Transcript
poppenergetics: Well, welcome to my first podcast. I'm going to give my audience and my patients a brief description of why I'm starting with the type of podcast that i I am with Dr. or Scott Zimmerman here. And so light and our photon deficiency aspect of modern society is very interesting. What I've discovered is that there's a lot of physiology that modern healthcare care and the wellness community doesn't take into account. And so over the years, being a chiropractor, I've looked at everything from ketogenic diets to exercise to, you know, therapeutic lighting, like red light therapy and laser lights. And it all boils down to, you know, somehow we have to mimic our ancestral biology in modern society.
poppenergetics: and The more I got thinking about it, the when you look at the research and the ah vast amount of research that there is in light and how it affects our body, it's so immense. It's almost like almost the most important nutrient. It's like, you know you think about food and the nutrients we take in that way. I really think that you know our yeah so our diets have changed, but in the overall situation, our light aspect has changed. So I wanted to start my podcast.
poppenergetics: talking about light and I wanted to bring you on first because I'm so intrigued with your new technology and lighting that I am in the process of redoing my lighting in the office. um And then I want to bring in Gerald Pollack after you who I had lunch with um a couple of months ago and talk about his aspect of light and some other and interesting individuals. And I think the concept of just the deficiency in The amount of light we get, the natural light, and the deficiency in the spectral areas are so important. And i so I just want to turn it over to you, Scott, in terms of, it will give me a little bit of your background. I know I've watched you on other podcasts, and then how you got into light was fairly fascinating. And then ah some of your research going into melatonin and all the aspects that you see
poppenergetics: as a scientist. So I'm going to turn it over to you and just give me a little back give us a little background of yourself.
Scott: Okay, well, um I'm an engineer, an optical engineer. I've been working in the area for 40 years. I've got 85 issued patents in the area. And here lately, I've been mainly focused on trying to restore what you just said. um Most people aren't aware that um We've had the largest reduction in solar exposure in human history and it's not just because of lighting, it's also because of the windows we're using and the fact that we don't go outside as much as we should. It's kind of frustrating because there you can find podcast after podcast talking about food.
Scott: or exercise or things of that nature. But light is kind of like we kind of take it for granted. And I've always wondered why, but but it's, ah you know, it is the largest energy input into the body doing up to 30 megajoules a day.
Scott: And it's fairly ubiquitous. It's all over the world. And in very seldom do you find somebody who doesn't, you know, it doesn't can't get to light in some way or fashion, even up north.
Scott: or down south but you know for whatever reason I think people just like I say take it for granted and i we're both sitting under beautiful blue skies and one of the things that I think has been the biggest thing pet peeve for me is is that there's been this false um comparison between blue sky and the blue that we have in our devices and in our lighting. When you look up at a blue sky, people need to, it's important to understand that the spectrum of sunlight runs from the UV through the visible all the way out into the near infrared and the farther infrared. And what we've done is we've basically created this artificial environment that has essentially, I kind of call it like
Scott: Like processed food, it's processed sunlight. And it basically doesn't, we've taken out huge portions of the nutritional value of sunlight by doing what we do in modern society. And so, you know, I was the first, I think, to really strongly look at the optics of the body and with Russ Ritter and you know, Russ would tell me that, Scott, you need to put this out there because nobody's looking at how the body is doing things optically.
Scott: And I can say, I've always felt like it's the most humbling experience I've ever had in my life, because the minute you start to look at how photon, the body collects and localizes photons in very specific areas, using very specific portions of the solar spectrum, you get this amazing oh perspective
poppenergetics: Okay.
Scott: that it's important. And unfortunately, the eyes represent such a small portion of what we can what sunlight is. It's been very easy for the lighting industry, the glowy glass industry, you know, people in general and the display industries.
Scott: to kind of trick everybody into believing that what you're looking at on your TV is exactly like that blue sky up above you and it's not and it's created what you see is after you look at the optics of the body you start to see that if it doesn't have it there's a negative effect so I guess that's what I'd say you know I got into this because ah I was doing lighting I was looking at it I met with Hamlin and other people
poppenergetics: Okay.
Scott: And what I kept on looking at and saying, put the treatment levels you're using for 20 minutes, you can get the same thing by going outside for an hour or something like that.
Scott: So why, how how is it different?
poppenergetics: Well, you know, it's it's sustained. Right. And when you go outside, it's sustained, you know, our ancestors were in this all day long. And, you know, is that 20 minute of red light therapy, you know you know we know the research, it kind of lubricates those electrons in the electron transport chain, but you know it when you look at it from an ancestral standpoint, and what intrigued me about your technology, which we'll talk about, is that you're bringing that part of the spectrum indoors where that is sort of our biological history. you know and we
poppenergetics: you know, this photon deficiency is not only the amount of light we're getting in photons, but it's those, you know, it's that parts of the spectrum that we don't see, and we just take it for granted. And it so, um but when you said that about, um you know, those parts of the spectrum, and and it's not just your eyes, it's your skin, it's, you know, how we interact with those.
poppenergetics: um But I'm sorry, keep on going. I didn't mean to interrupt you there.
Scott: Oh, no, I mean, yeah yeah, but I mean, I think that's exactly like I say, with the blue sky, everybody's down on blue, but they don't understand that the blue sky is not blue.
poppenergetics: like
poppenergetics: Yeah.
poppenergetics: Mm
Scott: It's blue plus all in the infrared components that runs out to microns and.
poppenergetics: -hmm.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: that what we're finding and that's what I think that the optics of the body really gives you clear indications of is is that the near infrared component that you can't see with your eye but makes up the majority of your blue sky that you're under or the reflections off the tree leaves
poppenergetics: her
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: you know, is is an important component in making it so that you and I can live for 100 years under a blue sky at intensity levels much higher than you'll ever get out of a cell phone or out of a TV.
Scott: You know, it may be out of time sink because we're doing it at night, but it's the purpose of the near infrared is to essentially protect us and to enhance our ability to
poppenergetics: well
Scott: maximize our chance of survival during the day and even into the night. And unfortunately, we've gotten kind of locked into thinking that everything is a circadian something. And I don't disagree with circadian. i have no that's It's a wish that the body, take it yeah it's a good thing. it so We need to be able to sleep. We need to be able to wake.
Scott: but During the day, I can generate melatonin levels that are higher than circadian melatonin at nine o 'clock in the morning if I go out and I do a bunch of exercise or I expose myself to sunlight.
Scott: so
poppenergetics: Tell us about that. you You really did a lot of research in, yeah and this is all new because everybody in the melatonin sphere, and I've always disagreed with taking exogenous melatonin, you know, because everybody, you know, at panacea for sleep. But you've really delved into how red light and exercise stimulates subcutaneous melatonin. And I think that is just not well known. And melatonin being such an important hormone If you could go on go into that a little bit, I'd love to hear that.
Scott: Well, I mean, it really is relates back to Russ. Russ has been working in melatonin for 40 years. He has a hundred thousand citations. I mean, probably one of the most scientifically oriented people I've ever met in that he's not trying to make a bunch of money, sell a melatonin or whatever.
