and, uh, we can get into this later, but if you look at the particular causes of death as you go into the winter season, it's infectious diseases, it's non-infectious diseases. So it's gonna be interesting to sort of pin down exactly what symptoms they would be. But if we had to do that, I would say things like fatigue, inflammation, pain, inability to sleep. I mean, these are very broad, uh, symptoms, but symptoms nonetheless. I mean, there's also, uh, laboratory findings, for instance, elevated cholesterol, elevated triglycerides. These are things that have actually been statistically shown to improve when the-- there is more sunlight in the forecast or in the, in the weather report for those periods of days where, uh, those, those subjects are actually tested. There was a, an Oxford study that actually looked at that, that we can get into. So it's, it's really, um... Look, if I were to say, what is the single biggest intervention that someone can do right away that would show not only benefits in the short run, but also in the long run, and is the lowest hanging fruit, there's no question in my mind that sunlight is, is that intervention.

3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:33

   That is such a bold statement in many ways. It's a statement that many people have probably not heard of before through the lens of health. Because when we think about health, we're thinking about nutrition, exercise, sleep, and of course, these things are important. But I guess the thing about sunlight, and I guess broadly speaking, natural light, is that we've not really prioritized it or spoken enough about it for quite a while now, have we?

4. RSDr. Roger Seheult2:13

   That is, that is true. And if we look back historically, this was not something that we ignored, uh, historically in terms of health. Uh, if we just go back 100, 120 years, and, you know, uh, I always like to, to reminisce on this. You know, a building in the United States that's 100 years old, it could be a historical monument. Uh, in, in the UK, not so much. I mean, you have buildings there going back hundreds of years, more than hundreds of years, and you can see hospitals, buildings that were designed to heal, and you can see very clearly that they were designed when they're over 100 years old to bring light in, to bring fresh air in. And, um, uh, look, I'm not telling you something that you don't already know. Florence Nightingale, who by many have been considered to be the, the, the founder of modern nursing, said when she was taking care of, uh, of, uh, English soldiers in Crimea, said, "Look, there's two things that I see that have the biggest impact on the health of my patients. Number one, fresh air, but a close second to that is, is light, sunlight, not just daylight, but direct sunlight." And she's quoted as saying that, and she was... No, she was there. She was at the bedside. She was known as the, the Lady with the Lamp. And, um, that was well known, uh, at the time, and we have sort of forgotten, uh, about that. But with the benefits of modern science and, uh, and technology, we can now actually literally get down to the molecular levels and show how getting out in sunlight can be tremendously beneficial on so many different levels.

5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:50

   Yeah, it's interesting. As I was thinking about our conversation today, I was thinking about why is it that we have perhaps undervalued natural light and sunlight over the past few decades? And of course, we can say that there wasn't enough science, and as the scientific studies are done, there's more awareness, so we can put that into practice. And I, and I think there's definitely some merit to that. At the same time, I think sometimes it comes down to what we can easily see, right? So we can see the food on our plates. We, we know what we're putting into our mouth. We can see how many steps we've taken or whether we've gone to the gym or not, right? So these things are easier to visualize and to track. But I've often thought stress is undervalued in terms of the impact it has on us because a lot of stress is invisible. We can't see it, and you can perhaps make the same case for light. Yeah, of course, the sun we can see, but as we're gonna dive into, you know, sunlight is-- there's visible things coming from the light, there's invisible things coming from the light. So I wonder if some of this is to do with, like, literally the visibility of these components in our life.

