Becoming Un-prescribable - Light As The Driving Force Of Your Metabolism

TL:DR - Let’s get specific about becoming Un-prescribable. Our bodies are constantly sensing and responding to light around us. We evolved to sense light through our eyes and with our entire body.

• What is light?

• The many ways our bodies sense light

• The Importance of Light on Metabolic Health and Function

If we are looking for root causes, then I am seeing light and everything that disrupts our light environment moving up in my tiers of importance.

Our light environment is both the visible and invisible force behind human metabolism. It is the controller of the central clock in our brain (the suprachiasmatic nucleus or SCN) which controls the clocks in the other organs in our body.

It is like the train conductor that keeps hormones and energy production on track.

The problem with our modern day environment is that we are exposed to unnatural light signals in the form of artificial indoor light and more alien light from our screens that are derailing healthy metabolism.

What is light?

Fundamentally, light is the collection of photons of energy that radiate from sun and travel across space and time. This light is what powers the existence of all life on Earth.

(Think about that for a moment.)

White light is what we see, but when you pass white light through a prism, you can see a rainbow of color. The colors of the rainbow are different wavelengths of light that we can see.

But there is also the invisible portion of the light spectrum that the Earth is exposed to like ultraviolet light (UV Light) and infrared light.

This light spectrum is responsible for all life on Earth and has directed the evolution of life from single cell organisms to complex life, like us humans over the approximately 4.5 billion years of Earth’s existence.

Yet, have you thought about light beyond vision?

Well, there’s more and more evidence that the human body interacts with light in much more complex and nuanced ways that are more impactful than we realize.

The Many Ways Our Bodies Sense Light

The obvious way we interact with light is through our eyes and what we see. You have probably heard of the rods and cones in the retina that allow us to see light and dark and color, but we have so many more light sensors built into our biology.

Opsins/Melanopsin

Opsins are proteins that sense light via chromophores (‘chroma’ = color, ‘phore’ = carrier of).

Melanopsin in the human eye was discovered in 2000.

Rather than helping us see, melanopsin senses light that then sends a signal back to the brain and then regulates hormone secretion, circadian rhythms, and cognitive processes.

Melanin

Then there are also other pigments, particularly melanin, that are known for giving our skin color.

But melanin also acts as a semi-conductor that absorbs photons of light from the sun and turn them into energy. Think of them as little solar panels. Science used to believe that it was only the chlorophyll in plants that were able to harness the sun’s photons to produce energy.

Recent research has also shown that melanin protects against non-native electrical magnetic fields (nn-EMF). This type of nn-EMF includes the radiation that comes from our wi-fi routers and cell towers.

Nature provided us with a way of protecting ourselves from excess radiation!

Melanin acts as a natural sunscreen, a battery bank, and heavy metal chelator.

This also is the same melanin produced in cancerous melanoma tumor cells. There is still a lot of debate about whether it is the sun, our unnatural exposure to unnatural light environments, or other dietary and lifestyle factors contributing to skin cancers. I will dig into this in a future newsletter.

There is also a form of melanin called neuromelanin that is located in the substantia nigra of the brain. The substantia nigra is what is affected in diseases like Parkinson’s Disease.

As you can see, there is more to melanin than meets the eye.

Leptin

Now leptin was a surprising one for me because I thought of leptin as the "feel full" hormone. Leptin is more so the energy accountant that is constantly doing energy bookkeeping.

Leptin on its own is capable of absorbing 220 nm light (UV light). The fascinating thing is that UV-C (200-280nm) does not reach the Earth because all of it is blocked by the atmosphere and ozone.

So where does this 220 nm light come from?

Mitochondria

Mitochondria produce their own light in the form of ultra-weak photons emissions (UPE). Imagine little flashes of lightning happening constantly in our mitochondria.

Historically, we believed that cell-to-cell communication happened primarily through chemical messengers and receptors (think hormones like insulin, testosterone, and estrogen).

Healthy mitochondria are literally producing a light show within us!

Mitochondria also sense light. The entire energy-producing machinery within mitochondria, the electron transport chain (ETC), has components that absorb light has chromaphores.

Altogether, these chromaphores can absorb light between 200nm to 900nm.

Water

We can’t forget that our body composition is about 60% water. But not in the form that would come out of your tap or in a fresh water stream.

Dr. Gerald Pollack from the University of Washington has done pioneering work on what he calls the "fourth phase of water" that is more of a gel as H3O2 versus the H2O we are familiar with.

This fourth phase water uses light to structure itself in a way that allows energy to flow in the form of electrons.

What this means for us is that water absorbs light acts as a battery that is charged by light.

Adipose (aka fat cells)

Adipose (aka fat cells) also have a concentration of melanopsin.

This means that adipose senses and responds to blue light. There are many studies that now are showing the connection between blue light at night that leads to insulin resistance and diabetes.

So while we think that light primarily effects us via our eyes, it’s becoming more clear that our bodies sense and respond to light with our entire body.

The Importance of Light on Metabolic Health and Function

Why is all this light mumbo jumbo important to you?

Because I care about the truth, and I care about you! 🙂 

I have been looking for natural and holistic alternatives to help reverse and prevent disease for many years. The whole reason I started on this path was because I have been hell-bent on finding and sharing truth.

Here are just a few examples of patterns I started to see that began to connect the dots:

• Vitamin D deficiency is a UV-B light deficiency, not a supplement deficiency

• Blue light (at night) disrupts melatonin release and thus causes sleep disturbances

• Blue light raises blood sugar

• Sunlight reaching skin is needed to release nitric oxide, which is required for healthy artery function and blood flow

• Artificial light can trigger migraines (I’ve personally experienced this)

• Red light therapy helps with skin health, fat loss, and injury recovery

• Far infrared saunas help with detoxification, improved recovery, and chronic diseases that affect mitochondria (like Lyme disease)

• Artificial blue light is linked to macular degeneration and cataracts

• Disrupted circadian rhythms are linked to cancer, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

• Artificial light at night is linked to anxiety, depression, and addiction disorders.

Does it seem like it is reasonable to treat all of these as separate diseases with their own complicated and expensive protocols?

Or does it make more sense to address the common link between them all?

"It’s the LIGHT, dummy!"

Below is a causal diagram to tie it together in the case of obesity and insulin resistance, which are also major risk factors for heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and immune dysfunction.

Once you begin to see the importance of full spectrum light as a nutrient, it is hard to go back to addressing health and disease the same we have been, primarily with pharmaceutical interventions.

Admittedly, it took me much longer to write this as I went down the rabbit hole of light, but I wanted to give you enough of an initial understanding to connect the dots yourself.

The challenge is that the human physiology and biology are so elegantly designed and complex that it becomes harder and harder to deny the existence of God, even if you don’t believe in God.

My hope is that I can start to synthesize what I am learning from the corners of the internet and in the research that will help you start to connect the dots for yourself.

This way, you will have that "a-ha" moment that clicks for you to shift the way you think and make changes in your life that move the needle for you.

I’d love your feedback on the direction of this newsletter.

Did it make sense? Did I lose you? What follow up questions do you have?

Send me an email. I’d love to hear from you.

P.S. Do you want my help to become Un-prescribable? I work with my clients to use intensive, manageable lifestyle changes to get off their medications and minimize how many supplements they need.

Schedule a consult here https://l.bttr.to/uYxzi or reach out via email.