Episode 136

136: Scott Zimmerman - The Hidden Power of Sunlight: How Infrared Light Fuels Your Biology

📺 Watch & Subscribe on YouTube

"There are dozens of ways to quantify sunlight. And it matters how we present the data because it can mislead, hide, or enlighten," says Scott Zimmerman, who joins the Quantum Biology Collective Podcast to reveal how our understanding of light's impact on health is fundamentally flawed. Zimmerman explains that by reframing how we measure sunlight—focusing on photons per second per area per energy unit—we can better grasp its crucial role in metabolic health.

Zimmerman unveils groundbreaking insights into the body's quantum-level interactions with light, particularly in the infrared spectrum. He discusses how this knowledge could revolutionize our approach to lighting, potentially addressing the surge in metabolic diseases. Zimmerman also shares startling findings on how artificial lighting affects our biology, including impacts on color perception and hormone regulation.

Tune in to today's episode to learn why your office lighting might be sabotaging your health, how sunlight acts as a "battery" for your body, and why the shade might be more beneficial than you think. Discover the hidden quantum world influencing your health with every photon.

5 Key Takeaways

1. Get regular exposure to full-spectrum sunlight, especially during daytime hours. This provides the broadband light our biology needs for optimal functioning.

2. When indoors, use lighting that mimics natural sunlight's spectrum, including infrared wavelengths. Consider replacing LED bulbs with full-spectrum alternatives.

3. Limit exposure to narrow-spectrum artificial light, particularly at night. This includes reducing screen time before bed and blocking out streetlights in sleeping areas.

4. Spend time outdoors in natural shade when possible. Shade provides beneficial infrared light without excessive UV exposure.

5. For children, prioritize outdoor time and full-spectrum lighting even more, as their developing bodies are especially sensitive to light exposure.

Memorable Quotes

1. "We need to reframe the way we think about light from just something we need to see to an essential life source, food source for our body, just in a different form."

2. "There is a huge difference, even the 850nm helped a little bit on some of the color contrast, but it was really the incandescent that saw the big change. I would argue if he could actually do a controlled experiment with sunlight, you would see improvement even further."

3. "We're now moving from 'go do something and a day or two later, test it' to a timescale of minutes. Once you start doing that, you see all these different processes responding. The body can't wait four hours to respond to a major event or even a small event like a burn."

Connect with Scott

Website - Niralighting.com

LinkedIn post mentioned: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/scott-zimmerman-29b7b59_hopefully-we-can-move-on-now-activity-7338924880366592001-axmI

Resources Mentioned

Sweat Sensor: https://www.cortiwearable.com/

Nira Lighting: https://niralighting.myshopify.com/

QBC Resources

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Transcript
Meredith Oke:

All right, Scott Zimmerman, welcome back to the

Meredith Oke:

QVC podcast. Really lovely to see you again.

Scott Zimmerman:

Yeah. Beautiful warm day here. Sun's coming

Scott Zimmerman:

through.

Meredith Oke:

Beautiful. Where are you again? Remind me.

Scott Zimmerman:

New Jersey. We had 13 Saturdays of rain.

Meredith Oke:

Oh, I was gonna say, I have a beautiful warm day

Meredith Oke:

here. I'm just across. I'm just across the river

Meredith Oke:

in New York. We're right near the Tappan Zee.

Scott Zimmerman:

Ah.

Meredith Oke:

So I have your weather. It is gorgeous. And yeah,

Meredith Oke:

it's the rain. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. So sun's

Meredith Oke:

out. We're in a good mood.

Scott Zimmerman:

Yeah.

Meredith Oke:

All right, so I, I'm really happy to have you

Meredith Oke:

back. I love how you explain things and your

Meredith Oke:

energy and your dedication to, like, all this

Meredith Oke:

craziness that we're all trying to understand.

Meredith Oke:

So, as I mentioned, I was. I want to start with

Meredith Oke:

this post that you wrote recently. And I know

Meredith Oke:

it's part of something bigger which you can tell

Meredith Oke:

me about, but it was. There's some very. There's

Meredith Oke:

some sentences in here that I'd love to unpack

Meredith Oke:

with you. I think they're just like, super

Meredith Oke:

helpful. So. Okay, so I'm just going to start

Meredith Oke:

reading. This is what you wrote on LinkedIn.

Meredith Oke:

There are, there are dozens. There are dozens of

Meredith Oke:

ways to quantify sunlight. And it matters how we

Meredith Oke:

present the data because it can mislead, hide, or

Meredith Oke:

enlighten. The impact of sunlight on the rapid

Meredith Oke:

increases in metabolic diseases is best

Meredith Oke:

illustrated using photons per second per area,

Meredith Oke:

per energy unit.

Scott Zimmerman:

You know.

Meredith Oke:

Tell me, tell the English major what we're

Meredith Oke:

talking about here.

Scott Zimmerman:

Well, you know, you can, you can put, you have a

Scott Zimmerman:

bunch of things and you can put them in different

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bins and depending on how big the bin is, the

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number they'll go in and how. So you, you have

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this way. And so we present data are the solar

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spectrum in a certain way, usually in watts per

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meter squared per degree per nanometer, the

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irradiation as a function of wavelength that

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makes this nice little peak where right in the

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visible. And everybody looks at it. And then you

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see the infrared, it goes way down and it looks

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like it's almost trivial. Now I can take that

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exact same solar spectrum and I can reorient it

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or re bin it into what matters to the body, which

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is how much energy, how many photons are in a

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particular energy band. Okay, Think about it like

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a solar cell. You know, a solar cell. The solar

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cell guys have these. Build these cells that have

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band gaps. So within the band gap, photons that

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have that energy can do generate an electron.

Scott Zimmerman:

Okay. Photons that don't have that energy, don't

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generate an electron. Well, a similar type

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thing's going on in the body. We have all these

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enzymes and activations and barrier energy

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barriers that are used to regulate how the body

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works. You know, it's not like you have this.

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Everything's just a wide open wild west and

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everybody's everything. Every chemical reaction

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is happening time. We have very controlled ways

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that we go through various. Whether it be the

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electron transport chain, whether it be immune

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response, all these things are controlled using

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enzymes and various other things and light to

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essentially make us live and be healthy. When we

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start getting things out of whack is when we are

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unhealthy. And so all I was trying to show was is

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that if you put it in terms of electron volt

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energy, which we call electron volt, that's the

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amount of energy it takes to move an electron

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through one volt of potential. And you know, it

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has a certain amount of energy. If we reorient or

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re. Graph. These are, these are not really graph.

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These are hit what they call histograms. Okay.

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And I'm sorry, it's getting a little deep, but

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bottom line is you can put it in the right bins

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that matter to the body, which is in, like I say,

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photons per second. You know, when you talk about

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quantum, we always talk about photons. Well, now

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you need to also talk about electrons. And that's

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in electron volts. So these photons are, if we

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show it in a manner that is more applicable to

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mitochondria, all of a sudden you get this peak

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at 0.75 electron volts, which is about 1600

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nanometers. Now I was talking, I found this from

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the solar cell guys. And I was talking to Bob and

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I said, bob, what's this peak? And Bob says,

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well, everybody knows what that peak is. That's

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the hydrogen minus ion opacity window in the sun.

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And I said, not all of us knew that that was what

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was going on. But it turns out that there is a

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particular energy band coming from the sun that

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in that band there are more photons released by

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the sun because they're allowed to escape from

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deeper in the atmosphere of the Sun. And this is

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well known to astronomers, but not well known to

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me and not well known to any biologist that I

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know of. But it turns out that it is an

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opportunity. And it appears based on how the body

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has adapted over billions of years and life forms

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have adapted, that that's an optimum region that

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where most of the activation energies associated

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with biology actually occur. Is it a coincidence?

Scott Zimmerman:

Maybe it's a coincidence, but it looks like it's

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actually intentional. So essentially there's this

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region in the infrared where that aligns very

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well with what is going on on a biological level

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as far as the amount of energy it takes to get

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you to move an electron in the electron transport

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chain or any of these other biological processes.