Scott: You know, and I was lucky enough to write a couple of papers with him and he's been making the point that melatonin is produced throughout the body.
poppenergetics: hello
Scott: And the problem with it and how it makes it hard is this that what the basic premise is, is that the mitochondria is generating melatonin in every one of our cells because melatonin not only is a good circadian hormone, it is the the best antioxidant that the body has. So when the body, ah the cells are sitting there locally generating a lot of stress, generating a lot of reactive oxygen species,
Scott: there The premise is is that there it's making melatonin. Now in our second paper, we actually, I think, definitively proved that. you know There's been all these reasons to think that it was doing it, but if you actually, what we did is we combined, some data i looked at some data associated with Theron, and what he did was is he put people on a stair steppers for four hours, but he measured, and this is the big difference between us and circadian,
Scott: He measured on a 10 minute to 15 minute time interval, the melatonin level in the blood while they were doing the exercise. Bear in mind, most circadian, they get you to calm down, sit in the dark room, measure your melatonin, then you have to go away and come back and go back. And it's a very, I liken it to, you have a ball in your hand, you throw you take a picture, throw the ball up in the and up in the air, catch the ball, take another picture and say nothing's there.
Scott: Well, it turns out that when you measure during transient events, stressors like exercise, like sun exposure, like cold water immersion, you find that the hormones don't behave the same way.
Scott: You know, the typical lore from circadian is is that melatonin is low yeah blow in the morning, high at night, cortisol is high in the morning, low at night.
poppenergetics: They're pulsed out.
Scott: And you can get set up as condition where you don't have stress where you can actually measure it that way.
poppenergetics: hu
Scott: And it's very, you know, it's good dated. It is kind of like the the wish of the of the body that this is what happens. But the minute I do something, you know, we even make love.
poppenergetics: Right, right.
Scott: The bottom line is is that your hormones are responding to change in reactive oxygen species. And so if you look at Therin's data, 9 o 'clock in the morning, he'd start somebody on a treadmill, measuring melatonin, you see it spikes up to 200 picograms per milliliter in about 10 to 20 minutes.
poppenergetics: huh
Scott: Stays there on a steady state until you actually stop exercising, then it drops back down to baseline, almost zero. now that runs counter to anything that you hear from the circadian people. And it doesn't mean they're wrong. It just means that when we're outside, we are getting constantly bumped up in our melatonin by what we're doing. And that in turn, kind of it's a kind of like this huge reservoir. You think about how many mitochondria there are in the body. There's trillions. And if all those are generating a little bit of reactive of melatonin to get them to behave,
Scott: because One of the things I think that comes out of the out of the the work is is that you have to really look at the body as having two types of control systems. It has a systemic control system and it has a local control system.
poppenergetics: Uh huh. Uh huh.
Scott: For a lot of things, a lot of the stressors that are part of life, you can't you can't wait, those cells can't wait for a systemic response and even then a systemic response may be inappropriate.
poppenergetics: Uh huh.
Scott: You know, if you get, if you look at a simple sunburn, you know, how how thin a line can it be? Well, there's a huge difference between the cells that were exposed to sun and the ones weren't.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: And that is being dealt with on a local level, not on a systemic level. And that's where I think a lot of the difference in what we're trying to do, because we're trying to go, yeah.
poppenergetics: Let me ask you a question. Let me ask you a question because, you know, the melatonin story is fascinating because melatonin, especially even during COVID, it's it it was learned that melatonin has tremendous immune modulating effects. um And it is very anti -inflammatory. It seems to prevent sepsis.
poppenergetics: um It was used actually as a therapeutic ah you know dose for a lot of people during COVID, but it kind of it kind of um helped people understand the importance of it. So the circadian people all thought of it in terms of just sleep -awake cycles, but you know you said it's a counterbalance to cortisol, and you know our modern life is filled with emotional stressors, but we don't have the physical stressors that would go along with it ancestrally. So, do you feel like melatonin being pulsed out through exercise was more of our ancestral way to deal with the combination of ah stressors? you know and And the fact that that's probably one of the reasons exercise shows so many benefits, even though it is a big stressor on the body.
poppenergetics: is the actual melatonin that's produced at that time? Would you say that that's an accurate statement?
Scott: ah Yeah, but I'd look at it more in a slightly different manner in that I'd say that, I mean, at the same time that you get to exercise, you get a cortisol spike and cortisol goes up dramatically.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: And it's a good thing because it makes you alert to redirect energy usage.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: It's very important. Cortisol high for a long time is a really bad thing. What the data shows from Therin and also from sweat data from Gao and others in Zoo is is that when we do exercise, both cortisol and melatonin go up together at very high levels.
poppenergetics: Mm hmm.
Scott: And it's really, what you what I say is that what we really need, to the biomarker that's more important is the ratio of melatonin to cortisol. because once you start looking at it that way, all of a sudden you see that melatonin, because what happens with the day that we have, Theron showed that melatonin stayed up and then only after the exercise does it start to fall off about 30 minutes.
Scott: The GOW data that he'd used off of sweat during exercise showed that the cortisol level goes up, and but then within 10, 20 minutes it starts to drop.
poppenergetics: Mm hmm
Scott: Now cortisol is very important, but cortisol that runs rampant is really bad. and So what it appears based on the data is is that melatonin, the body is designed to bring melatonin up with cortisol. And we do know that ACPH is suppressed by melatonin, which then tends to suppress. So it's kind of like a feedback loop.
poppenergetics: ah But if but I was sitting in a computer without exercising, look at my stocks crashing and losing a million dollars, my cortisol spikes, without the exercise, would my melatonin necessarily go up in that situation versus the situation?
Scott: and so
Scott: out and And we don't have the data.
poppenergetics: you know I'm just curious.
Scott: I don't have the data to tell you that. All I can tell you is with exercise. You know, I do believe that there's a huge, there's a really interesting study where they took a bunch of patients with schizophrenia and they measured the melatonin and cortisol levels at midnight against a control group that were not suffoclinically depressed.
poppenergetics: uh -huh uh -huh
Scott: And there was a 5x difference where it showed that melatonin was dropped off, cortisol was increased in those people at midnight when melatonin was supposed to be the dominant situation.
poppenergetics: uh -huh uh -huh
Scott: And I do know that there's a number of people that are now starting to develop biosensors, mainly Billy Stone sweat, where they're trying to look at you know, this issue of is it a key element in schizophrenia and other things. So to your point about emotional stress, you know, how we deal with stress, there's all kinds of indicators out there. There were studies done over in Saudi Arabia.
Scott: where they looked at the effect of lighting on on people with different levels of clinical depression.
poppenergetics: Mm hmm.
Scott: And you know to the point that some people would have to leave the room if you were in a fluorescent lit building building or whatever because it was having such a huge effect. So the hormones are getting flipped.
Scott: And I think that's one thing that people don't appreciate is is that it's not that we took away, where we did a substitution. we took ah We used to be outdoors, getting it from all directions.
Scott: ah that was That was the norm. Now we're in a situation where we've knocked it down by 10, 100, even 1 ,000X what we get in a particular day. And that is altering the hormones.