6. RSDr. Roger Seheult5:09

   Absolutely. And that's what I've tried to, and you've tried to bring to people who are watching and who are interested in this, is to make health graspable at, at any level so that people can understand that. Um, I, I have to confess, and we'll get into this later, I have just come across a, a wonderful little device that, um, I, I love to use, and I can probably share some of these things later. It's a little film, and in the line of what you're talking about, it's a little film that you put over the lens of your smartphone camera, and what it does, using actually some, some quantum, uh, physics, is it'll take very-- it'll take infrared light, which has a lower energy, and using, uh, rare earth metals and some anti-Stokes effects and some physics, it'll actually, uh, shift the frequency of that high enough up into the visible spectrum so that you can actually see-The type of light that we're gonna talk about today, which is primarily infrared light, and you put this over your camera, and it's like Christmas morning for me, literally. I'm, I mean, I'm going out everywhere. I'm shooting things. My kids think I'm crazy. But it's, it's an amazing transformation where you can literally see the light coming off of the leaves. You can see what, what's going on inside, when you come into your house, how dark it is because there's a complete, uh, absence of infrared light. You can see how much the windows are preventing that light from coming in when you open one of them, and you can see the difference. Um, it's, it's quite stark. And, and I've been posting actually these things on social media, and you're absolutely right. People are like, "Wow, I've heard you talk about infrared light, but I had no idea that that's how much light was literally coming off of the trees, and this is how much light is literally being blocked by the windows that are supposed to be letting this light in." Um, and it's so devoid in- inside the homes where we spend 93% of our lives. And what you just said is, is so true about the fact that we can't see some of the most beneficial, uh, effects of the sun.

7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee7:12

   I follow you on X, uh, Roger, and I've been very much enjoying all these photos that you've been posting actually because it does make the invisible visible. And I've been aware, and like you've been writing about this so many, is the importance of light. But I don't think I had that full appreciation of infrared light and actually how important it is, and literally when you come from outside to inside, it, it goes down dramatically. So I mean, we're gonna talk about that, but perhaps we should just zoom out a little bit and go, okay, so some of this thing is getting so far that, look, light is important, okay? We know that getting outside is important, and many people maybe as a kid were told by their parents, "Get outside and play," okay? But let's really try and unpick what is it about being outside that has all of these different aspects on our health? Because it's not all infrared light, is it? There's other components as well.

8. RSDr. Roger Seheult8:14

   Absolutely. So when we look at the light that's coming from the sun, there's basically three types of light that we wanna talk about. There is obviously the visible light, which you can see, and there is countless studies and decades of research that shows that visible light itself has a tremendous health benefit on the individual. Why? Number one, it prevents, uh, depression. So we know that people who live at high latitudes who are not exposed to enough visible light, especially during the winter months when the days are short, when they're getting up before the sun gets up and they're getting home after the sun goes down, they are susceptible to seasonal affective disorder. And a very easy way of overcoming that particular issue is with visible light into the retina that stimulates a portion of the brain that prevents, uh, depression from happening. So that's, that's visible light. That's that first aspect. We also know that visible light, especially early in the morning when the sun is coming up, helps to ground and to, um, establish a good circadian rhythm. There's something called the zeitgeber that affects the timing of all of the processes in your body, so visible light is important. So those two things right there are one of the, just the top of the list in terms of the things that visible light does when you get outside. Now, uh, in terms of the two types of invisible light, when we go past violet, we get ultraviolet light, and we all know that ultraviolet light, specifically ultraviolet light B, is very important in the production of vitamin D3 in our skin. So that type of high energy, so this is short wavelength, high energy, um, when you look at the visible spectrum, you have the colors of the rainbow. When you go off to the violet side, the wavelengths get shorter, and the, the amount of energy in those, uh, p- photons is much higher. They have the energy to penetrate just very shallowly into the skin, which is where they're needed, but the energy that they deliver is enough to actually break the bonds in these molecules of cholesterol so that it can actually change it and convert cholesterol into vitamin D. So that's... We know all about [chuckles] well, we know a lot about vitamin D. We've known about it for a long time, and we often, uh, to our detriment, simply chalk up sunlight and sunlight exposure just to giving us vitamin D. Now, surely it gives us vitamin D, um, and vitamin D is very important. There's a number of trials that show that vitamin D is important, and I supplement as well, and it's, I think it's a good idea to supplement if you're, if you're low. Um, vitamin D is important, but that's just one aspect of, of invisible light. Okay, so we've talked about visible light. We've talked about ultraviolet light. Let's go to the other extreme. So past red. This is also invisible, but this is very long wavelength, and this is what we call infrared. And today we're gonna talk about red and infrared light. And there's, there's a couple of aspects of this light that's very important to understand, and that is, is that as opposed to short wavelength with, which has high energy, infrared light is a lower energy type of light with a long wavelength, but here's the key, and this is the point that people sometimes mix up. It's this long wavelength that's actually able, despite the fact that it's low energy, is able to penetrate deeply into the human body. And because of that, this is really important to understand, going outside into the sun on a sunny day is not just for the skin. It's not just for the eyes. It's for the entire body because this particular type of light-From the sun, which is long wavelength, has actually recently been shown. There's a paper by Glen Jeffrey from University College London, professor of ophthalmology. He's just published in Nature scientific reports that this type of light from the sun not only penetrates deeply into the human body, but he has actually been able to detect it on the other side of a human being. In other words, it goes right through.