Scott Zimmerman:

And to see that changes your, in my opinion,

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changes your entire perspective as to what's

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important in sunlight. You know, it doesn't mean

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that you don't need sunlight to see, it doesn't

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mean you don't need UV to do, to make vitamin D

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and all the steroids. But in the infrared, and

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this is not the near infrared, this is farther

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out in the infrared, there's a kind of like this

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merger or this coincidence of what sun provides

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and what we need biologically as far as energy

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levels. And when we talk about quantum, then you

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get into this issue of. It's very well understood

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that photosynthesis and electron transport chain

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is a quantum process. Okay. What happens is, is

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the electron, there are a series of barriers in

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the electron transport chain. And either through

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enzymes or just general mobility of the molecules

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or sunlight, that that electron is allowed to

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jump that barrier, generate some protons that

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help that, and goes through a series of these

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steps. Those steps are all in this region as far

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as energy levels. And so it appears that from

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everything we're looking at, that literally

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sunlight doing a process called, and you can look

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it up as photon assisted quantum tunneling is

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essentially allowing us to be more likely for

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that electron to jump and therefore generate a

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little bit more ATP, more efficiently generate

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ATP, which is, agrees with Glenn's data, where

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he's shining some longer wavelength light. And it

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doesn't have to be any particular wavelength, it

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can be a lot of different wavelengths. And all of

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a sudden the ATP production efficiency goes up,

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CO2 levels drop, are increase as well. So we know

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that that is, so we have done something with

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light to enhance the efficiency of, of the

Scott Zimmerman:

electron transport chain.

Meredith Oke:

Wow. Okay, so. Oh, so cool. Okay, so cool. So

Meredith Oke:

I've a couple of things. One, I'm hearing that

Meredith Oke:

what you're talking about is a framework for

Meredith Oke:

looking at sunlight as an energy source for

Meredith Oke:

biology as opposed to the traditional way of

Meredith Oke:

looking at it.

Scott Zimmerman:

Excellent assessment. Yeah, better than I do. I

Scott Zimmerman:

appreciate that.

Meredith Oke:

And then second of all, if we lack, if our

Meredith Oke:

biology lacks exposure to this specific bandwidth

Meredith Oke:

that you're talking about, we, we can't live.

Scott Zimmerman:

Well, I wouldn't say you can't live. I mean,

Scott Zimmerman:

that's what's so beautiful about how you got

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energy from the sun coming in from this

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direction. Higher energy, lower energy, you've

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got our basic surroundings. Our body is sitting

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here at a temperature and our surroundings are at

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a temperature that's enough to where it kind of

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gets into the same region. But it appears based

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on looking at it now from this different

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perspective, that there is a huge advantage

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associated with bringing in these lower energy

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photons. Because bear in mind, you know, if

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you're looking at the electron transfer chain,

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it's a less than a volt or electron volt or the

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energy level is fairly low and they do a series

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of hopping in order to get from, from one

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potential level down to another potential level

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and generate the protons. So and those protons

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then drive the ATP production. But it is pretty

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clear from what we're looking at is that there is

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a role that sunlight plays in enhancing the

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efficiency of which you make ATP and therefore

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taking that away and only putting us in these

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dark environments. The modern cave that we have

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where it's all high energy photons in

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perspective, we're talking about 0.75 electron

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volts in down here where we're talking about

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going on with the electron transfer chain. We're

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talking about, when we look visually it's three

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to two, two to three electron volts. So much

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higher energy. So if they come in and they get

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involved in the process they generate, they, they

Scott Zimmerman:

can definitely kick the electron up over the

Scott Zimmerman:

barrier. But they also, the excess generates a

Scott Zimmerman:

lot of reactive oxygen species. So.

Meredith Oke:

Okay, and when that is happening, when we, our,

Meredith Oke:

our light sources are mostly artificial and

Meredith Oke:

inside and we're not outside enough or is that.

Scott Zimmerman:

Well, no, it's happening when you're outside. But

Scott Zimmerman:

what it, what it appears to be happening is, is

Scott Zimmerman:

that the higher energy photons are being used for

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important features. You need the, the uv, which

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is about three to four electron volts to generate

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the things we need for vitamin D, for steroids,

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for cortisol, all these things. So we need that

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to happen. But that process is very energetic and

Scott Zimmerman:

damaging. You can get sunburned, you can get all

Scott Zimmerman:

this kind of stuff, then you drop down into the

Scott Zimmerman:

visible and we need that to be able to see. But

Scott Zimmerman:

again it has enough energy to break bonds and do

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things that are negative. And then you get into

Scott Zimmerman:

the near infrared and you start to see beneficial

Scott Zimmerman:

versus harmful. Still need these functions to go

Scott Zimmerman:

on up here, but they're in. The farther we get

Scott Zimmerman:

down, closer we get to the energy levels that are

Scott Zimmerman:

being used in things like the electron transport

Scott Zimmerman:

chain, the more, the less reactive oxygen species

Scott Zimmerman:

being generated and the more efficient we are at

Scott Zimmerman:

generating ATP and other things.

Meredith Oke:

Okay, so how does that translate into what we

Meredith Oke:

should do like optimally so to expose ourselves

Meredith Oke:

to this window that all the astronomers knew

Meredith Oke:

about with the peak and the energy cell, the

Meredith Oke:

solar cell guys know about with the peak, but the

Meredith Oke:

biologists have no idea, even though what you're

Meredith Oke:

saying is that it's of crucial for optimal

Meredith Oke:

functioning of biology. So when is that?

Scott Zimmerman:

Well, I guess what I'd say is when we're at the

Scott Zimmerman:

body is obviously designed under the assumption

Scott Zimmerman:

that we're exposed to a broadband emitter. Okay,

Scott Zimmerman:

okay.

Meredith Oke:

What do you mean by broadband emitter?

Scott Zimmerman:

Broadband sunlight, moonlight fire,

Scott Zimmerman:

incandescents, things like our light bulbs, you

Scott Zimmerman:

know, those type of things. Even the thermal

Scott Zimmerman:

vents down in the bottom of the ocean are

Scott Zimmerman:

broadband thermal emitters. And they follow more

Scott Zimmerman:

like a Planckian type response. Okay. Which

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means, not to be fancy, it just means that it's a

Scott Zimmerman:

large number of wavelengths. Everything from UV

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all the way down into the far infrared. Okay,

Scott Zimmerman:

okay.

Meredith Oke:

So we're getting across the spectrum.

Scott Zimmerman:

Across the spectrum.

Meredith Oke:

All right. And that's what we need.

Scott Zimmerman:

And that's what we need. That's what the bodies

Scott Zimmerman:

are developed for. When you start parceling it up

Scott Zimmerman:

and you start. There is no place in nature other

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than, as Bob would say, well, the auroras are

Scott Zimmerman:

narrow band. Well, yeah, they're pretty, but

Scott Zimmerman:

they're not the main thing that bother us all.

Scott Zimmerman:

But every other light source that we are exposed

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to has emitter is broadband. I mean, when I say

Scott Zimmerman:

broadband, it goes from UV all the way out to the

Scott Zimmerman:

far infrared. And so what appears, based on the

Scott Zimmerman:

stuff we're seeing, is that, you know, we need

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these higher energies to do things like crack the

Scott Zimmerman:

cholesterol down to where we can make the stuff

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we need for vitamin D. Have to have that. But

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it's a process that is very energetic. And as you

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know, you can get a sunburn fairly easily,

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especially you and me. So the point is, is that

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the other part, the longer wavelengths are there

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to deal with the fact that we have these, have to

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have these other higher energy photons involved

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in the process, you know, and if you don't, then

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you get more like what we're seeing now, the

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astronauts, the submariners. I mean, if you look

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at some of the hostages that were held down in

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tunnels for a year without any sunlight, you see

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what's happening. It's degrades you know, we need

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the spectrum, the characteristics of sunlight to

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be healthy. And unfortunately, that's becoming

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less and less a part of our lives. You know,

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people will sit in, in dark rooms with the TV

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blaring away. That's just providing them with

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visible light, the incandescent lighting, the

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window, blocking all the things we're doing for

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blocking energy, then the air, infrared from

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coming into houses are all degrading the balance

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that nature provides. And it's very clear, you

Scott Zimmerman:

know, I'm still totally on the near infrared, but

Scott Zimmerman:

I'm saying that what we're. Every time we move

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out a little further in the spectrum to longer

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and longer wavelengths, we're finding out that

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the body has a lot of stuff that it's doing with

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it that we don't even understand. And one of the

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problems, the fundamental problem to start the

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whole process is we keep on showing the solar

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spectrum in terms, in the wrong terms, units of

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measure. And as soon as you do that, and I don't

Scott Zimmerman:

know if, you know, I don't think you have the

Scott Zimmerman:

graph to put up, but what Bob did is he showed it

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and showed the relationship between when you

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start putting in an electron volts and how that

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kind of just perfectly marries up with what we

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see as the average activation energy of

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biological processes. And so to me, it's the most

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fundamental, amazing thing I've ever seen. As far

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as, you know, it's clear that over billions of

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years our biology was moving closer and closer to

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this peak that had a little extra energy. And it

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provides, it provides that extra energy in the

Scott Zimmerman:

form that we feel alive during the day, we get

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sleepy at night when it goes away. You know, it's

Scott Zimmerman:

not that complicated. I don't think. It's just,

Scott Zimmerman:

you know, convincing everybody that they need to

Scott Zimmerman:

get outside a little bit and go to bed when it's

Scott Zimmerman:

dark, you know?