Scott: And i would I keep on saying that, go ahead.
poppenergetics: And the red light is so important for that melatonin production. And, you know, we just don't have the data. You know, it sounds like there's a tremendous amount of research that could be ah looked at in whether, you know, the ancestral was the exercise and the red light combined with the cortisol. And you take the, sorry about that, you take the exercise and the red light out of the equation.
poppenergetics: and and we put the stressor in, the cortisol spikes, we don't know what the melatonin does. So it sounds like we need a lot of research in those areas to really figure out the complexity of what's going to happen.
poppenergetics: Is that kind of an accurate statement?
Scott: i think I think that that ah you know the papers we wrote were on melatonin to to date because that was the only thing we had real data on. Then ah we haven't published the data on cortisol yet, but it's clear that the two work in tandem.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: and that it's really important that you be measuring both rather than just one, and you need to do it during the stressor event. Whether it be emotional stress, you know, like I say, I mean, everything from, you know, sex to, um you know, go and taking a cold shower alters the hormone balance in good way or a bad way.
poppenergetics: Mm hmm, mm hmm.
Scott: Unfortunately, if you look at the data from Zray, ah The main thing that happens when we're looking at it spending time under LED lighting is is that it tends to pump up the cortisol side of the equation.
Scott: and the and would In some ways, based on circadian, it tends to suppress.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: That's why you see a lot of the experiments, what happens in the morning can be different in the night because you've got ah yeah it's not like we're starting out with cortisol and and melatonin constant throughout the day.
poppenergetics: Mhm.
Scott: It's changing. And it's so it's really the ratio. I'm an engineer at heart. I'd rather look at a slope than give me absolutes.
poppenergetics: Mhm.
Scott: So the bottom line is is that we really need to be comparing those ratios throughout the day day.
poppenergetics: Mhm.
Scott: I put up a LinkedIn post that kind of showed some of these these relationships. But I think there is a lot that we do know. The problem is is I don't think people really want to and One of the things that happens in science are in innovation or discovery is ah people get on a bandwagon and it's hard to get them off a bandwagon and think about outside the box.
Scott: You know, I don't disagree with circadian. I don't disagree with blue light blockers. I don't have any problem with those.
poppenergetics: Uh -huh.
Scott: I'm just saying that there's this whole area, this huge amount of ah of a spectrum that we could be using and is all we're doing is putting back.
Scott: and replacing what was a substitution that is really bad. And the you know being an optical engineer, I think that that really is what got me going the most.
poppenergetics: Sorry.
Scott: you know Children are most susceptible to these effects because they're physically smaller. So like the the percentage of cells that are being impacted is much higher in children and and than it is in an adult.
Scott: You know, you've got almost 100 % of their cells being impacted by what we took away. And especially when you think about how hormones are changing in children, it really to me is kind of a scary thing.
poppenergetics: And there.
Scott: And it also kind of explains, I mean, everybody wants to say, oh, this generation, this, that, that, whatever. I'm not so sure that we aren't setting them up for failure. And especially now with the DOE mandating that we get rid of all the near infrared,
Scott: in all our lighting and force children to be underneath that kind of lighting and in those kind of buildings where near infrared is not allowed in by the window treatments.
Scott: you know they pretty
poppenergetics: And 60 % of our life is really near infrared, you know, in terms of just the, you know, sitting out here, even though it's midday and I'm getting UV, there's still the the majority of it is red light. So yeah I step indoors, you put a kid indoors for all day long and they're getting maybe 5 % at most outdoor. And that's a huge ancestral difference in spectral loss and knowing how much that read that infrared part of the spectrum drives mitochondrial efficiency. you know I look at it as free energy. you know and so it And it drives all these metabolic pathways. And then if you look at the UV spectrum and you just brought up hormones, you know when you start looking at UVA a in terms of its its signaling to all of our hormones, you know we've got an epidemic of testosterone deficiencies. And and then you look at vitamin D deficiencies with UVB.
poppenergetics: You know, you've got these two parts of these extremely important spectrums and these kids, you know, they probably lost 99 % of the dosage of those parts of the spectrum. And then we wonder why, you know, I mean, I can't prove it, but it makes common sense.
poppenergetics: And so, sorry to and to keep interrupting interrupting you, but I, you know, I go off on those thoughts.
Scott: Well, and and, you know, the thing that's, ah I've been lucky enough to work some with Bob Fosbury and Glenn Jeffrey. And to your point, Glenn's been sitting there, he's exposing certain areas of the back to, or, you know, so portion of the back to 670 nanometer deep red and getting these changes in glucose levels and CO2 emissions, which clearly indicate
poppenergetics: Mm -hmm.
Scott: that the mitochondria, the ATP production, is a more efficient under yeah those conditions.
poppenergetics: Mm -hmm.
Scott: And it's what's amazing is is he does it in a small area, and before long, the entire body systemically is responding.
poppenergetics: Mm -hmm.
Scott: you know So I think that there is tons to be learned, but I think we do know pretty well that you know when you're so you're in the background, you have a tree. That tree is almost looks like a 90 % reflector to the near infrared, but absorbs up to 80 % of the visible light. So it's like nature has this set of sunglasses where it's always shifting and and thing the sex exact same thing happens to the fetus within a womb.
Scott: You know, the outer mother's skin basically blocks the the blues and the greens and the shorter wavelengths at the initial part of the pregnancy as the pregnancy progresses. But the near -infrared, even at the start of the pregnancy, is going in and bouncing around, and it turns out that the amniotic fluid has its peak transmission in the near -infrared.
Scott: um So you basically have this little integrating sphere with the fetus inside it, it reps around by fluid, the photons are bouncing around making a uniform. As the pregnancy progresses, the woman's skin starts to stretch. As it stretches, it tends to open up the spectrum that the fetus is exposed to. And to your point,
Scott: yeah How does that affect things basic things like testosterone, like you know eye development? I mean, this all started to a great extent based on the myopia epidemic, where we're having so much trouble with kids having near sight, which eventually can lead to other things that are worse as you get to die.
poppenergetics: All right. Mm -hmm.
Scott: And, you know, over and over, and I've made this comment and it probably will tick some people off, but I have yet to see a single artificial lighting application that hasn't translated into some kind of negative but health effect.
Scott: You know, if you look at the International Space Station, they took all their blood from the astronauts.
poppenergetics: uh -huh uh
Scott: Those that have been up there six months to a year, we're seeing all kinds of mitochondrial damage.
poppenergetics: -huh
Scott: The submariners, up down you know, going down for 60 days in our submarines are having this exposed to artificial light 100%.
poppenergetics: uh -huh
Scott: They're having illnesses. Same thing with some of the stealth ah vessels.
poppenergetics: hello
Scott: They took out all the portholes. Now they're having similar effects. You have night shift issues. You have people that are in nursing homes.
poppenergetics: Uh -huh.
Scott: There's never been, I mean, as much as the marketing likes to play up LEDs as being something healthy,
poppenergetics: Uh -huh. Right.
