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Alternative Medicine InformationLight - Medicine of the Future
by:
Larry Weber
Light - Medicine Of The Future
Naturallighting.com http://www.naturallighting.com 888.900.6830 email: sales@naturallighting.com
Excerpt from "Light Medicine of the Future" by Jacob Liberman, O.D.,
Ph.D. These findings seem to indicate that full-spectrum lighting may act to boost the immune system in the same way as natural sunlight.
As researchers isolate the specific part of the sun's spectrum that is related to health and well-being, we could eventually create the perfect indoor environment with artificial lighting, until then it's Vita-Lite. Based on the research of Hollwich and others, the cool-white fluorescent bulb is lawfully prohibited in German hospitals and medical facilities. Most offices, stores, hospitals, and schools presently
use cool-white fluorescent!
Full Vs. Incomplete Spectrum Lighting
"In 1980, Dr. Fritz Hollwich conducted a study comparison the effects of sitting under strong artificial cool-white (non-full spectrum) illumination versus the effects of sitting under strong artificial illumination that simulates sunshine (full-spectrum). Exploitation changes in the endocrine system to measure these effects, he found stress like levels of Adrenocorticotropic endocrine an hydrocortisone (the stress hormones) in individuals in sitting under the cool-white tubes. These changes were wholly absent in the individuals sitting under the sunlight-simulating tubes.
The significance of Hollowich's findings becomes clean once
the functions of Adrenocorticotropic endocrine and hydrocortisone are examined. Several of these metabolic hormones play major roles in the functioning of the entire body and are really more related to stress response. Since their activity increases inhibitors, this may account for the observation that persistent stress stunts bodily growth in children. Hollowich's findings clarify and substantiate the observations of Ott and others regarding the agitated physical behavior, fatigue, and reduced mental capabilities of children. He complete that the degree of biological disturbance and the consequent behavioral mal adaptations were directly related to the difference between the spectral composition of the artificial source and that of natural light.
Since cool-white fluorescent lamps are especially deficient in the red and blue-violet ends of the spectrum, this may explain why color therapists have historically used a combination of the colors red and blue-violet as an emotional stabilizer. Hollwich's activity not only confirms the biological importance of full-spectrum lighting, but it besides reconfirms the importance of specific colors by evaluating the effects of their omission from our daily lives. Based on the research of Hollwich and others, the cool-white fluorescent bulb is lawfully prohibited in German hospitals and medical facilities. It has been found that full-spectrum lighting in the activity place creates importantly
lower stress on the nervous system than standard cool-white fluorescent lighting and reduces the number of absences due to illness. These findings seem to indicate that full-spectrum lighting may act to boost the immune system in the same way as natural sunlight. Excerpt from "Light Medicine of the Future," by Jacob Liberman, O.D., Ph.D.
Shedding Light on Those Winter Blues
Does your spirit wanes with the shortening of days? You may be suffering from sunshine withdrawal. The syndrome appears with inevitable regularity. As summer pales into autumn, the victim feels an ominous sense of anxiety and foreboding at the mere thought of approaching winter. As days shorten from Gregorian calendar month into December, there's a gradual deceleration down, a low of energy, a need for more and more sleep, a yearning to lie undisturbed in bed.
It becomes harder to get to work, to accomplish thing
once
there. Depression and withdrawal follow. As a Brooklyn, New York, woman delineated it, "Everything seems gloomier and more difficult. There is sadness looming over everything. I can't concentrate at activity and feel like going house subsequently to hibernate like a bear."
Just as routinely, as spring approaches and days stretch out, the sufferer flips into high gear."Once the warm weather arrives, I feel a burden lifted," says the Brooklynite. "I feel freer and happier."