Meredith Oke:

Yeah, no, the practical application is incredibly

Meredith Oke:

simple. Yeah, go outside in the day, open a

Meredith Oke:

window, have lighting that's as close to

Meredith Oke:

broadband emitter as possible, and sleep in the

Meredith Oke:

dark when it gets dark.

Scott Zimmerman:

I mean, it used to be that was the norm. And

Scott Zimmerman:

people, you know, would go off to sanitariums to

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get more light and get more fresh air and get

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more, you know, good food. And now we've kind of

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created this about the opposite environment where

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you can't have this. You're not providing the

Scott Zimmerman:

full spectrum to the. And I would argue that,

Scott Zimmerman:

that it's, it's even worse than that because

Scott Zimmerman:

we're talking about two very different balancing

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act that's going on in the body. It needs these

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to counter the other when you introduce just one.

Scott Zimmerman:

I did some bio sweat sensor measurements and we

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were looking at cortisol and it was amazing that

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you could sit in a dark room with a TV on 10 lux,

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just a basic sitting in front of TV and the

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cortisol was spiking all through that time.

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Melatonin was kind of suppressed all through that

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time. So I think that, you know, there's an

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argument to be made that it's not just that we

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should do this because it's more healthy, we

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should get rid of what we're doing or at least

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try and add some, some infrared back in to

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everything, because not having it is creating

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harm. And that's my biggest concern. With all the

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metabolic diseases. One of the reasons that we're

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doing what we're doing is that metabolic diseases

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are all linked into the electron transport chain

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and the ATP production. And it's very clear that

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the longer wavelengths are a positive

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reinforcement of that, making it more efficient.

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More efficient. The ATP is the healthier you

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basically are. And you know, so. So I think that

Scott Zimmerman:

getting it in the right terms and looking at how

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biology and sunlight are mixing together, we're.

Scott Zimmerman:

I guess one of the analogies that's used is that

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we're kind of like this battery system and we

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charge up and that gets the, you know, as Glenn

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shown with his experiments, you know, just as

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short exposures can have a beneficial effect over

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a longer time frame because you're essentially

Scott Zimmerman:

making the ATP, the electron transport chain,

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more efficient and maybe even adding in more

Scott Zimmerman:

units into the, into it to where it's just

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operating at a better level, taking it away.

Meredith Oke:

With that in that infrared exposure.

Scott Zimmerman:

Right. Okay.

Meredith Oke:

And just to touch what you were saying earlier

Meredith Oke:

about how UV is, on the one hand, extremely UV

Meredith Oke:

exposure is necessary and important. On the other

Meredith Oke:

hand, it does cause damage. So on a sort of like

Meredith Oke:

a practical basis, you know, what I notice

Meredith Oke:

personally is if it's. I'm outside on a hot

Meredith Oke:

summer day, direct sunlight on my body feels

Meredith Oke:

really good for, I don't know, let's say 20, 25

Meredith Oke:

minutes, and then I kind of get, I get the

Meredith Oke:

inclination to go in the shade.

Scott Zimmerman:

Yeah.

Meredith Oke:

And that's. Is that sort of what we're talking

Meredith Oke:

about, like just keeping that balance and even

Meredith Oke:

the shade and being outside is still having all

Meredith Oke:

those positive effects you described, especially

Meredith Oke:

on the body's optimization of ATP production.

Meredith Oke:

That's still happening.

Scott Zimmerman:

Yeah, I mean, I think that. And we're going to

Scott Zimmerman:

find more and more of these biological processes

Scott Zimmerman:

that affect the immune system, that affect

Scott Zimmerman:

neurological. I mean, you feel, you said, I feel.

Scott Zimmerman:

Well, yeah, because your brain is basically

Scott Zimmerman:

having some response to making you feel a

Scott Zimmerman:

particular way. I mean, and, you know, we started

Scott Zimmerman:

this out just doing the optics of looking at

Scott Zimmerman:

where light goes in the body. But now what we're

Scott Zimmerman:

finding is, is that, you know, it's not just

Scott Zimmerman:

where it goes, it's also what it, you know, a

Scott Zimmerman:

number of the wavelengths have very localized,

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are absorbed very strongly. There's a picture I

Scott Zimmerman:

put in the link at Lincoln Post here at least

Scott Zimmerman:

recently, where, you know, we all have black skin

Scott Zimmerman:

and white hair in the longer wavelengths. And

Scott Zimmerman:

that means that the body is trying to absorb

Scott Zimmerman:

those photons preferentially and using them for

Scott Zimmerman:

something in particular. It looks like immune as

Scott Zimmerman:

a pathogen barrier is one possibility, but, you

Scott Zimmerman:

know, in general, you need all the different

Scott Zimmerman:

components working together in unison rather

Scott Zimmerman:

than. We have this tendency as a scientist to do

Scott Zimmerman:

reductionist experiments even. Glenn's experiment

Scott Zimmerman:

was done at 670 nanometers. Another one's at

Scott Zimmerman:

1064. That's not what's happening in the body.

Scott Zimmerman:

When we're outdoors, we're getting all those

Scott Zimmerman:

wavelengths together. Some are going deeper in

Scott Zimmerman:

the body, some are localized on the surface. And

Scott Zimmerman:

as we move into shade, then it shifts it to more

Scott Zimmerman:

into the infrared, then the visible and the UV

Scott Zimmerman:

gets absorbed more strongly by the leaves and our

Scott Zimmerman:

surroundings. So there's a shift in that general

Scott Zimmerman:

balance, but there's always something to counter

Scott Zimmerman:

the other. Unfortunately, that's not what we do

Scott Zimmerman:

now. I mean, we have said, okay, we only need

Scott Zimmerman:

from 400 to 650nm to see, to read, therefore.

Meredith Oke:

So that's. Oh, that's what our light bulbs were

Meredith Oke:

like. Just that?

Scott Zimmerman:

Just that.

Meredith Oke:

But our biology was designed for, as you said,

Meredith Oke:

the broadband emissions, all of.

Scott Zimmerman:

It, 250 out to 6,000 nanometers. I mean, we are

Scott Zimmerman:

talking less than 10% of the spectral content of.

Scott Zimmerman:

Is what we expose our children to every day. And

Scott Zimmerman:

they don't get out getting what the wire. You

Scott Zimmerman:

know, especially in urban areas, it's very

Scott Zimmerman:

difficult. I understand it is. I mean, if you're

Scott Zimmerman:

in prison, you got. They got real problems. And

Scott Zimmerman:

you know, and hospitals are terrible. I mean,

Scott Zimmerman:

they're probably about the worst place you could

Scott Zimmerman:

go as far as this aspect of life. But we know

Scott Zimmerman:

very strongly that ATP efficiency and ATP

Scott Zimmerman:

production is a very good marker of health. I

Scott Zimmerman:

mean, if you have, if you're operating at a high

Scott Zimmerman:

level of ATP production and health or and

Scott Zimmerman:

efficiency, then it's a beneficial condition as

Scott Zimmerman:

far as our health is concerned. And all I'm

Scott Zimmerman:

saying is is that we started out, you know, just

Scott Zimmerman:

to give you a framework. UV starts here around

Scott Zimmerman:

280 nanometers, goes down to about 400 some odd

Scott Zimmerman:

nanometers for when we start to see. 650 is what

Scott Zimmerman:

we mostly cut off for the LEDs. Near infrared

Scott Zimmerman:

runs from 650 out to about 1100 or 1000

Scott Zimmerman:

nanometers. This other infrared, the shortwave

Scott Zimmerman:

infrared and minute infrared runs out to 6,000

Scott Zimmerman:

nanometers. And while the energy level of the

Scott Zimmerman:

photons may be less, less at the longer

Scott Zimmerman:

wavelengths, they appear to be more appropriate

Scott Zimmerman:

to do things with biology because those are the

Scott Zimmerman:

energy levels that we, that the body is using to

Scott Zimmerman:

regulate all our processes. You know, other than

Scott Zimmerman:

seeing and generating, like I say, the uv, the

Scott Zimmerman:

majority of our bodily processes, the entire

Scott Zimmerman:

electron transport chain has a series of barriers

Scott Zimmerman:

that are less than an electron volt, are pretty

Scott Zimmerman:

close to electron volt, which is, you know, very

Scott Zimmerman:

small amount of energy. You can come in with a

Scott Zimmerman:

big, heavy, big high energy boost and you'll have

Scott Zimmerman:

an effect, but you're going to also generate some

Scott Zimmerman:

level of damage associated with it. So, you know,

Scott Zimmerman:

like I say, and we've only gone to six that we

Scott Zimmerman:

still don't quite understand, even the longer

Scott Zimmerman:

wavelengths than that. And really, it's almost

Scott Zimmerman:

like a fundamental problem with science. If you

Scott Zimmerman:

can't measure it, it's hard to understand it, you

Scott Zimmerman:

know, and.