Scott: It's never translated into health. you know I would expect a technology to try and at least make things as good, if not better than what, you know and that's the the real crux of the matter is.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: And unfortunately, you know when the DOE passed the the new 120 lumen per watt rule, they basically said, forget all that.
poppenergetics: hello
Scott: That's not important.
poppenergetics: right
Scott: And thats that's what really frustrates me right now is is that you know I say this kind of half -hearted.
poppenergetics: right and
poppenergetics: and they yeah They didn't listen to you. They didn't listen to you, did they?
Scott: Well, it wasn't just me. If you look at the comments that went out, the public comments, some of the leading technical people in the lighting industry said, hey, what about circadian?
poppenergetics: Yeah.
Scott: Hey, what about you know the near infrared component? They were trying to get them to see.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: And that's why it's kind of a joke when the government comes in and starts talking about supporting small business innovation. They get in the way more than they help.
Scott: And this is one of those cases where they're, you know, we're the only US manufacturer of Edison screwbases in the country, you know, in the US.
poppenergetics: who
Scott: Everything else they they farmed out to China, or to some other places. And you'd think that we'd be like a poster child that they'd come along and help. In reality, they're basically shutting us down in four years, you know, because they don't understand basic biology.
Scott: So anyway that's my that's my soapbox for today
poppenergetics: Yeah, and it's sad because, it well, it's, you know, unfortunately, I think politics, it's more important for them to please the political side of the spectrum than it is to, and there's not enough, part of the reason I want to do this on lighting is because, yeah you know, you can make an argument that,
poppenergetics: diet plays a role in longevity, but it's not very strong. I mean, you can go any place in the world and some people eat vegetarian, some people will eat carnivores, so yeah and you know, for the most part, if if you they live fairly similar, but the one area that makes a huge difference, and there's some research papers out recently, Sunquist out of Europe recently, showed that all causes all cause mortality has an inverse relationship to the amount of sunlight you receive over the course of your lifetime.
poppenergetics: And now there was a paper published that showed even UV light, um the more UV light you get over the course of your lifetime, the the less all -cause mortality.
poppenergetics: And I keep telling you to use sunscreen and all and stay out of all these spectrums. um But in reality, that probably has the largest case to make in terms of longevity, you know just getting people outdoors and in sunlight.
poppenergetics: And I'm not talking that you have to get burned, but just getting outdoors.
Scott: Well.
poppenergetics: so you know unfortunately yet and The sad part about it is that I think research in universities, and that's where I was talking to with Dr. Pollock, which we can talk about in a moment. you know i mean If he had a product that was brought to him by a corporation that was sponsoring, the university would pick up that research in a heartbeat, but because he has to research water and light and go to the NIH, they have no interest in you know in that. and so you know, we were talking in a lot of basic physiology is kind of stuck in the 1950s and 60s. And in terms of, you know, the universities have kind of turned into profit machines. And so if you're a scientist that wants to study, um you know, solar spectrums just for or water or just, you know, and advance physiology or the the knowledge of physiology, it's hard to get research money. And so I i mean, I think
poppenergetics: There's so many aspects and layers to the development of technology like you're doing and getting the research done. And then also showing the data to public officials to make changes like this in public schools and indoor lighting and hospitals. You know, just think about the changes that could be made in hospitals. Like I think, you know, some of the studies of just having windows and looking at outcomes, you know, in terms of you know, be at patients' health, and if they even went further and put off quick part of the spectrum back in that room, because the windows are still limiting it, what would the outcome be then? So, I don't mean to steal it, but, you know, we can get into Pollock's work a little bit, which fascinates me because, you know, there was a research paper recently that showed, you know, mitochondrial flux has a relationship to almost all disease. You know, you can almost,
poppenergetics: I think mitochondrial function is is the basis for a lot of disease, and the the most one of the ways our body gets the most efficiency is getting this infrared light into the mitochondria, and then all of a sudden you get all this free energy that your body can use for all these other metabolic functions. So it just makes sense, but unfortunately, you know we look at the the DNA equation instead of the mitochondrial equation, we look at You know, we I think, and I mentioned this, but definite and I think we've all become specialists in mye in my field too, you know, with back care world as a chiropractor.
poppenergetics: You know, the definition of a specialist is you look at more and more until you look at less and less until you know more and more about nothing at all. And so, you know, we kind of be become myopic in our large view of things.
Scott: yeah
poppenergetics: And so we tend to eliminate or not even think about the the largest
Scott: Yeah.
poppenergetics: yeah energy source, which is sunlight, you know because it's so just taken for granted and there's not a lot of money in it. Maybe there is with
Scott: Yeah, well, I mean, I don't know if you've seen any of the Roger C. Holtz videos that he's done on some of the work we've been doing. And, you know, he brings up the point. You know, it really is. a lot of free.
Scott: There's a lot of things you can do that are free. But it's also, there's a lot of places where we've either based on comfort or necessity or prejudice put people in a position where they can't get sunlight.
poppenergetics: huh
Scott: you know I did a papers ah paper, an article with Professor Jean -Louis and he's been trying to explain to the black community that hey, you are now at a different latitude than what you were adapted to, and therefore you need to get out in the sun more.
Scott: And our measurement show you know our measurements show that someone with really dark skin needs three to four times the amount of near infrared to generate the same level of stimulation as someone with lighter skin.
poppenergetics: right.
Scott: Now, that's even worse when you think about most of the, or not most, but large areas of the rural or the urban populations centers.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: The black community has less trees, has less chance to go out and be in sunlight safely. And, you know, there's ah there' a lot of different things.
poppenergetics: right
Scott: In fact, you know, I would argue that the DOE's mandates are discriminating against certain portions of the population. If you look at children, as I said, they need more, they are much more in tune to what's going on.
poppenergetics: Absolutely.
Scott: Women have a higher tendency to respond to near infrared than men because they have thinner skin, physically thinner skin with less collagen. Men tend, young males tend to be pretty good except for the fact that they are, there's clear indication that it's dropping their testosterone and there's sperm motility and other factors that are associated with sex hormones, which they're, because they're not getting out into the near infrared and UV, because what we've been able to show is, is it's clear that the near infrared, or at least the so shortwave infrared is part and parcel
Scott: of actually improving the efficiency of our ability to generate vitamin D, steroids, sex hormones, you know, it's all being together.
poppenergetics: Mm hmm.
Scott: We always like to, as scientists, we always like to do a reductionist approach. We want one variable, we're going to change that variable, and therefore, you know, that'll give us a clear result.
Scott: The body has to do everything simultaneously. It is dealing with every thousands of different of ah equations simultaneous equations at once, and it is amazing. As Bob says, you know life is about increasing complexity. as you get As we adapt and evolve and get better and better, we become much more complex.
Scott: and
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: You know, the idea that you can go and take out some huge portion of the solar spectrum on either end is just ludicrous. I mean, it's not even good science.
Scott: So I mean, I'd say that you.
poppenergetics: Well, we just went through.
Scott: Say what?
poppenergetics: Sorry. you know We just went through this and I, during the COVID epidemic, I was showing papers, you know, the black community was much more susceptible to higher rates of complications. um And they were all blaming it on poverty. And I said, no, you know, their your vitamin D level is low. your you And it's much easier for a white Anglo -European to move south than it is for an equatorial person to move north. And we know that the black community
poppenergetics: is all they're systemically low in vitamin D and but what you said. And so during the COVID epidemic, you know, I i was putting out papers on social media because there was a lot of things written about vitamin D and I kept getting, um you know, my my account was blocked and whatever. And I was like, I'm just showing a paper showing that vitamin D is important and hey, and I was telling it. So, you know, we would think we would learn lessons um and think about these things.