This is more than a dislike of icy slush and raw winds. Psychiatrical researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) have known
these complaints as a antecedently
unrecognized clinical syndrome. They call its victims "winter depressives." "It is more much common than we thought," says Dr. Norman Rosenthal of NIMH. "We expected to get a few replies from our description of this pattern. Instead, we received more than three thousand responses from all over the country. The symptoms delineated were one after the another really more the same.
"Some of these winter depressives are being with success
treated, not with drugs or psychotherapy but with an element common to all our lives: artificial light. What scientists are learning from the use of light as it affects health and mood has implications for us all. It forces us to rethink the way we light up our lives, especially urban dwellers and workers who spend so more time indoors. Apparently artificial light does more much than change us to see and activity without benefit of sunlight. It affects our bodies.
"It is important to recognize that this is a distinct syndrome with a well-defined cluster of symptoms," says Dr. Thomas Wehr, an NIMH researcher. "We have measured several really absorbing physiological changes specific to this kind of depression." Piece typically depressed folk have impaired sleep patterns and normally wake up early, winter depressives mightiness sleep nine or 10 hours a night, wake up tired, and take naps. There is a 50% reduction in delta sleep, the deepest, most relaxing phase of the sleep cycle. Winter depressives gain weight, crave carbohydrates, and their sexual desire pales. Their energy levels drop; monitors on their wrists show that they are less active than in summer.
Such symptoms begin earlier the farther north they live and abate once
they visit sunny climates in the winter. Symptoms peak and wane according to the length of days. In New York, for instance, on the shortest day of the year - Dec 21 - the sun rose at 7:17 a.m. and set at 4:32 p.m., contrasted to 5:25 a.m. and 8:31 p.m. at the height of summer, a six hour difference in light. Such a distinct seasonal pattern implicates the external environment as the culprit, the most obvious being sunlight. Sunshine has already been shown to trigger cycles and seasonal behavior in animals, including reproduction, hibernation, migration, and molting. Animal behavior has been fooled by artificial light. Could it besides fool humans? Apparently. In a recent NIMH study, a group of these depressives were treated with amounts of light that simulated that of summer days. Short winter days were stretched by six extra hours of light. The subjects were awakened before sunrise to bask in three hours of light, and twilight was delayed for three more.
Since sunshine is thought to be the missing element, the subjects were flooded with an artificial light that most closely resembles the full broad spectrum of the sun. At 20 times the intensity of normal indoor lighting, the light approximated the sensation of sitting on a shady structure or under a tree in mid-summer. Fluorescent lamps are roughly three times more intense than ordinary light bulbs. A bank of eight 4-watt fluorescent bulbs at eye level lit the participants' rooms as they read, worked, or affected around. Inside
days this group responded with measurable mood changes, says Rosenthal. Their symptoms alleviated and energy levels rose, piece a control group with a several threshold of light showed no change in behavior.
"Something in the external environment caused these changes," says Wehr, "but we are not prepared to say exactly what it is at this point. It is true, though, that waking up these folk and exposing them to this light treated their symptoms. Whether it is the break in sleep pattern, the wavelengths or intensity of light, or several another factor we can't say at this point. The intensity of light used in the study may be well in excess of what is necessary to effect changes, stress the researchers. So they wish continue to experiment with varieties of light medical care to determine the crucial element. The subjects themselves feel that sunshine is the missing ingredient.
One aforesaid that she felt as if she were in a "lower state of evolution since I function by photosynthesis." Though these winter depressives showed an abnormal response to light, each of us responds to it in variable degrees. External light travels on a direct pathway from the membrane to the part of the neural structure
believed to be involved in running our biological clock, the suprachiasmatic nuclei. The path continues to the tiny, cone-shaped pineal gland, which secretes the endocrine melatonin. It is thought that hormone affects the regulation of behavioral changes in animals, but this has not been clearly shown in humans. Sufficiently intense light suppresses the secretion of this chemical, devising it a useful marker in crucial light's physical effect on behavior. The secretion of hormone reflects light's effect on the hypothalamus, itself extremely
sensitive to light. This complex part of the brain regulates a multitude of body functions, playing a vital role in reproduction, thirst, hunger, satiation, temperature, emotions, and sleep patterns. Depression is associated with disturbances in the hypothalamus.