Meredith Oke:

Yeah, well, it's almost like if you can't measure

Meredith Oke:

it, it doesn't exist.

Scott Zimmerman:

Yeah, well, I mean, kind of what.

Meredith Oke:

The sense I get from, from the measures. Yeah,

Meredith Oke:

the people who measure.

Scott Zimmerman:

Yeah, that, that, that is what the, the problem

Scott Zimmerman:

we ran into. When you look at light, sunlight,

Scott Zimmerman:

the solar spectrum in terms of watts, then it

Scott Zimmerman:

looks like there's nothing useful going on down

Scott Zimmerman:

at the bottom. And so what do we do? We use that

Scott Zimmerman:

as, okay, that doesn't matter. It's just heat.

Scott Zimmerman:

We're going to only make 400 to 650 nanometers.

Scott Zimmerman:

Now what's happening? Everybody's getting these

Scott Zimmerman:

little spectrometers and they're, they're silicon

Scott Zimmerman:

spectrometers. Well, they only measure out to

Scott Zimmerman:

about 900. And yet people look at and say, oh,

Scott Zimmerman:

look at this, I got some, some, some power out

Scott Zimmerman:

here at the 900 nanometers. Yeah, well, what

Scott Zimmerman:

about 2000? What about 6000? What? And, and, but

Scott Zimmerman:

people have their meter and they read their meter

Scott Zimmerman:

and you say, okay, put it up to an incandescent

Scott Zimmerman:

light bulb. Well, it does. This goes down. No, it

Scott Zimmerman:

didn't. Incandescents go up all the way out to

Scott Zimmerman:

about 2 to 2000 nanometers. But, you know, but

Scott Zimmerman:

their meter, but.

Meredith Oke:

The instrument of measurement has no capacity. So

Meredith Oke:

it just looks like it goes down.

Scott Zimmerman:

Yeah, I mean, look. And so. So people make a

Scott Zimmerman:

judgment. Oh, we added near infrared. No, you

Scott Zimmerman:

really didn't add that much near infrared. You

Scott Zimmerman:

know, if you're outside and you're in the shade,

Scott Zimmerman:

for every watt of optical watt of visible,

Scott Zimmerman:

there's three or four times that in the infrared,

Scott Zimmerman:

and that's the balance. So, you know, in our

Scott Zimmerman:

light sources, we design them to have three to

Scott Zimmerman:

one because of some of the work I did. But that's

Scott Zimmerman:

in.

Meredith Oke:

In the light bulbs that you make.

Scott Zimmerman:

Yeah, because, you know, the point was, is that

Scott Zimmerman:

people who have very dark skin in particular,

Scott Zimmerman:

need more near infrared content. In my opinion,

Scott Zimmerman:

children need more near infrared content because

Scott Zimmerman:

that's kind of the good stuff. And we got rid of

Scott Zimmerman:

the good stuff and put it in with the bad stuff.

Scott Zimmerman:

And then we're surprised that all of a sudden

Scott Zimmerman:

there's some issue. And how bad is it? You know,

Scott Zimmerman:

10, 20 years from now? You'll figure that all

Scott Zimmerman:

out, unfortunately. But we do know that, I think

Scott Zimmerman:

we have been going through a grand experiment

Scott Zimmerman:

where we have taken away all the incandescents,

Scott Zimmerman:

blocked all the near infrared from coming in, and

Scott Zimmerman:

we have these metabolic diseases. I know they

Scott Zimmerman:

want to talk about processed food, they want to

Scott Zimmerman:

talk about a lot of other things, but sunlight

Scott Zimmerman:

has always been the largest energy input into the

Scott Zimmerman:

body forever. And, you know, the fact that we

Scott Zimmerman:

have now filtered that down to such a narrow

Scott Zimmerman:

portion that it's not causing a problem, I think

Scott Zimmerman:

is absurd. I mean, you know, I would say that the

Scott Zimmerman:

high, though, there's a much higher likelihood

Scott Zimmerman:

that the effect of our lighting systems and our

Scott Zimmerman:

architecture is bigger than any food, processed

Scott Zimmerman:

food. There's tons of different diets out there.

Scott Zimmerman:

You know, people eat all kinds of things and

Scott Zimmerman:

survive just fine. But this is almost like on a

Scott Zimmerman:

global basis, we're having this huge shift, and

Scott Zimmerman:

it's so the antithesis of what we really know

Scott Zimmerman:

from a logic standpoint. You know, 1800s, people

Scott Zimmerman:

were going into sanitariums and places like that

Scott Zimmerman:

to get over TB and other diseases, because what

Scott Zimmerman:

they do, they got in more sunlight, got in more

Scott Zimmerman:

fresh air, got in higher altitude, breathing

Scott Zimmerman:

better. You know, the idea that sunlight isn't a

Scott Zimmerman:

primary factor in what we're seeing for all these

Scott Zimmerman:

Modern society, diseases. I mean, all we're doing

Scott Zimmerman:

is, is going and showing. Hey, there's a

Scott Zimmerman:

mechanism. Yes. You know, here's a mechanism and

Scott Zimmerman:

that makes. I love your cat, by the way.

Meredith Oke:

That's Puck.

Scott Zimmerman:

Yeah.

Meredith Oke:

We call it the infidel. Yes. So the mechanism.

Scott Zimmerman:

Yeah, yeah. I mean that's, that's really the,

Scott Zimmerman:

the. If you can show a mechanism, then people can

Scott Zimmerman:

start to quantify it. And you know, I'm hopeful

Scott Zimmerman:

that what's going to happen is once we get some

Scott Zimmerman:

more of these biosensors out there, that people

Scott Zimmerman:

are going to start looking for themselves and

Scott Zimmerman:

finding out whether or not, you know, how much in

Scott Zimmerman:

the sun they need to be in order to really feel

Scott Zimmerman:

good about themselves.

Meredith Oke:

Right. Which is where measuring is very helpful

Meredith Oke:

because when people see that data like, oh, I'm

Meredith Oke:

in front of my TV and my blood sugar plummets and

Meredith Oke:

oh, I go outside and things stabilize. I just one

Meredith Oke:

quick thing on the, on the processed food. Yeah,

Meredith Oke:

what I, what I, here's my. I, here's my ideal

Meredith Oke:

near future vision. Is that the, the way that we

Meredith Oke:

are understanding processed food right now and

Meredith Oke:

the huge push, especially in the United States,

Meredith Oke:

it's been going on other place in Europe for

Meredith Oke:

longer to really get the general population to

Meredith Oke:

understand how bad it is to eat ultra processed

Meredith Oke:

food as the mainstay of your diet. If we can then

Meredith Oke:

translate that understanding into a paradigm

Meredith Oke:

shift that sees light as an equal input into our

Meredith Oke:

body on like on par with food, maybe we have a

Meredith Oke:

chance of reframing. And as, as you were talking

Meredith Oke:

about earlier, we need to reframe the way we

Meredith Oke:

think about the sun with the way we measure the

Meredith Oke:

outputs of the sun. If we can reframe the way we

Meredith Oke:

think about light from just something that we

Meredith Oke:

need to see to an essential life source, food

Meredith Oke:

source for our body, just in a different form.

Scott Zimmerman:

Yeah, I mean, I think that that's a good way to

Scott Zimmerman:

do it. I mean, essentially, you know, the

Scott Zimmerman:

ability, our ability to operate optimally is

Scott Zimmerman:

under attack at the present time. You know, and

Scott Zimmerman:

I, we, it's not just the emitters that we've

Scott Zimmerman:

done. It's also a lifestyle shift that we've made

Scott Zimmerman:

where, you know, kids don't go outside and play.

Meredith Oke:

Yeah.

Scott Zimmerman:

Kids don't go to. Everything is a more of a

Scott Zimmerman:

organized indoors under artificial lighting, you

Scott Zimmerman:

know, and the kids last thing the kid sees is

Scott Zimmerman:

before he goes to bed is a screen that has no

Scott Zimmerman:

infrared content. So over time, like I say, all

Scott Zimmerman:

we're trying to do is highlight the different

Scott Zimmerman:

mechanisms and it's been this progression of, we

Scott Zimmerman:

started out invisible, added some near infrared.