9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:33

   Yeah. It's amazing. As, as you were describing that, Roger, I was thinking, okay, we understand when we think about food that there are three macronutrients, right? Fats, protein, and carbs.

10. RSDr. Roger Seheult12:48

    Yeah.

11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:48

    So perhaps now we need to start thinking about light in the same terms. We're now saying, okay, there's light, but under light there's at least three different components, from what I'm understanding from you, okay? The first one is that visible light. So we can see that. That's why going out first thing in the morning is so good for our circadian rhythm. It helps set the kind of clock in all of our cells, and that can have an impact therefore on things like mood, sleep, and our gut. There's also a second type, which is the, the ultraviolet light, the UV light, and of course for many years we've heard about vitamin D and how important that is, and many people know that sunlight outside on your skin at certain times of year will increase your production of vitamin D. So that second component is the UV light that's gonna help with vitamin D, which of course has a very powerful effect on our immune system and many other things. And then there's this third component of light, which we're gonna spend a lot of time talking about today, which is infrared light. We cannot see this part of the light spectrum, but as you're gonna describe, it has a powerful effect on our mitochondria.

12. RSDr. Roger Seheult14:06

    Yeah.

13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee14:07

    And that's why if we sort of circle back to the start of this conversation, you said that going outside and getting sunlight is the most important thing that we can all do to improve our health, right?

14. RSDr. Roger Seheult14:21

    Yeah.

15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee14:21

    Which, which I love, because when we understand that the mitochondria sits at the heart of everything, and you're gonna ... You know, I've seen many of your MedCram videos where you've actually described the powerful effect that infrared light has on our mitochondria. You're like, well, of course. A lack of sunlight is potentially gonna be impacting energy, vision, heart disease, stroke-

16. RSDr. Roger Seheult14:46

    Yep

17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee14:47

    ... dementia, everything. So I know I said a lot there, but would you agree that it's helpful to think of this like the macronutrients of food? These are also the macronutrients of light perhaps.