Scott: Well, I mean, you know, the fact that an africanamerican yeah the fact that an African -American was 40 times more likely to die of COVID than a sub -Saharan African person, you know, with no vaccine, with a terrible health care, is is criminal.
poppenergetics: Well,
Scott: I mean, it really is. and i But do you think you could get anybody to talk about it? No. I mean, night of the epidemiologists have shown
poppenergetics: the black, the black meter
Scott: Yeah, the epidemiologists have shown yeah its shown that 90 to 95 % of all COVID infections occurred indoors, almost never occurs outdoors.
poppenergetics: It's all right, Amy.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: Why? Because you've got ah you know and we did a bunch of models, computational fluid dynamic models showing that the transfer, you know the only thing that is fast enough to prevent you from getting COVID when you're six feet away from somebody was the reactive oxygen species generated in the atmosphere by sunlight or sunlight itself.
Scott: and you know And it depends on the diameter of the, we did a whole bunch of studies, tried to get the NIAID with Fauci and o to look at it, couldn't get them to even look at it.
poppenergetics: her
Scott: I mean, it is ridiculous how narrow this is.
poppenergetics: Well, look look at the park community right look at the black community in Florida and then look at the black community in Haiti.
Scott: Go ahead.
poppenergetics: Okay. Look at the solar exposure between the two and the death rates between the two. They are astronomical. There was almost no COVID deaths in Haiti. but they spend most of their door out they're they're outdoors all the time. And you know, those places are so close and you you go to sub -Saharan Africa, you know, and with the light exposure, you know, and versus United States, you go up Northern latitudes, that community was decimated. And so, I i mean, it was very frustrating um because I kept putting out, you know, all I would do is share data. I mean, real scientific papers and, you know, I would get
poppenergetics: you know, banned from this. and And I was just saying, you know, exercise, keep your weight down, get your solar exposure, your vitamin D up. And, you know, I was just getting banned all the time. And it was like, why in the world wouldn't we be even having a public health, um you know, just making people aware of these basic fundamental things that we know.
poppenergetics: But anyway, that that's getting off the topic. But I appreciate your, yeah I appreciate your his
Scott: Yeah, no, yeah it's just, you know, I think people, I mean, i if there's anything I could convince everybody is, is that, you know, discovery is extremely messy.
Scott: And this idea that every people are trying to provide disinformation assumes that the people on the other end know everything and they don't.
poppenergetics: Right. Right.
Scott: You know, I've spent my entire life trying to invent new things.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: And every time you you can pick a point in there where you say, oh, this is you know disinformation or that or whatever. No, it's not.
Scott: It's part of the process. And eventually it becomes the than the norm.
poppenergetics: right
Scott: And I think that's what's so important about this company. We started this little company. We're making light bulbs here in the US s because we believe you need to put back what we took away.
Scott: And in the part of that process, I just would refuse to do it until we started doing some of the science behind it. And you know one thing I can do is optics. And once you do that optics, you get this very strong sense that this is all supposed to play together. And if you take it away, you're going to screw things up. And you know that's what's coming out of all this data.
Scott: And it's hard because epidemiology is extremely difficult science to prove anything. But there's enough growing mass of information that they really should start considering banning the use of LEDs around children.
Scott: They should.
poppenergetics: They should.
Scott: And they should also require that the windows into schools allow near infrared to come in. You know, that's what they need to be doing and use lighting that has the full cut spectral content.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: And, you know, unfortunately, the marketeers have gotten in and convinced everybody this is a full spectrum bulb. No, it's a full visible spectrum bulb, but that represents only a small sliver of what sunlight is.
poppenergetics: Just a little spectrum, right?
Scott: And it's why we're having some of these issues and i at least contribute to it.
poppenergetics: And it's got Flickr too, and it's got Flickr too, right?
Scott: Oh, yeah, I mean, you know, it's, ah you know, that's why I keep on trying to push our DC bulb that has zero flicker.
poppenergetics: mean i mean
Scott: And and what we do is we create a situation that mimics when you're outside sitting like we are, the tree is reflecting light into you from all directions. It really directs out to about for every one optical water visible, you get born it You get about three optical watts of near infrared when we're outside.
Scott: When you're inside, it's all visible zero near infrared.
poppenergetics: Right?
Scott: So again, it's a ratio issue. Like the melatonin to cortisol, another equivalent ratio that actually tracks between the two is to talk about near infrared to visible wavelengths.
poppenergetics: Well, when I saw your light bulb and I saw your visual spectrum,
Scott: And unfortunately,
poppenergetics: I just, the aha moment went off. It was like, wow, this is something that is what I've been, cause I've been looking at that, you know, changing my lighting for years. And when I first, that's the reason I have you on because when I first saw your spectral analysis it and I saw that it went out to 3000 nanometers and I knew that this was missing cause I couldn't get this in any other lighting. I was like, this guy gets it. you know And then now you're talking about, um,
poppenergetics: the the The ratio and then you talk about no flicker um I just think that you have an amazing product that I have a lot of patients and I have a lot of people interested in um And I so appreciate you wanting to develop that product because you're the only one, you know There's a lot of these other products that you can change some ratios um But they're you know, they're nothing like yours that I can just put indoors. You're bringing outdoors indoors. So, you know, I just want to thank you for that because I hope that it can even get some research. um yeah i I look at your lighting in my office is going to be therapeutic lighting. And so when I, people come in and I can explain to him what they're actually getting and why it's important for this part of the spectrum
poppenergetics: Because everybody here is, oh, me should the I get asked a kid that asks this all the time, should I buy a red light for home? And I was like, well, you can. You know, I've got a red light I've used in the past. i It may or may not, but it's only this small dosage and it's not in context of what your ancestors would get. So when you're coming into my office, now you're getting this for your 20 minutes or a half hour, 40 minutes or an hour.
poppenergetics: And I'm hoping that it kind of gets the wheels turning with people. And we can explore you know the whole concept of how we get red light into the body. you know Most of us are pretty covered up.
poppenergetics: red the The infrared part does go through clothing, correct?
Scott: Yes. Yeah, Bob did some, he took up to six layers of over in England on his and he put some near -infrared light sources behind it and then took a picture of what goes through.
poppenergetics: And and so
Scott: And it's amazing what actually goes through. We did a similar study out to 3 ,000 and you know, you could, your white, if that t -shirt were black, it would be white in the near -infrared and shortwave.
poppenergetics: And.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: So, you know, you can get a lot without stripping down naked. Nobody has to go run around with no clothes on. You know, they just need to get out. And, you know, I think to to your point,
Scott: You know, the way I look at it is that we're trying to match what is out and out outdoors, but we're really trying to get people to understand that just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't important.