Scott Zimmerman:

Then we got to the point we figured out that

Scott Zimmerman:

there's now this longer wavelength stuff going on

Scott Zimmerman:

and we still have half the solar spectrum to go.

Scott Zimmerman:

Basically we're really seeing stuff at, you know,

Scott Zimmerman:

we got out to 3,000 nanometers, we gotta get out

Scott Zimmerman:

to six before we actually include all the stuff

Scott Zimmerman:

that's going on from sunlight. And the idea that

Scott Zimmerman:

nature hasn't optimized to take advantage of of

Scott Zimmerman:

all those different energy sources is just

Scott Zimmerman:

counterintuitive. You know, that's what nature

Scott Zimmerman:

does because that's called survival. The entity

Scott Zimmerman:

that can actually take advantage of something and

Scott Zimmerman:

get an advantage over another one is going to win

Scott Zimmerman:

the battle. And you know, and I just find it

Scott Zimmerman:

really fascinating that it's not something that

Scott Zimmerman:

we have the biologists over here, as you were

Scott Zimmerman:

talking about silos, it's an enzyme, it's a

Scott Zimmerman:

chemical reaction, it's all this other stuff. The

Scott Zimmerman:

optics guys are over here saying, oh, we're

Scott Zimmerman:

changing, you know, this, that and the other, you

Scott Zimmerman:

know, biology thing. They're not talking to each

Scott Zimmerman:

other hardly at all. You know, and the more we

Scott Zimmerman:

find out. All I was trying to show is that, you

Scott Zimmerman:

know, we've got this huge amount of energy

Scott Zimmerman:

associated with sunlight that can be good or bad

Scott Zimmerman:

for biological processes. And then you've got the

Scott Zimmerman:

normal biology guys coming together and they're

Scott Zimmerman:

meeting at this, just happened to be meeting at

Scott Zimmerman:

this point. 75 EV. That is a unique situation

Scott Zimmerman:

associated with the sun itself. And I just think

Scott Zimmerman:

it's fascinating and fundamental in what's going

Scott Zimmerman:

on and, but you need both sides of the parties to

Scott Zimmerman:

give a little so that we can get, to get to the

Scott Zimmerman:

truth, I guess is what I'd say.

Meredith Oke:

Yeah, you know, it's such a, like, it's just so

Meredith Oke:

fascinating from a civilizational perspective

Meredith Oke:

that, you know, we can have these incredible

Meredith Oke:

human intelligences hyper focused in a certain

Meredith Oke:

area and be so incredibly well versed and deeply

Meredith Oke:

understand that little area, but be still

Meredith Oke:

completely missing the bigger picture. And we

Meredith Oke:

seem to lack any kind of society level framework

Meredith Oke:

for pulling out and linking all these things

Meredith Oke:

together. Even recently the magazine Scientific

Meredith Oke:

American had a cover, the Sunlight Cure. It was

Meredith Oke:

all about how sunlight is good for us and UV

Meredith Oke:

light is good for us. And then they'd have this

Meredith Oke:

one paragraph where the scientists were like,

Meredith Oke:

yeah, but we don't understand the mechanisms yet.

Meredith Oke:

And I'm like, you guys gotta go talk to Scott.

Meredith Oke:

There are people who understand the mechanisms.

Meredith Oke:

Go talk to Dr. Frederick Guy. But they hadn't

Meredith Oke:

looked yet. So as far as they were concerned, the

Meredith Oke:

mechanism is not understood.

Scott Zimmerman:

Yeah, and it's a shame because we do know a lot.

Scott Zimmerman:

We know an awful lot. And it's such a perfect

Scott Zimmerman:

opportunity. This is like the watershed moment,

Scott Zimmerman:

in my opinion, from the standpoint of the

Scott Zimmerman:

biologists and the quantum biologists to get

Scott Zimmerman:

together, because this is coming down to quantum

Scott Zimmerman:

levels and it is. And people get scared by that.

Scott Zimmerman:

But I mean, a simple thing is to go back to the

Scott Zimmerman:

unit measure rather than talking about Watts,

Scott Zimmerman:

talk about photons per second. It's now a

Scott Zimmerman:

quantized event. And it matters how many of those

Scott Zimmerman:

photons, what energy level they are and what the

Scott Zimmerman:

density of them in the body is being absorbed and

Scott Zimmerman:

how that is coupling into our biological

Scott Zimmerman:

processes. It doesn't have to be coherence and

Scott Zimmerman:

all this other stuff. In my opinion, it will

Scott Zimmerman:

start out with something simple. I got a chunk of

Scott Zimmerman:

energy, it goes here in the body, and it helps

Scott Zimmerman:

this process work better or doesn't help this

Scott Zimmerman:

process work better. And you know that those

Scott Zimmerman:

mechanisms we can do, we can model them, we can

Scott Zimmerman:

put them together. And what I put in that, the

Scott Zimmerman:

equation, the one, the simple little equation in

Scott Zimmerman:

there on photon assisted quantum or quantum

Scott Zimmerman:

tunneling, you know, it sounds really spooky, but

Scott Zimmerman:

at some level there is a probability that small

Scott Zimmerman:

little things like electrons, and this is what I

Scott Zimmerman:

think is just so cool, is that the mass of the

Scott Zimmerman:

particle determines and the barrier and the width

Scott Zimmerman:

of the barrier all determine the probability of

Scott Zimmerman:

an electron moving through a barrier. Now, we use

Scott Zimmerman:

barriers in our biology to time when things

Scott Zimmerman:

happen and how big of an event they are. Now, the

Scott Zimmerman:

fact that we can provide a photon to that region

Scott Zimmerman:

and add in a little bit more energy so that the

Scott Zimmerman:

electron can jump that barrier and a little bit

Scott Zimmerman:

more efficiently, efficiently generate a proton,

Scott Zimmerman:

which then makes the turbine spin, you know, is

Scott Zimmerman:

all occurring on these scales that you have to

Scott Zimmerman:

start talking about quantum effects. And they're

Scott Zimmerman:

not that great. It doesn't have to be that

Scott Zimmerman:

complicated. You know, literally, there's a great

Scott Zimmerman:

paper done out of the Guy Foundation. Nathan, I

Scott Zimmerman:

forget his last. I think Booth, I'm not sure.

Scott Zimmerman:

Anyway, showing water molecules, and he's

Scott Zimmerman:

modeling what happens when an electron hits that

Scott Zimmerman:

water molecule. And what it show was able to show

Scott Zimmerman:

is that he could actually it affected the

Scott Zimmerman:

molecule beside, it made it a little bit more

Scott Zimmerman:

excited. It then made this one over here a little

Scott Zimmerman:

bit more excited. And before long, the electron

Scott Zimmerman:

popped out on the other side, you know, and so we

Scott Zimmerman:

know that water is doing all these amazing things

Scott Zimmerman:

in the body. We keep it, you know, we came out of

Scott Zimmerman:

the ocean and we carried our water with us,

Scott Zimmerman:

essentially. And in this region that we're now

Scott Zimmerman:

looking at, Bob and I are now looking at, water

Scott Zimmerman:

is the main absorber. It is the chromophore. It

Scott Zimmerman:

is actually what's doing, absorbing the photon

Scott Zimmerman:

and moving it around, making things work. And

Scott Zimmerman:

it's. You think about like a. A whole big, you

Scott Zimmerman:

know, one of those plague again gyms where they

Scott Zimmerman:

got all the balls in them, you know.

Meredith Oke:

Yeah.

Scott Zimmerman:

And the kid jumps into the, into the thing and,

Scott Zimmerman:

and the balls move, but they. Some of them move

Scott Zimmerman:

quite a ways away from them because it depends on

Scott Zimmerman:

how they all interact. So, I mean, what sunlight

Scott Zimmerman:

is really doing, in my opinion, is taking and

Scott Zimmerman:

charging up the battery a little bit, but really

Scott Zimmerman:

generating an environment where electron

Scott Zimmerman:

generated by the food we eat, whatever is more

Scott Zimmerman:

likely to jump the barrier and get a proton

Scott Zimmerman:

generated to generate a little bit more ATP and

Scott Zimmerman:

do that with the least amount of the most

Scott Zimmerman:

efficient way, I guess I'd say so that, that's

Scott Zimmerman:

kind of what I think of it. But I guess I also

Scott Zimmerman:

like play gyms, so. And trampoline.