18. RSDr. Roger Seheult14:59

    You know, this, that ... I actually hadn't thought of it that way until you just mentioned it, but you're absolutely right. Food is a general category, as is light, but there's different aspects that that food provides in our body depending on our needs. And just like, um, proteins are important for muscle, and, and fats are important for myelin and the brain, and carbohydrates are also important in terms of energy, uh, that need, that i- is ne- necessarily immediately, so too is vitamin D needed, uh, for certain aspects, and the products of infrared ra- radiation is also important. So I think it's actually a very good analogy, and it makes us, uh, think about things holistically, and that's, that's really, I think, gonna be the underlying theme that we're gonna see today, is what we tend to do in science, I call it scientific reductionism, and other people have called that too, is where we find something that's beneficial, we try to isolate the active ingredient, we amplify it, and we put it into a pill, and we patent it, and we give it to people. And I guess what I'm saying here is that when you go outside, you're getting a whole buffet, a whole cornucopia of things that are mixed together dynamically, um, for your body at the right time. So think about this. You're ... It's a, it's an amazing situation. There is a clock in your body that is set by the sun, and as, as the day goes forward, the amount of ultraviolet light and infrared light that you're getting from the sun also changes along with that circadian rhythm. Is it possible that we were, uh, that, that we are, uh, c- connected to that circadian rhythm so that we're supposed to be getting lots of infrared light, uh, in the morning and lots of infrared light in the evening when that's abundant, and we are ready to take in ultraviolet light in, at noontime? I, I'm, I'm s- speaking out loud, I'm thinking out loud, but I think what, what people will see as we go through these studies and we get into the minutia of some of this, and the details, and the trials, and the evidence, is you'll start to see that really the best solution is not to go out and necessarily buy a, uh, a l- a lamp or a, um, a red light thing. I mean, those have their place, but if you have the ability and you can do this, it's to go outside into the sunlight, because everything that you need is literally right there.

19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee17:22

    We're saying sunlight a lot, and of course, you know, any time it's day wherever you are in the world, yes, the sun is there causing that, you know, illuminating the planet for us. But of course sometimes we can see the sun directly, and other times it's hidden behind cloud. When it comes to these three macronutrients of light, as it were, is there a problem or how do we address, you know, receiving these nutrients if we live, let's say, in northern England, where I live, where-

20. RSDr. Roger Seheult17:56

    Yeah

21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee17:56

    ... it's not sunny all the time and often it is cloudy?

22. RSDr. Roger Seheult18:01

    Yeah, that's, that is, uh ... That poses a problem. So let's, let's get into the physics of, of infrared light-

23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee18:07

    Okay

24. RSDr. Roger Seheult18:08

    ... and talk a lot about what it is, and what it does, and why it's important, and then it, it'll become clear about where we are with, with clouds. So, uh, and, and other things as well. So as we talked about, infrared light-Recently published article in Nature Scientific Reports, Glen Jeffrey took these people outside, and it was high noon, and there was no, no clouds in the sky, and he was able to show that infrared light literally goes through the body, can be detected out the other side. And the wavelengths in that paper that he found that were the best at doing this was in the infrared spectrum. No surprise. And specifically, he picked eight hundred and fifty nanometers, which is a wavelength that's, that's in the near infrared spectrum, but definitely cannot be seen by the human eye. So there's a couple of, of properties that you need to understand about infrared light in nature. Number one, as I said, it penetrates very well. Number two, it's, it's well-absorbed by water molecules. So there will be a diminution, a reduction in the amount of infrared light on a sunny day if there is cloud cover. That's going to diminish it, uh, somewhat. The other thing that's actually very interesting as well is that, uh, leaves on trees and grass are highly reflective of infrared light. You may have realized this, uh, independently. If you go out on a nice summer day, sunny day, and you touch leaves that have been in the sun for hours, um, they're not hot because they're reflecting the particular type of light that gives warmth from the sun. And you also know this, uh, when you go out on a sunny day. If you close your eyes, cover your eyes, [clears throat] someone spins you around, you can actually feel what side of the body your-- uh, is facing the sun. And the reason is, is because infrared light not only penetrates through your body, as we've just discussed, it can also very easily penetrate through your clothes. And so you can feel that. That warmth that you feel from the sun is infrared radiation penetrating deeply into your skin, going through, uh, the tissues, and activating the, the heat receptors as they go through. So, um, what I've done actually is, uh, in terms of your question about clouds, I've taken that infrared film, put it onto my iPhone. I've actually posted this, um, on the internet, and I've done this a very same time of day as there was clouds going overhead, and I took a, a photograph and a video of when it was full sun and when there was minimal sunlight, uh, because it was covered by clouds. And what you can see very clearly is that the amount of infrared light doesn't diminish that much because the leaves and the trees are so reflective of that, that infrared light's sort of spreading everywhere and, uh, and you can pick that up very easily on the film. I'll, I'll, I'll be happy to share those with you.

