Unravelling The Connections Between Sunlight, LED Light And Blood Sugar (what you need to know to improve your health)
Red or Blue - a new study points the way
Blood sugar, or the amount of glucose circulating in your blood at any one time, is a key factor in human health and survival. Problems with blood sugar are associated with many of the major metabolic diseases.
Diabetes is a chronic condition characterized by having too much sugar (glucose) circulating in the blood. Left untreated, it can lead to permanent damage of the kidneys, eyes, and nerve cells, and can even result in diabetic coma and death. Nearly 12% of the US population is estimated to have diabetes, and the numbers have been rising steadily around the global over the last few decades.
Insulin is the main hormone that circulates in your blood to control blood sugar. In Type I Diabetes, your pancreas doesn’t make enough insulin to manage blood sugar properly. In Type II Diabetes, either your pancreas starts making less insulin than before or your body cells have become insulin-resistant, but either way you require more insulin than you are creating to manage blood sugar. Spikes in blood sugar are what cause the damage in diabetics.
So what does any of this have to do with sunlight and LED lights?
Well, there are some interesting connections you need to know about, especially if you have diabetes or it runs in your family.
Sun Light, Sun Bright
We evolved outside in nature. We evolved being exposed to sunlight.
Ultimately solar energy is the energy of life. Without the sun, plants would not photosynthesize and create sugars that feed most animals on the planet (I cover photosynthesis in this post on houseplants: Link). But we are directly influenced by the sun as well.
When the sun strikes our skin, we make Vitamin D. Time in the sun lowers blood pressure. It increases the release of serotonin which improves our mood and reduces anxiety and depression.
And most relevant to our discussion today, time in the sun reduces your risk of metabolic disease issues like cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
LED Light Impacts
But we now spend a significant amount of our lives indoors under artificial lighting and that lighting has shifted from incandescent to LED in recent years.
LED lights outshine incandescent lights by 8 to 9 times in terms of brightness and energy efficiency. These lights last about 50 times longer than incandescent, making LEDs an obvious choice in so many applications.
The thing is that many LED lights on the market today tend towards the blue end of the spectrum, although this trend is shifting due to a growing awareness of blue light impacts on sleep and circadian rhythms.
But there is more at stake here than just your sleep.
LED Light And Metabolic Rate
A new study paints a broader picture of what may be happening to us metabolically the more time we spend out of sunlight and under artificial lighting, especially if it leans to blue. We may be oversaturated with blue light and starved for red light. And this combination is likely contributing to the increases in metabolic diseases we are seeing.
So let’s circle back to this idea that we (humans) evolved in nature, under the sun. And just like sunlight can trigger our skin cells to make Vitamin D, every cell in our body has structures that create energy (Mitochondria) and these structures also respond to solar light. It turns out the Mitochondria are particularly responsive to red light (670nm) which is one component of the white light we receive from the sun.
In the study, 30 healthy participants were into 670nm treatment or no light placebo groups. Fasting oral glucose tolerance tests were conducted using blood glucose measures for results. The first test was done to establish participant baselines without lights. The second test used the light - no light (red light was there but not turned on) to determine if 670nm had any influence on blood sugar metabolism.
A 15 minute exposure to 670nm red light reduced overall blood glucose concentrations by 7.3% and reduced the blood sugar spike by 27.7%. The underlying mechanism of this reduction is believed to be the increased activity of Mitochondria, energized by the red light and therefore taking up more glucose from the blood faster.
Listen to the researcher on CBC’s Quirks and Quarks
(scroll down the page to: “LED lighting is bright, efficient, and perhaps a problem”)
What does this mean for your health?
It’s too early to say whether the results of this study can change how Diabetes is treated. More studies are needed to get from here to there.
But the fact that healthy individuals responded to a 15 min red light intervention with a reduced glucose spike despite being pre-loaded with sugar is enough to give us all pause.
For me, it’s enough to start thinking about how all these pieces start to fit together. We spend less time in the sun, depriving our cells of natural red light waves creating a whole host of issues with our bodies. Then, we spend more time indoors under artificial lights that lean to blue waves. AND THEN, we easily consume far more sugar than at any point in human history because it is so readily available and hidden in packaged and prepared foods (and food-like substances) that we eat too much of. Hmmm .. .. .do you think we have a problem here?
The good news is nearly all of this is within our control. So here’s what you can do:
Be sure to spend time outside in natural light (daily is ideal)
Be aware of how much time you spend under artificial light, and what the quality of that light means for your health.
Consider whether adding a full-spectrum LED light makes sense
Use Red Light Therapy as a way to provide a specific boost to your metabolism
Reduce the amount of sugar in your diet.
We don’t tend to think very much about how lighting is affecting us and our mood. But it can be a game-changer in living well with less disease and discomfort.
When it comes to thinking about sugar and your diet, I highly recommend
at A Better Conversation. Her insights are a breath of fresh air and reason in a world where finding well-thought out nutrition advice is hard to come by. And her series of posts on sugar align with my thinking:All About Sugar (workshop)
Share your thoughts or experiences in the comments.
I’ve already written about my use of red light therapy for joint pain. I absolutely LOVE my Kala Red Light Mini which I use not only to treat the joint pain in my hand, but also to relieve sore muscles, treat minor wounds, and to reduce the signs of aging on my face. I simply love using the red light and how it makes me feel afterwards.
If you are interested in red light therapy, you can use my link and receive a 15% discount off a Kala red light purchase (and yes, this is an affiliate link).