Meredith Oke:

The ball pits are always. Yeah, I love it. And

Meredith Oke:

yes, I think, you know, when you explain it like

Meredith Oke:

that, it, it just makes it so obvious that we

Meredith Oke:

need to be talking about biology on that level,

Meredith Oke:

on that, that quantum biologic level and not just

Meredith Oke:

the biochemical level or what. Whatever else

Meredith Oke:

we've been doing. It gets just so clear. It.

Meredith Oke:

Yeah, we just need you. We need all you guys to

Meredith Oke:

have like, megaphones.

Scott Zimmerman:

No, you know, it's why, it's why, why, you know,

Scott Zimmerman:

it's like Glenn, he's started out and he was

Scott Zimmerman:

doing the. All the experiments on the bees and

Scott Zimmerman:

the insects. And, you know, that's the other

Scott Zimmerman:

thing that I wish people would really understand.

Scott Zimmerman:

Get rid of your LED lights. Outdoors, we are

Scott Zimmerman:

doing a number on insects in particular, because

Scott Zimmerman:

if you look at optically, all the energy going

Scott Zimmerman:

into the insects are so small that they are

Scott Zimmerman:

essentially exposed to all the wavelengths at

Scott Zimmerman:

once. You know, we got kind of, we're big enough

Scott Zimmerman:

to where some of the near infrared gets down in

Scott Zimmerman:

deeper, but we kind of have this outer shell type

Scott Zimmerman:

thing going on where most of the energy is

Scott Zimmerman:

absorbed on the outer surface skin. Why our skin

Scott Zimmerman:

replaces every 21 days, blah, blah, blah. But

Scott Zimmerman:

insects are so much the canary in the coal mine

Scott Zimmerman:

on this whole thing. And I think that we're

Scott Zimmerman:

totally underestimating the impact we're having

Scott Zimmerman:

on our health by the standpoint of what we're

Scott Zimmerman:

doing to the insect population. I grew up in

Scott Zimmerman:

Kansas. You know, when I was growing up, you

Scott Zimmerman:

drove. Drive down the road, you got grasshopper

Scott Zimmerman:

all, you know, clean the windshields. All that

Scott Zimmerman:

hardly ever happens anymore around here, it seems

Scott Zimmerman:

like, you know, I was watching fireflies last

Scott Zimmerman:

night out there, and there's not near as many as

Scott Zimmerman:

I remember some of the other places. So I. You

Scott Zimmerman:

know, it's just. I think that we need to get a

Scott Zimmerman:

little bit more serious about what we're doing to

Scott Zimmerman:

the environment. But in general, what Glenn's

Scott Zimmerman:

been doing is he started out with the insects,

Scott Zimmerman:

then he went into looking at cells, and then he's

Scott Zimmerman:

moved his way up into mice. And now he's doing

Scott Zimmerman:

basically all his experiments on humans and

Scott Zimmerman:

exposing them to various things and seeing, you

Scott Zimmerman:

know, his latest. Some of his latest stuff is

Scott Zimmerman:

that, you know, he took and replaced the LED with

Scott Zimmerman:

an incandescent. And then he also did an 850

Scott Zimmerman:

nanometer type exposure. And he was looking at

Scott Zimmerman:

color contrast in the eye. And this was just.

Scott Zimmerman:

There's still LEDs up here on the ceiling.

Scott Zimmerman:

There's just an incandescent desk lamp there

Scott Zimmerman:

where people are working and all that other

Scott Zimmerman:

stuff. And in less than a week, he was able to

Scott Zimmerman:

Show a significant 20% degradation in their color

Scott Zimmerman:

contrast, ability to differentiate colors, which

Scott Zimmerman:

is. Glenn's. One of the world's experts on these

Scott Zimmerman:

things.

Meredith Oke:

Okay, sorry, walk me through this again. So this

Meredith Oke:

is Glenn Jeffries. So he started. He. He looked

Meredith Oke:

at the impact of narrow. The narrow spectrum on

Meredith Oke:

insects. Now he's moved to humans. And so he

Meredith Oke:

found that people's ability to differentiate

Meredith Oke:

color was degraded by working under LEDs in a

Meredith Oke:

matter of weeks. Maybe in a matter of weeks now

Meredith Oke:

doesn't mean.

Scott Zimmerman:

Yeah, I mean, all we're doing here is generating

Scott Zimmerman:

all these different biomarkers. You know, it's.

Scott Zimmerman:

You know, the body is dealing with thousands and

Scott Zimmerman:

thousands of different reactions at the same time

Scott Zimmerman:

simultaneously. So what do we do? We run an

Scott Zimmerman:

experiment. Glenn's running an experiment. What

Scott Zimmerman:

he showed is that there is a huge difference,

Scott Zimmerman:

even the 850, while it helped a little bit on

Scott Zimmerman:

some of the color contrast, it was really the

Scott Zimmerman:

incandescent that he saw, the big change. And I

Scott Zimmerman:

would argue if he could actually do a controlled

Scott Zimmerman:

experiment with sunlight, you would actually see

Scott Zimmerman:

improvement even further.

Meredith Oke:

So when an incandescent bulb was added, even

Meredith Oke:

though the led, the ceiling lights were still on,

Meredith Oke:

there was an improvement?

Scott Zimmerman:

Yeah, the biggest improvement that he measured.

Meredith Oke:

Wow. So LEDS alone. People's eyesight got worse.

Scott Zimmerman:

Yep.

Meredith Oke:

Almost immediately you add in an incandescent

Meredith Oke:

bulb and it got better.

Scott Zimmerman:

Yeah. And you know, like I say, crazy.

Meredith Oke:

Yeah, this is crazy. No one knows this and that.

Scott Zimmerman:

The thing is, is that's one experiment with one

Scott Zimmerman:

biomarker.

Meredith Oke:

Yeah.

Scott Zimmerman:

We could, if we could pull up. I mean I'm sitting

Scott Zimmerman:

here and I'm showing that cortisol levels are,

Scott Zimmerman:

are spiking on a couple minute intervals. I mean

Scott Zimmerman:

one of the things I'm going to be another,

Scott Zimmerman:

another thing that's coming out in this, what I'm

Scott Zimmerman:

doing is I'm doing a series of four part session

Scott Zimmerman:

on Bob's work and some of my work that we're

Scott Zimmerman:

going to be posting that I posted two of them on

Scott Zimmerman:

so far LinkedIn, there's been some more. But

Scott Zimmerman:

literally everybody thinks of circadian and the

Scott Zimmerman:

effect of light on their health as being this

Scott Zimmerman:

kind of gradual. You know, in the morning you

Scott Zimmerman:

have high cortisol, low melatonin, then you go

Scott Zimmerman:

down, in the evening you should have low

Scott Zimmerman:

cortisol, high melatonin and that's. It does that

Scott Zimmerman:

in general. But again it's another measurement

Scott Zimmerman:

thing. The sensor I have measures every three

Scott Zimmerman:

minutes. Okay. Everybody else is measuring every

Scott Zimmerman:

four hours or a day or whatever. Just picking a

Scott Zimmerman:

pot. When you start doing, looking at it, at it

Scott Zimmerman:

at a high sampling frequency in minutes, what you

Scott Zimmerman:

find is that cortisol spikes when we eat, when we

Scott Zimmerman:

do vacation, when we do exercise, when we watch

Scott Zimmerman:

tv, you have this huge spike. Well, melatonin

Scott Zimmerman:

actually has a spike too in response. If the

Scott Zimmerman:

cortisol gets too high, all of a sudden out of

Scott Zimmerman:

nowhere you see this huge spike in melatonin and

Scott Zimmerman:

a drop in TNF alpha, which is a cancer marker. So

Scott Zimmerman:

you know, because the melatonin is essentially

Scott Zimmerman:

suppressing that cancer marker. So there's so

Scott Zimmerman:

many different mechanisms that are being affected

Scott Zimmerman:

by our exposure to light, what we eat. I mean

Scott Zimmerman:

it's all coming together. You know I, we were, my

Scott Zimmerman:

wife and I went out to a Mexican restaurant and

Scott Zimmerman:

using and I had the sensor on and you know, you

Scott Zimmerman:

don't see it at the time. That's one of the

Scott Zimmerman:

intentions is you don't want to actually in got

Scott Zimmerman:

to trick the data or whatever. But literally you

Scott Zimmerman:

could see the appetizer, then you could see the

Scott Zimmerman:

main course, then you can see it going up and I

Scott Zimmerman:

had a time.

Meredith Oke:

I don't know if I want that level.

Scott Zimmerman:

What.

Meredith Oke:

Did you have dessert?