Scott: And hopefully they think about it because there is so many ways to do it.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: You wear a hat, you go outside, nobody's asking you to go out and lay on the beach every day for and fry yourself.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: actually quite the opposite. The beneficial part of sunlight is the part that's reflecting off trees. trees were Plants were here before us. they They took their ground.
poppenergetics: the
Scott: They took the visible portion, said, we're going to use that. We're going to do photosynthesis. We're going to absorb it, kick out some of the green because we don't need it for some of the chlorophyll um spectrum.
Scott: But that means when we came around, and they kick in there almost like I say 80 to 90 % reflective in the near infrared. When we came around, are real the real ah light was around us.
Scott: I mean, you have to think about it in you know in solid angle type thing. When you're walking outside under direct sunlight, you've got a very, you got an intense amount of light photons coming in, but they're highly collimated and they're going in one direction and there's one sun you know that you're having to deal with.
poppenergetics: Mm -hmm.
Scott: But when you think about what is happening when that sun comes down and reflects off our surroundings, you get this huge boost or shift in the spectrum into the near infrared and shortwave associated with the reflection off.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: Even dirt is more highly reflective than in the near infrared than it is in the visible.
poppenergetics: Mm.
Scott: So as I say, nature's got this amazing sunglasses. The plants took what we what the visible portion. We came along. Here's what you got to work with. The body developed around that situation.
Scott: And so I think it's just the most elegant solution.
poppenergetics: It's like we're almost always feeding on each other's waste products. They're emitting oxygen, which is their waste product, and we're using it.
Scott: Yeah.
poppenergetics: We're emitting CO2, which is our waste product, and they're using it. you know So it's like this yin -yang thing.
Scott: Yeah, I really believe that that you look at it and that's one of the things that is so interesting about when you look at the optics of the body is how many extremely I right now I started out I was looking just doing geometric optics where you have ray tracing and all that kind of stuff and then started working with Bob and some others and now we're starting to understand that within the body there's all these periodic structures that are enhancing the field effects in very small levels at exactly where it needs to be going on.
Scott: Even the monochondria has periodicity.
poppenergetics: You're talking about chromophores, you're talking about chromophores and the amer aromatic amino acids that are chromophores and the absorbed like melanin.
Scott: No, no, actually.
poppenergetics: and
Scott: Now actually what it is is that there's no doubt that there's absorbers like chromophores and there is some structure involved with that. What I'm saying is is if you go and look at places various things within the body, you'll see that there is an index of refraction change in these structures.
poppenergetics: Oh. Mm -hmm.
Scott: And that literally is we're bare what actually causes allows us to do the internet. you know And if you you know you make these amazing gradings or filters that only, and I guess you could even call them antennas, but they're basically taking light and and changing where it's localized on a scale of hundreds of nanometers in the body.
poppenergetics: Mhm.
Scott: And it's what had the the plants do to in order to actually create high efficiency ah photosynthesis.
poppenergetics: Mhm. Mhm.
Scott: It appears that the body's doing similar things. And I won't get off into the weeds on it, but it's just the most fascinating thing.
poppenergetics: Are you you're talking about changing?
Scott: Talk about what?
poppenergetics: You're talking about changing energy states. Are you talking about changing energy states at the like a subatomic level, you know that sort of thing, in terms of ah the photo?
Scott: No, no, it's really just, it's just really just optics, you know, wave optics.
poppenergetics: OK.
Scott: And like I say, when you're like in your, if you want to have a telecommunication link, you have a a fiber and you have these very finely spaced index changes in the fiber.
poppenergetics: Mm -hmm.
Scott: And that allows you to separate out certain wavelengths to go here or go there. OK, and that's happening within your body.
poppenergetics: Yeah.
Scott: I mean, I just am completely almost amused at how the body has been there for a million years. We just didn't know it was doing it. And now that we think we're getting so stinking smart, all of a sudden you go back and you look at and you say,
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: Oh, I guess they've been doing that for a while. It's the same kind of effect you get from a butterfly wing or the color off of a blue jay. All you get all you have to have are these periodic structures in that are different refractive index and you can create, you can separate blue from green.
poppenergetics: Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Scott: And so many of the parts of the of ah of nature are using just simple structures these and they're on nanometer scales that are actually doing something and changing the direction of where light is going.
Scott: And localizing it and chlora in photosynthesis, literally the structure itself is putting certain wavelengths where the chlorophyll really is and where and not where it's not.
poppenergetics: right
Scott: So it's say it's absolutely ah you know humbling in a lot of way.
poppenergetics: Well, you know, the fascinating thing when I had lunch with Dr. Pollack is that, you know, he demonstrated through his research about how red light creates this exclusion zone water and that it's way out, it's the, you go all the way out to 3000 nanometers and how that the body takes that water and you brings that red light into the cell, uses it for efficiency in the mitochondria. And what amazed me is that he showed that it's what maintains the negative charge inside the cell. And I looked at him and I said, you're saying that you're saying that it's the red light that maintains the negative charge inside the cell and it's not the sodium potassium pump. And he said, you're exactly right. And I said, so i said you can go and into a physiology textbook. And this is part of the reason that I like doing these things because we're trying to bring out concepts
poppenergetics: you can go into any physiology textbooks that written yesterday and they say the negative charge inside the cell is all the sodium potassium pump. There's not a thing about red light, um you know, infrared light getting deep into the body doing this. And I said, so you're saying that that is all wrong. And he looked at me and he said, yes. And I laughed and I said, man, I said, I said, you know, ah that's such a fundamental paradigm shift.
poppenergetics: And I said, and I never asked him, I said, so if you are deficient in red light, and this is what I want to ask him, if you're deficient in red light, according to your theory, it is then the sodium potassium pump, because they say that it uses 60 % of the cellular energy just to maintain that negative charge. And it never made sense. Even way back in undergraduate school, when I was taking physiology, why would the body devise something that took 60 % of its available energy just to maintain this voltage gradient in the cell?
poppenergetics: And, you know, because there's just so much we don't know. And I just thought it was fascinating that red light could be the true source of maintaining that negative charge and the true source of maintaining the efficiency of your body's ability. If you free up all this free energy, because red light is basically lubrication inside your your eightyear electron transport chain,
poppenergetics: You know, those are fundamental changes in physiology. And and we take it out, you go to seminars on, on laser and understanding, oh, if you point this red light laser, it's going to make these cells work so much better. But if we think about it in the larger context, like what you're doing and every day, you know, putting this red light into our bodies, what type of magnitude of effect, you know, of just not wasting our energy, um,
poppenergetics: producing these negative charges in our cells, not the cellular efficiency of producing ATP that can be used for your immune system instead of just the other things. So if you want to just expound on it, because I know that we've talked about Gerald Pollock's work, and you know I think he's ah he's just a fascinating, brilliant guy.
poppenergetics: And like you said, he gets really bad press because
Scott: Thank
poppenergetics: yeah yeah And I chuckled because I agree with you that the word exclusions, easy water, is probably not the best water for the scientific community.
Scott: you.
poppenergetics: But yeahs you know it's all based on, I think, Gilbert Ling's work back in the 50s that he just took, because even scientists can't understand that his work, but he really did a good job.
poppenergetics: And you know he was his lab demonstrated all this stuff. So if you give me your your thoughts on his work and how it dovetails with yours a little bit.
