Using Light (Sunlight, Blue Light & Red Light) to Optimize Health

**Andrew Huberman** (0:00)
Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today, we are going to discuss light and the many powerful uses of light to optimize our health. We're going to discuss the use of light for optimizing skin health, appearance, and longevity, for wound healing, for optimizing hormone balance, and for regulating sleep, alertness, mood, and even for offsetting dementia. One of the reasons why light has such powerful effects on so many different aspects of our biology is that it can be translated into electrical signals in our brain and body, into hormone signals in our brain and body, and indeed into what we call cascades of biological pathways, meaning light can actually change the genes that the cells of your bodies express. And that is true throughout the lifespan. Today, I will discuss the mechanisms by which all of that occurs. I promise to make it clear for those of you that don't have a biology background, and if you do have a biology background, I'll try and provide sufficient depth so that it's still of interest to you. And I promise to give you tools, very specific protocols that are extracted from the peer review literature that will allow you to use different so-called wavelengths, which most of us think of as colors of light, in order to modulate your health in the ways that are most important to you. For those of you that are thinking that the use of light to modulate health falls under the category of Wu science, pseudo science or biohacking, well, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, in 1903, the Nobel Prize was given to Niels Finsen. He was Icelandic. He lived in Denmark for the use of phototherapy for the treatment of lupus. So there's more than a hundred years of quality science emphasizing the use of light. And as you'll soon see, the use of particular wavelengths or colors of light in order to modulate the activity of cells in the brain and body. So while it is the case that many places and companies are selling therapies and products related to the use of flashing lights and colored lights, promising specific outcomes from everything from stem cell renewal to improvement of brain function. And some of those don't have any basis in science. There are phototherapies that do have a strong foundation in quality science. And those are the studies and the protocols that we are going to discuss today. But I thought that people might appreciate knowing that over a hundred years ago, people were thinking about the use of light for the treatment of various diseases and for improving health. And indeed, many of those therapies are used today in high quality hospitals and research institutions and of course clinics and homes around the world. One of the more exciting examples of phototherapy in the last few years is the beautiful work of Dr. Glenn Jeffrey at University College London. The Jeffrey Lab is known for doing pioneering and very rigorous research in the realm of visual neuroscience. And in the last decade or so, they turned their attention to exploring the role of red light therapy for offsetting age-related vision loss. What they discovered is that just brief exposures to red light early in the day can offset much of the vision loss that occurs in people 40 years or older. And what's remarkable about these studies is that the entire duration of the therapy is just one to three minutes done just a few times per week. What's even more exciting is that they understand the mechanism by which this occurred. The cells in the back of the eye that convert light information into electrical signals that the rest of the brain can understand and create visual images from. Well, those cells are extremely metabolically active. They need a lot of ATP or energy. And as we age, those cells get less efficient at creating that ATP and energy. Exposure to red light early in the day, and it does have to be early in the day, allowed those cells to replenish the mechanisms by which they create ATP. I'll talk about these experiments in more detail later in the episode and the protocols so that you could apply those protocols should you choose. But I use this as an example of our growing understanding of not just that phototherapies work, but how they work. And it is through the linking of protocols and mechanism that we, meaning all of us, can start to apply phototherapies in a rational, safe and powerful way. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is an all-in-one vitamin mineral probiotic drink. I've been taking Athletic Greens since 2012, so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast. The reason I started taking Athletic Greens and the reason I still take Athletic Greens once or twice a day is that it helps me cover all of my basic nutritional needs. It makes up for any deficiencies that I might have. In addition, it has probiotics, which are vital for microbiome health. I've done a couple of episodes now on the so-called gut microbiome and the ways in which the microbiome interacts with your immune system, with your brain to regulate mood, and essentially with every biological system relevant to health throughout your brain and body. With Athletic Greens, I get the vitamins I need, the minerals I need, and the probiotics to support my microbiome. If you'd like to try Athletic Greens, you can go to athleticgreens.com/huberman and claim a special offer. They'll give you five free travel packs plus a year's supply of vitamin D3 K2. There are a ton of data now showing that vitamin D3 is essential for various aspects of our brain and body health. Even if we're getting a lot of sunshine, many of us are still deficient in vitamin D3. And K2 is also important because it regulates things like cardiovascular function, calcium in the body and so on. Again go to athleticgreens.com/huberman to claim the special offer of the five free travel packs and the year supply of vitamin D3 K2. Today's episode is also brought to us by Element. Element is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means the exact ratios of electrolytes are an element and those are sodium, magnesium and potassium, but it has no sugar. I've talked many times before on this podcast about the key role of hydration and electrolytes for nerve cell function, neuron function, as well as the function of all the cells and all the tissues and organ systems of the body. If we have sodium, magnesium and potassium present in the proper ratios, all of those cells function properly and all our bodily systems can be optimized. If the electrolytes are not present and if hydration is low, we simply can't think as well as we would otherwise. Our mood is off, hormone systems go off, our ability to get into physical action, to engage in endurance and strength and all sorts of other things is diminished. So with Element, you can make sure that you're staying on top of your hydration and that you're getting the proper ratios of electrolytes. If you'd like to try Element, you can go to drinkelement. That's lmnt.com/huberman and you'll get a free Element sample pack with your purchase. They're all delicious. So again, if you want to try Element, you can go to elementlmnt.com/huberman.