Scott Zimmerman:

No, I didn't, I didn't show up either. But you

Scott Zimmerman:

Know, but then all of a sudden you get this very

Scott Zimmerman:

narrow 10 minute window of melatonin spiking up

Scott Zimmerman:

and the cortisol drops because melatonin

Scott Zimmerman:

suppresses cortisol. So we've got.

Meredith Oke:

So what's, what's triggering the melatonin?

Scott Zimmerman:

Good question. I have no idea. It's, it's part of

Scott Zimmerman:

our control system. There are, there's.

Meredith Oke:

So it just is like, I got it. The melatonin's

Meredith Oke:

like, I gotta pop up and compensate for this

Meredith Oke:

cortisol situation. Okay.

Scott Zimmerman:

Yeah. And, you know, maybe it's coming out of the

Scott Zimmerman:

gut, maybe it's coming out of. Who knows? Same

Scott Zimmerman:

similar thing happens with exercise. You do, you

Scott Zimmerman:

know, everybody's measuring at all these hormones

Scott Zimmerman:

at such long time spells. It's kind of like, take

Scott Zimmerman:

a tennis ball, take a picture, throw it up in the

Scott Zimmerman:

air, catch the tennis ball, take another picture,

Scott Zimmerman:

ball didn't move. That's what's going on. And now

Scott Zimmerman:

with the higher frequency sampling capability

Scott Zimmerman:

we're getting, and same was true as Glenn. Glenn

Scott Zimmerman:

was monitoring every five to 10 minutes. So he

Scott Zimmerman:

could see the change. If he waited two hours,

Scott Zimmerman:

there'd been no change. You know, but that's not

Scott Zimmerman:

what's going on. There is a clearly a long

Scott Zimmerman:

diurnal time constant, but there's also all these

Scott Zimmerman:

transient response and you think about just makes

Scott Zimmerman:

sense, you know, we go do something, you go, you.

Scott Zimmerman:

All of a sudden I'm going to run around the

Scott Zimmerman:

block. Number one, I'd have a heart attack. But

Scott Zimmerman:

number two, you know, essentially all my all

Scott Zimmerman:

everything's going to come up and something has

Scott Zimmerman:

to respond on a timescale of minutes that's not

Scott Zimmerman:

circadian, it's something else. And it

Scott Zimmerman:

contributes to circadian and probably is much

Scott Zimmerman:

more important in a lot of ways than these

Scott Zimmerman:

diurnal things. That's just kind of like a

Scott Zimmerman:

baseline type thing.

Meredith Oke:

Yeah. That's like the overview. But then minute

Meredith Oke:

to minute, there's all of these other things

Meredith Oke:

happening.

Scott Zimmerman:

Yeah. And to my knowledge, I don't think

Scott Zimmerman:

anybody's ever really shown that. I mean, they've

Scott Zimmerman:

known that cortisol was kind of a pulse, but I

Scott Zimmerman:

think this is the first time we've shown

Scott Zimmerman:

melatonin is actually doing the same thing on a,

Scott Zimmerman:

on a time scale of minutes.

Meredith Oke:

Wow. And so how are you measuring this? Is this a

Meredith Oke:

new technology that's enabling these measurements?

Scott Zimmerman:

Yeah, it's a sweat sensor that's under

Scott Zimmerman:

development by a company called Cordy.

Meredith Oke:

Okay.

Scott Zimmerman:

Are in license, I guess is what it got.

Meredith Oke:

So everyone's going to Email me, like, being

Meredith Oke:

like, where do I get one?

Scott Zimmerman:

Can they get one available right yet?

Meredith Oke:

Okay.

Scott Zimmerman:

But no, I mean, it comes back to this whole

Scott Zimmerman:

question of what units we measure, how we

Scott Zimmerman:

measure, and we've been kind of. What we're

Scott Zimmerman:

finding is that the deeper, the quicker or the

Scott Zimmerman:

more accurately you measure things in the body,

Scott Zimmerman:

the more complex the whole process is. And you

Scott Zimmerman:

think about it has to be, you know, if you let

Scott Zimmerman:

cortisol run rampant in your body, then you're

Scott Zimmerman:

essentially going to be in a constant state of

Scott Zimmerman:

agitation. So what is melatonin doing? Melatonin

Scott Zimmerman:

doing is squashing it. But melatonin only is.

Scott Zimmerman:

It's. It's got its own set of controls on it, you

Scott Zimmerman:

know?

Meredith Oke:

Yeah. And would you need to have enough melatonin

Meredith Oke:

produced in your body to be able to do this? So

Meredith Oke:

if you were in a. If I'm just thinking through,

Meredith Oke:

like, if I am living an indoor lifestyle and

Meredith Oke:

looking at screens before bed and there's

Meredith Oke:

streetlight coming through my room, would I even

Meredith Oke:

have enough melatonin to. For these processes to

Meredith Oke:

work properly?

Scott Zimmerman:

I would argue no, because I think that you have

Scott Zimmerman:

to look at melatonin as a consumable, you know,

Scott Zimmerman:

it is used. What does it mainly do? It mainly

Scott Zimmerman:

suppresses reactive oxygen species and its

Scott Zimmerman:

metabolite, after it gets oxidized does the same

Scott Zimmerman:

thing. There's about 10 different metabolites

Scott Zimmerman:

below. This is what you started with. So that's

Scott Zimmerman:

why it's such an effective scavenger of a

Scott Zimmerman:

reactive oxygen species. So every time you do

Scott Zimmerman:

something you are depleting, you are using

Scott Zimmerman:

melatonin or you're depleting the melatonin

Scott Zimmerman:

reserve. When we're outdoors, I would argue that,

Scott Zimmerman:

you know, you're essentially pumping it up and

Scott Zimmerman:

that that's giving you a storage of it. And these

Scott Zimmerman:

are during the day type things. This is not, you

Scott Zimmerman:

know, this is not from the pineal gland.

Meredith Oke:

Unless this is not the sleeping melatonin.

Scott Zimmerman:

This is, this is, this is a. I got. I gotta deal

Scott Zimmerman:

with the fact that I'm generating tons of

Scott Zimmerman:

reactive oxygen species in my muscles when I'm

Scott Zimmerman:

going exercise. And those cells themselves are

Scott Zimmerman:

generating melatonin. There's no doubt in my mind

Scott Zimmerman:

about that, you know, but the quantity consumed

Scott Zimmerman:

is huge when you think about it. You know, it has

Scott Zimmerman:

to be. So we are generating melatonin throughout

Scott Zimmerman:

the day and during the night, when there's low

Scott Zimmerman:

cellular activity and less likely to generate

Scott Zimmerman:

melatonin, then you still have the brain

Scott Zimmerman:

operating at a high capacity. Pineal gland dumps

Scott Zimmerman:

A bunch of melatonin in to help protect the brain

Scott Zimmerman:

and any cells that are kind of damaged. At least

Scott Zimmerman:

that's the mentality that I propose. So. And, and

Scott Zimmerman:

it seems the data is backing me up. I mean,

Scott Zimmerman:

that's what I think is really cool.

Meredith Oke:

I would also add that the actual experience of

Meredith Oke:

people is backing you up. We work, you know, we

Meredith Oke:

deal with, you know, I work with health

Meredith Oke:

practitioners and health coaches, and when they

Meredith Oke:

have clients who are compliant with going

Meredith Oke:

outside, they feel better. You know, I'm not

Meredith Oke:

saying it's like a cure all for everything, but

Meredith Oke:

it. Like there has not. There are very few people

Meredith Oke:

who don't feel better from sleeping in the dark

Meredith Oke:

and going outside more during the day. That's

Meredith Oke:

just what happens.

Scott Zimmerman:

Well, and you think about it, I mean, in this

Scott Zimmerman:

scenario, if the melatonin is being generated in

Scott Zimmerman:

all our cells. The what? The exercise data that

Scott Zimmerman:

we have shows that the melatonin within 10 to 20

Scott Zimmerman:

minutes goes up and plateaus at some level. If

Scott Zimmerman:

you're doing a certain level of exercise

Scott Zimmerman:

continuously, the cortisol does exactly the same

Scott Zimmerman:

thing. But then what happens? Cortisol starts to

Scott Zimmerman:

fall off after a few 10, 20 minutes of exercise,

Scott Zimmerman:

but the melatonin doesn't. So it appears that the

Scott Zimmerman:

body is always trying to generate an excess of

Scott Zimmerman:

melatonin. So what happens? You go to the beach.

Scott Zimmerman:

How many people say, I went to the beach and I

Scott Zimmerman:

just feel tired afterwards?

Meredith Oke:

Yeah, I got sleepy.

