23/08/2026
Why The Light Bulb Is Wrecking Your Health
Here’s a little science experiment to kick off this week. Press your phone flashlight to your fingertip for a second. See that red glow? That’s not blood. That’s photons of red light bouncing around inside your finger, looking for somewhere to land. It’s also the start of a very exciting story that landed this week…
New Scientist just devoted its cover and feature story to the harmful effects of LED lights. For those of us in the circadian health world, it’s great seeing this story hit a mainstream publication, albeit well overdue. Although I’m not sure how much of a “shock discovery” this is, seeing we’ve known about it for years.
So, here’s the quick recap. Since the early 2000s, LEDs have systematically been replacing incandescent lights bulbs whilst infrared-filtering glass has gone into new windows - all the name of saving energy. Governments around the world have spent billions and the best part of twenty years actively subsidising the switch, throwing money at homes and businesses to swap out their regular light bulbs, for a light source that no-one even tested for its health risks.
Between the two, we’ve lost, in UCL neuroscientist Glen Jeffery’s words, “about 95 per cent of the spectrum” that we used to get indoors: specifically the red and near-infrared wavelengths your mitochondria run on.
Whilst some may think, it’s only light and what does it matter. Trust me, it does.
Light is food. Light is a nutrient. Light is the main circadian health zeitgeber driving every single process in every cell, muscle, organ and system in your body. Every single time you flick on one of those LEDs, think of it as the lighting equivalent of Maccas or a bag of Cheetos. It’s junk light for your cells.
Why does that matter? Red and near-infrared light speed up your electron transport chain , the process your mitochondria use to make ATP, your body’s energy currency. Take the light away and that process slows, and researchers are now linking chronic red-light deprivation, or should we say red-light starvation, to a sobering list. Just a little snapshot:
A 15-minute burst of red light decreases the blood sugar spike after a big glucose hit
Nearly 88,000 people followed for eight years showed those who spent more time in daylight were significantly less likely to develop dementia
Red light has been shown to prevent Parkinson’s in a primate model of the disease
Higher habitual UV exposure (a proxy for overall sunlight exposure) was linked to lower mortality from cancer and cardiovascular disease in over 400,000 adults
Fosbury calls it “21st-century scurvy” - a slow-motion deficiency nobody’s testing you for.
“You can live your life without red light. But you cannot live healthily without it. “
The Electron Transport Chain
Deep inside every one of your 37 trillion cells’ mitochondria, there’s a production line that doesn’t stop. Running 24 / 7, it’s likely one of the hardest-working systems in your entire body.
It’s called the electron transport chain. And to put it simply, you can look at it as a four-person relay race happening on the inner membrane of your mitochondria, whereby, rather than passing a baton down the track, electrons get passed from one protein complex to the next, and at each handoff, a little energy gets banked. By the final station and the end of the race, that banked energy has built something called ATP. This is the actual currency your body uses on everything from thinking to healing to walking up the stairs.
When everything is running smoothly, this relay can churn out ATP thousands of times a second, in every cell, all day long. But when it doesn’t, less ATP means your cells are running on a smaller energy budget, which shows up as fatigue, sluggish healing, or the raised blood sugar we talked about above.
The Solution ?
LED light therapy . 30 minutes under the Celluma Elite completely recharges your mitochondria . Like plugging your mobile phone in for half an hour and it’s fully recharged .
I have used LED light in my facials for 20 years .
It boosts collagen production too and there is anecdotal thought it helps with SAD .
www.alcskin.je
For more information and prices .
🌞
A boutique aesthetics clinic in St Helier, Jersey. Advanced laser, NeoGen Plasma, injectable and skin rejuvenation treatments led by a registered nurse.