Scott: Well, I mean, like I agree with you totally, I thought he was crucified for, ah you know, trying to show that there's more to it than what now. Now all of a sudden it's so well it's bound water or some other kind of term other than easy water.
Scott: um But there's a great set of data that Pollock took where he showed as a function of wavelength the the
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: the the size of the exclusion zone and, you know, clear out to 3000 nanometers. And I've always wanted them to to rerun that data and, you know, then see that.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: But it's clear that water, I mean, in everything I'm doing, the the optical model of the body is you have to remember that it's, you know, you have ah this little lipid bilayer lipid that's got a refractive index of maybe one point four.
Scott: And then there's a whole bunch of water inside the cell, and then there's a whole bunch of water outside the cell. So that's ah that's there's almost zero, as ah Bob Fosbury likes to call it, a bunch of little weak ah weak absorbers with a high level of scatter.
poppenergetics: Mhm.
Scott: Optically, that's what's going on.
poppenergetics: Mhm. Mhm.
Scott: The exact amount, the effect of of the water is, ah is optical. It's, I'm sure it's also as Gerald, I apologize to say, there's also clear indication that I can change the, um the wall potential on a cell simply by exposing it to light and doing that at a nano, at a kilohertz type rate that a doctor, a professor lights work.
poppenergetics: uh -huh
Scott: up in Alberta so there's all these things that are as you say need to be researched out but you know all I'm saying is is that for us we're just trying to make it clear that there is a function for each one of these wavelengths and you know whether Gerald sees it you know in his extended exclusion zone or whether you do it with ah our
poppenergetics: hello
Scott: scattering. You know, in a similar manner, if you look at any of the papers, almost all the papers that are out there on red light therapy, they say that near infrared only pilot penetrates a millimeter.
Scott: You have Bob sitting there taking a picture of it and you can see all the way through a hand.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: You know, like the problem is the problem is is they are making a measurement the wrong way.
poppenergetics: Right, right, right.
Scott: You can't just walk out there, take a sheep's head, shine a laser at it, put a detector on the inside.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: That's that's not a valid measurement. it's ah It doesn't tell you anything because you're not taking into account all the scatter that's going on in the equation in the in the experiment.
poppenergetics: Mm hmm.
poppenergetics: Right. Right.
Scott: and and the and the so you know they They really need to start thinking about the body as when we're while walking around that it is a collector.
poppenergetics: Mm hmm.
Scott: it's so It's brain.
poppenergetics: Like Bob says, it's an antenna, right? ah Yeah.
Scott: Yeah, yeah. but But more importantly, optically, you take a you know take and and and just look at it from the standpoint of light is coming in from all directions from our surroundings.
Scott: The body is designed to collect that and localize that in the gray matter of your brain, in your retina, in the womb, in the you know the blood vessels.
Scott: That's what its function is. And so it's, it's not, everybody likes to talk about a solar collector. It's really a photo chemical collector, you know, it's, it's, it's, a it's it's, it's actually designed not so much.
poppenergetics: ah
poppenergetics: Process. Yeah. Yeah.
Scott: It's not like we're, you know, the people will get mad at me, but you know, it's not like I'm trying to say that the, The body is generating electricity, all this other. It probably is, but that's not what I'm trying to talk about.
Scott: I'm just saying all the photochemical processes, it's like, you know, first year of chemistry, you're sitting there, okay, I want to increase the reaction rate of this of this particular reaction.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: What do I do? I heat it up. You know, we exist in an environment during the day that is providing an external light source or energy source that we are using to accelerate or enhance, lubricate, whatever do you want to say, a photochemical process.
poppenergetics: Right.
poppenergetics: Yeah.
Scott: When you remove that portion of that the majority of that,
poppenergetics: Mm hmm.
Scott: because like I say, I mean, 90 % of the photons that go into the body are in the near infrared.
poppenergetics: Mm
Scott: They're not in the visible.
poppenergetics: hmm.
Scott: You can go measure the sun spectrum and say it's 50 -50, but by the time you get bouncing off the trees, off the dirt, look at all this stuff, what actually ends up in your body is almost 90 % in the are infrared.
poppenergetics: Mm hmm.
Scott: And it's being used to essentially make so that we can do things like do vitamin D production at 285 nanometers safely.
Scott: You know, that's what I'm concerned about.
poppenergetics: Mm -hmm. Without, yeah.
Scott: So I get concerned about so many of these products. where they're looking at trying to accelerate just one biomarker, ignoring the fact that it may be having a negative effect on something else.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: That is the point of our product. Our product is designed simply to mimic what we do outside as close as we can indoors with the belief that, you know, my hope is is that eventually we'll be able to bring a little bit of UV back into the mix for indoor space.
poppenergetics: which would be great.
Scott: You know, based on the assumption or the, right now it appears that the, if we have sufficient near infrared, then we're safer to actually add in so back in some of the UV.
Scott: So.
poppenergetics: Well, UV has been bastardized bastardized more than the red because you know they want you completely out of the UV and totally um negating its health functions. they don't They take it out of context. the research on Most of the skin cancers is is in isolation where they shine just UV on a rat for 24 hours um with no other red light or protective light. And the yeah, it gets cancer, but that's not in context to how we live. and so
poppenergetics: you can't when you
Scott: what the what you said earlier about extended life, blue zones, places like that. Those are places where, you know, they're they occur between 37 and 17 degrees northern latitude. And if you look at their their lifestyle,
Scott: It's outdoors a lot because it's such a temperate climate. They are surrounded by plants most of the time, which are reflecting strong levels of the infrared. Yet you will not find a single blue zone explanation of blue zone that includes sunlight in that list.
poppenergetics: Right.
poppenergetics: right it's It's crazy when you think about how we take things out of context. And we've ignored light. um We've ignored probably the largest, you know,
poppenergetics: energy source into our body and then we take things out of context and we made it worse by making all of our makeup, like you know, UV blocking makeup and we wear sunglasses and we, you know, cover up and, you know, there's a science of UV light exposure. Obviously, you're not saying to spend your entire day out in UV light, our ancestors could go in shade, but I can tell you It, nothing has made a bigger difference in how I feel in this last year, I work out outside and I even worked out all year long in the wintertime in outside and I would be cold. I would just go out in the shorts and t -shirt and I would still spend my hour, even in that, you know, no v very little UV light in the wintertime here in Wyoming, but I have never felt so good.
poppenergetics: And I've been an exerciser my whole life. And i'm not exercise is also something that moves the needle in terms of how you feel. and and But nothing has improved my mental well -being as much as spending, because I'm indoors the rest of the day, now I spend um at least an hour outdoors all year long midday. And I try to get a little bit of morning light and evening light too, whether it's going on a walk or whatever.
poppenergetics: um but i in terms of how I feel. And it's also interesting that, you know, we the research shows that, you know, um being in sunlight is addictive, you know, and UV light is addictive. Why would we carry on some evolutionary trait that would want us to be addicted to sunlight if it wasn't important? You know, so, you know, i I'm just this you know, little hometown chiropractor. But, you know, I think growing up on the farm just makes me think of all these things. And you being an engineer, you just ask questions like, why aren't we thinking about these larger contextual ideas about how we're living so differently in our modern world versus our ancestors? And then how can we bring that ancestral biology into, a you know, how can we, and you know, get our modern sociological system
poppenergetics: to mimic our ancestral biology. And I think that's kind of where your technology leads into. But sorry I got off the track again there for you.