Scott Zimmerman:

I did a really great run and I feel a little

Scott Zimmerman:

tired afterwards. I did a cold water immersion. I

Scott Zimmerman:

feel a little tired afterwards. I think those are

Scott Zimmerman:

all indications that you brought your melatonin

Scott Zimmerman:

levels up and, you know, they're part of this.

Scott Zimmerman:

It's eventually getting back down to baseline.

Scott Zimmerman:

But the transient on transient response, you're

Scott Zimmerman:

getting a jump in your melatonin levels. And like

Scott Zimmerman:

I say, I mean, when I saw the data for the TNF

Scott Zimmerman:

alpha, how it felt, how much it was affected, I

Scott Zimmerman:

mean, we're talking about spike downward.

Meredith Oke:

Okay. And the TNF alpha is the bad stuff?

Scott Zimmerman:

No, it's not really. It's a, it's a, it's a

Scott Zimmerman:

marker associated with cancers.

Meredith Oke:

So I call that that stuff.

Scott Zimmerman:

Well, I mean, I'm sure that there are people that

Scott Zimmerman:

know it much better than I, that can explain it.

Scott Zimmerman:

All I'm showing is the data. Yeah, the data shows

Scott Zimmerman:

that when that melatonin spikes.

Meredith Oke:

So the marker for cancer goes down when the

Meredith Oke:

melatonin goes up.

Scott Zimmerman:

Yeah, and that's, that's supported by a number of

Scott Zimmerman:

different studies that showed that Melatonin

Scott Zimmerman:

suppresses tumor growth, things of that nature.

Scott Zimmerman:

So I mean, at the end of the day, what I guess

Scott Zimmerman:

I'm saying is we're now moving from these, oh, go

Scott Zimmerman:

do something and a day or two later, test it for

Scott Zimmerman:

this to into a timescale of minutes. And once you

Scott Zimmerman:

start doing that, you see that there's all these

Scott Zimmerman:

different processes going on responding. And you

Scott Zimmerman:

think about it, you have to, I mean, I, I chopped

Scott Zimmerman:

off my arm or something, you know, some major

Scott Zimmerman:

event type thing or even a small event, you got a

Scott Zimmerman:

burn or whatever, the body can't wait four hours

Scott Zimmerman:

to respond, you know, and how's it going to do

Scott Zimmerman:

that? And what the sweat monitoring is really

Scott Zimmerman:

showing, I think is that there's an entirely

Scott Zimmerman:

different control system that is operating on

Scott Zimmerman:

minute time scales that are pumping, they're

Scott Zimmerman:

responding to a variety of different processes

Scott Zimmerman:

are stressors that we're exposing ourselves to.

Meredith Oke:

Right. And the more daytime exposure to broadband

Meredith Oke:

emitters, the better.

Scott Zimmerman:

I think so, yeah. I mean, I keep on saying be,

Scott Zimmerman:

you know, optical, you know, wear a hat. I mean,

Scott Zimmerman:

don't slather yourself up with a bunch of

Scott Zimmerman:

sunscreen, you know, you know, wear a hat, stay,

Scott Zimmerman:

enjoy the shade. There's a reason you like the

Scott Zimmerman:

shade. You know, it's got a lot more good stuff

Scott Zimmerman:

than bad stuff. And you know, that, that, that

Scott Zimmerman:

guesses my point about the whole thing.

Meredith Oke:

Well, Scott, thank you so much for coming back.

Meredith Oke:

You really are gifted at talking about this and I

Meredith Oke:

think playing a really crucial role as a bridge

Meredith Oke:

from the scientists doing their lab work to the

Meredith Oke:

rest of us who really want to know and understand

Meredith Oke:

this as well as creating a product that is

Meredith Oke:

helpful. So just for people to know, they can get

Meredith Oke:

your lights. It's Silas.

Scott Zimmerman:

It's nairalighting.com nairalighting.com okay,

Scott Zimmerman:

yeah.

Meredith Oke:

N I R A and if I lighting all1word.com.

Scott Zimmerman:

If I could convince anybody to do anything, we

Scott Zimmerman:

have a DC version that's just a little plugs in,

Scott Zimmerman:

has a lamp or you can buy a conversion kit that

Scott Zimmerman:

if you got a lamp that takes a screw in bulb, we

Scott Zimmerman:

can send you those a conversion kit. It's going

Scott Zimmerman:

to last you. Basically we give a lifetime

Scott Zimmerman:

warranty on the bulb because it's designed to

Scott Zimmerman:

last basically forever. It's set to have two

Scott Zimmerman:

positions a day and a night. And you know, so

Scott Zimmerman:

make it very simple and you know, I think it's

Scott Zimmerman:

the right way to go. If I could just convince

Scott Zimmerman:

people to put these kind of desk lamps on by

Scott Zimmerman:

their laptop or Workstation and just get the full

Scott Zimmerman:

spectrum. It's not going to hurt you, you know,

Scott Zimmerman:

and it's designed to be as close as match to. To

Scott Zimmerman:

sunlight as we could. Even more than an

Scott Zimmerman:

incandescent, because it's got the. Some of the.

Scott Zimmerman:

During the day, it gives you some of the blue and

Scott Zimmerman:

greens that you don't get from incandescent that

Scott Zimmerman:

are in sunlight. So I'm a big guy on ratios and

Scott Zimmerman:

balance, and that's what I like. If I could sell

Scott Zimmerman:

everybody on those, I'd be a very happy camper.

Meredith Oke:

Yeah. And it is so simple. At the end of the day,

Meredith Oke:

as you were saying, the complexity of the science

Meredith Oke:

is basically infinite, but the actual practical

Meredith Oke:

application, it's like go outside more and adds

Meredith Oke:

some light bulbs like yours that balance out

Meredith Oke:

that. Understand that we need more of a spectrum

Meredith Oke:

than just the tiny little portion coming out.

Scott Zimmerman:

Well, especially with children, because a higher

Scott Zimmerman:

percentage of their cells are absorbing, are

Scott Zimmerman:

getting exposed to sunlight, you know, especially

Scott Zimmerman:

in the near infrared and other areas. But, you

Scott Zimmerman:

know, I guess what I would like is that you don't

Scott Zimmerman:

need. I mean, I guess I'll put it this way. I

Scott Zimmerman:

believe at this point that we have shown there's

Scott Zimmerman:

enough mechanisms and information out there that

Scott Zimmerman:

what we're doing now with LEDs is wrong and

Scott Zimmerman:

harmful. And, you know, is it going to make your

Scott Zimmerman:

kid die tomorrow or whatever? No, but why spend

Scott Zimmerman:

all this money on all these other things, but for

Scott Zimmerman:

some reason, getting a good exposure to your

Scott Zimmerman:

child outside? You know, I had a really

Scott Zimmerman:

interesting conversation, just briefly, about a

Scott Zimmerman:

gentleman who was trying to help battered women

Scott Zimmerman:

in Chicago, I think it was. And, you know, he

Scott Zimmerman:

said, you know, women in those conditions are

Scott Zimmerman:

afraid to go outside, and we need to find ways to

Scott Zimmerman:

get that kind of. Those are the people in

Scott Zimmerman:

particular, because it's, you know, that need to

Scott Zimmerman:

be exposed to sunlight on a regular basis, both

Scott Zimmerman:

for their physical health and for their

Scott Zimmerman:

neurological health. So, you know, we were

Scott Zimmerman:

talking about maybe putting conservatories up on

Scott Zimmerman:

top of buildings in some of the urban areas or

Scott Zimmerman:

whatever, planting more trees, things of that

Scott Zimmerman:

nature, having safe areas where people can just

Scott Zimmerman:

go and, you know, get a little bit. And from

Scott Zimmerman:

Glenn's work, you don't have to do it every day.

Scott Zimmerman:

You can do it on just. It needs to be consistent.

Scott Zimmerman:

And, you know, like I say, children are the most

Scott Zimmerman:

susceptible to it. And I think we have a

Scott Zimmerman:

responsibility to do something about that. I

Scott Zimmerman:

would ban street lighting the way they've got it

Scott Zimmerman:

now, but how are you going to convince the

Scott Zimmerman:

government to do that? I don't know. Anyway,

Scott Zimmerman:

thank you.

Meredith Oke:

Thank you. The streetlights, that would be a

Meredith Oke:

fantastic project. Well, Scott, we'll have to do

Meredith Oke:

this again soon. It's really fun, and you bring

Meredith Oke:

such a helpful perspective and the science and

Meredith Oke:

all of the things. Thank you so much for coming

Meredith Oke:

back. I look forward to our next chat.

Scott Zimmerman:

All right. Thank you, Meredith.

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