25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee21:05

    What is the relevance of this idea that in the Glen Jeffrey study whereby, you know, the, the sun is coming onto us, but some of that light is going through us? What does that tell us?

26. RSDr. Roger Seheult21:20

    So it was, it was a very small fraction of the light that was coming in the other side. So what it tells us is that it is able to come through, and it was a, it was a thorax, a chest, thirty centimeters measured, and it basically went right through, and they were able to measure a fraction of that light out the other side. And what the authors of that paper said was that clearly infrared light is able to penetrate into the body, be absorbed, but it's still able to penetrate through thirty centimeters. Now, the question is, is what is it doing in the human body? What is it up to? What, what effects does this actually have? So I, I try to take this slowly with people because the first thing that people have difficulty understanding is that sunlight actually is affecting their entire body when they go outside, not just the skin. Once they understand that, the next question is, "Okay, well, what is this infrared light actually doing?" For that, we actually have multiple studies that have looked at this and, and all of them have been, uh, well, m- many of them have been o- on a petri dish or in a laboratory using infrared light from artificial sources, showing very amazing, uh, changes. And none of the scientists really understood at the time that this could be the effect from the sun because they, they had no idea that infrared light was able to penetrate that deeply. So if you look at the literature in the last ten, twenty years, you'll see people doing tests with, with, um, low-level laser therapy and things to see, you know, how deep does this go and, and the way they were doing the experiments was looking to see how much it penetrates in a straight line, and they were getting, you know, a, a few-- maybe a centimeter, maybe a few centimeters. Um, just back in twenty nineteen, Scott Zimmerman, uh, pu- published a paper in Melatonin Research that he predicted it would be about eight centimeters based on his research. Um, we now know it goes much more, much more deeply, and they're basically all of the cells of the human body, even through bone, infrared light can penetrate through. So think about the effects on the brain. The question again, and you alluded to this, is what is this infrared light actually doing in the human body? Well, we know it's actually affecting changes in the mitochondria, and this is the organelle of the cell that is responsible for producing energy. It's the batteries of the cell. Now, this is important for the obvious reason, but for another reason too, which is that we have seen scientifically with research that as we get older, as we, uh, age forty years, for instance, we can see a drop in the output of these mitochondria in our, in our cells by as much as seventy percent in the retina, but over the en- uh, entire human body, thirty to fifty percent in some cases. So there's a, there's a material drop in energy production, and what infrared light is doing is it is restoring in, in some way, in a, uh, in a partial way, the energy output and the efficiencyOf those mitochondria to restore energy to the cells, whatever they happen to be cells of what... or whatever organ they happen to be, and they're restoring the function of those cells. And this paper that Glen Jeffrey showed, in this case, he was checking for color vision, which is highly dependent on energy output, and it showed that in the retina, the mitochondria was able to effectively go up enough that the threshold for color blindness in these subjects dropped statistically significantly enough to show an improvement in their vision just with this type of light exposure.

27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee24:58

    Yeah. It, it's certainly incredible. As you're describing that, Roger, I'm, I'm sort of thinking about a battery that we charge, right? So... Or a phone, right? We, we, we kind of understand the concept that our smartphone needs charging, right?

28. RSDr. Roger Seheult25:12

    Yeah.

29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee25:12

    So many of us in the evening, you know, uh, during the night, we'll charge our phones, so in the morning they're ready to do what we need them to do throughout the day. But if we think about light and the fact that we're living these indoor lives now, and yes, you mentioned scientific reductionism, of course, that absolutely plays into vitamin D, where for many years, you know, we've just thought sunlight equals vitamin D. It's like, no, no, wait a minute. Sunlight equals many things.

30. RSDr. Roger Seheult25:41

    Yeah.

Episode duration: 1:57:27