"By stimulating the neural structure
with light we may be correcting these disturbances in this group," explains Rosenthal. Most artificial light differs from natural sunshine in wavelength (color) and intensity. Sunshine is really intense magnetism energy in a around-the-clock spectrum of colors travel from the short wavelengths of invisible ultraviolet light (UV) through blue, green, yellow, and into the infrared waves. Incandescent bulbs that light through heat light the majority of our homes. They lack the intensity of sunshine and produce light that is heavily infrared. "We don't like the incandescent lights," says Wehr. "It's conceivable for this intention that they are not the safest. You can get burned from the heat and the infrared radiation."
Although several fluorescent lamps are delineated as "broad spectrum," they do not have the same distribution of colors as sunlight. Wide
used fluorescent lights peak in the yellow-green portion of the spectrum, wavelengths to which the eye is most sensitive. That does them energy efficient but several from natural sunlight, notably in the blue-green spectrum wherever
the sun's emission or beaming energy is strongest. Additionally, conventional indoor lighting lacks the proper proportion of near-UV radiation of the sun that advocates claim to be vital to health and well being. Simply as overexposure can be unhealthy, regulated doses of sun and UV can be therapeutic. UV is presently
used to treat skin disease and, experimentally, venereal herpes and several forms of cancer in the early stages of the illness. Full-spectrum artificial light is wide
used to cure possibly
fatal type of baby jaundice. We need sunshine with its UV rays to metabolise
nutriment D, necessary for the absorption of calcium, especially in growing children and the elderly.
Some studies show that working under true full-spectrum lights enhances productivity and reduces fatigue. Even as critics concede that galore folk who are disadvantaged of natural light, such as night or shift workers, suffer undue emotional stress. Whether or simply how we should alter our indoor lighting is a question being raised by these studies. As Dr. Richard Wurtman, prof of medicine and metabolism at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been expression for years, we should not take artificial lighting for granted. Lined up in the pro-sunlight camp, he has written, "Light is possibly
too useful an agency of human health not to be more effectively examined and exploited." As researchers isolate the specific part of the sun's spectrum that is related to health and well-being, we could eventually create the perfect indoor environment with artificial lighting, says E. Woody Bickford, environmental engineer with Duro-Test, manufacturers of Vita-Lite. "Until we know," he points out, "Vita Lite, with its complete range of visible and invisible light, is what we have to activity with."
For ordinary indoor lighting, two to four 40-watt lamps would-be provide several health benefits, he says. "The benefits seem to be proportional to the figure of light," he adds. "We may need higher intensity in all our activity levels. Possibly the cutoff point is what you can afford," Vita-Lite tubes are expensive, and most of our homes are not equipped with fixtures that can accommodate them.
Although galore lighting experts are skeptical of the entire conception of light poignant our health, several light manufacturers are beginning to keep research in the field, and one trade association has simply established a new branch devoted to light and health. As the relationship between light and health becomes publicized, NIHM's Rosenthal worries that folk wish try to treat themselves. "With the winter depressives it's a matter of risks out-weighing benefits. Bright light can damage the retina; UV can be dangerous. But depression can be dangerous for them, too!"
Rather than attempting to cure themselves, folk who think that they are winter depressives should contact the NIMH, Bethesda, Maryland 20205, for literature and specific recommendations as they become available.
As Dr. Wehr puts it, "we are not telling folk to hurry and turn lights - not yet." M.D. Magazine, Gregorian calendar month 1984, by Patricia McManus.
Simply about the Author
Larry Weber, President. Naturallighting.com specializes in all types of high quality full spectrum lighting, and has been in business for 15 years.
http://www.naturallighting.com Toll Free 888.900.6830
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