Scott: Well, no.
poppenergetics: yeah
Scott: No, no, I think it's it's all true. And and you know it's hard because the eye is so easily tricked. you know It's so simple to convince.
poppenergetics: um
Scott: You can go and you can put a light bulb out, and it looks like x it looks like sunlight. You can do that.
poppenergetics: right
Scott: It has nothing to do with sunlight.
poppenergetics: huh
Scott: They don't even they don't even characterize it as sunlight. they They call it that, sunlight, all kinds of great names.
poppenergetics: ah Right.
Scott: But it's all it is is ah is a very anemic light source that lacks the components that are very important. And you know you were talking a little bit about the s SPF and all that.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: you know When I started this work, I took Zastro's data where he had looked at the amount of reactive oxygen species being generated in skin. He worked for a cosmetic company and it was great work.
Scott: but he Unfortunately, what he found was is that half the reactive oxygen species were generated by the UV, but the other half were generated by the visible.
poppenergetics: Mm -hmm.
Scott: And so therefore, you when you what you do when you put on sunscreen
poppenergetics: Mm -hmm
Scott: you're blocking and blocking the ability of the skin to respond but and not get sunburned because UV generates sunburn. But that wasn't actually a cue for the body to get out of the sun and not spend time in that thing.
poppenergetics: Right Yeah
Scott: Now that we put the sunscreen on, we sit outside in the sun for a longer period of time, exposed to the harmful portions of visible light.
poppenergetics: ah
Scott: You know, so you can get yourself into the situation where, you know, you see that basal cell carcinomas rates are going up.
poppenergetics: Uh -huh.
Scott: And, you know, the point is, is that if you don't, and then most sunscreens also block in the near infrared, but the only real solution is to do what would be called blackface.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: Because person with dark skin has almost zero chance of getting any of those particular skin cancers.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: but they are extremely difficult for them to generate enough vitamin D. So the fact that they put s SPF in all makeups actually discriminates against the black population, black women, and causes them to have lower and lower vitamin D levels is what it appears.
poppenergetics: Right.
poppenergetics: And yeah.
poppenergetics: Well, it discriminates its all.
Scott: So, yeah.
poppenergetics: Yeah. um You know, they, there's just not an education of how to use sun exposure with common sense. And, you know, you and I grew up on a farm and I, you know, it's interesting is that you know were Never in human history have we stayed out of the sun more, but you know melanoma is still you know going up and and even all these other skin cancers. is so It doesn't make any sense that our photo exposure is so minimal now, but it's still all these cancer rates are going up. um you know at Melanoma patients almost have 100 percent of them have vitamin D deficiency. Well, the major way you make vitamin D is through
poppenergetics: UV exposure? How does that work that all these people with a melanoma have no vitamin D? And yet, you know, so there's so many contextual things that don't make any sense. And, and you know, and just getting into your comments about, you know, the the the the spectral loss, it always amazes me. It's just as somebody that simple guy just asking simple questions, you know, is ah this doesn't make any sense. And then you look at The cancer rates, you know yeah it's very well established that the more sunlight you get, the less cancer you get. you know so And heart disease and all these other things. So you know looking at this broader picture, it's ah that's why I started with you and sunlight. And a simple thing that we can do is add that red light. I mean, just get outside for one. But what you've developed is is fascinating.
poppenergetics: You know, is there any other topics that you'd like to just talk about before we end this podcast?
Scott: um Well, I guess, you know, the problem I see is is that, as I said, you know, the body assumes it's exposed to a predominantly near infrared source, a single one.
poppenergetics: you know
Scott: It assumes that it goes through, a guy ah you know, a daytime, then a nighttime. We've not only in uh reduced amount of sunlight during the day but we've increased the amount of sunlight of light exposure at night causing all kinds of mischief and it's just hard it's hard to get to people to understand the scale of the change that we've been going through and in how big of effect
Scott: You know, literally there's not been, as I said, there's not been a single case that I've seen compared to sunlight where we've done anything but cause harm.
Scott: And so I think it's time to step back, take a look at what it is sunlight really is, what do we get and set some, and then they also needs to be a lot stronger research associated with
poppenergetics: Yeah.
Scott: you know, the light in our industry, the lighting was put on as being this green initiative that it was had all these benefits for us. And did it save some electricity? Yeah, but if we're right, and the data from the space station and all this other stuff is right, then it's been one of the worst green initiatives we've ever had. And people need to accept the fact that it anything that you're going to do that alters the environment that the yeah the public is in, needs to have a level of scrutiny that is much higher. I was around when we were starting to do LEDs and things of that nature. There was no conversation about what the biological impact would be of going from essentially the incandescent bulb that is 90%, it's almost overkill, 90 % near infrared and shortwave, to something that had zero near infrared and shortwave.
Scott: And that's wrong. I mean, everybody wants to save the planet, but if you kill off the people in the process of doing it, it's not doing a whole heck of a lot of good.
poppenergetics: How much energy does it take to put somebody in the hospital and treat all these diseases?
Scott: yeah
poppenergetics: You know, I mean, that's going to be way more massive. And we've had this explosion of chronic disease since, you know, 50 years ago and you know so we just keep moving in that direction and we don't even realize that probably or possibly this lack of photo exposure you've made you throw out some numbers of the photo um ah density or the total photon we would get living outdoors versus inside can you just throw out those numbers again I just thought that was amazing
Scott: Well, the easiest way is just look at from a total dose, or the sole total input that you get in a day is 330 megajoules. When you go inside, you're looking at 100 to 1 ,000 X lower levels.
Scott: and you know that's it compared to shade we're about 100x 10 to 100x indoors versus outdoors so you know you can go around you can figure that in photons you can figure that a lot of different what jewels you know or whatever so you know 30 mega joules per day is a lot of energy and and
poppenergetics: Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
poppenergetics: There's a lot. It is.
Scott: and it's And the idea that the body would not take advantage of that energy is just wrong. And that's what I think is so fascinating about the optics, is that you see that it goes to extreme lengths to get the photons where they need to go.
Scott: And it didn't do that just by happenstance, it did it because that gave that it an advantage to survive.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: Now we're having all these diseases and you know you it's really hard because you you see autism going up. You see all these other diseases, the testosterone levels dropping, and you're seeing the effect that has on society.
Scott: That is a huge impact, not just in energy costs, but just in human cost.
poppenergetics: hu
Scott: And you know if we
poppenergetics: Yeah.
Scott: I'd love for for someone like Musk who wants to go to Mars to to to fund some research in this area because you know the idea that the they're going to spend a year going over to Mars in an environment that is degrading their mitochondria, they're not going to be able to think when they get there.
Scott: so
poppenergetics: i i I agree with you. I think that is, I have no idea how they're goingnna how they think they're going to overcome the ah tremendous physical harm to those astronauts. I have no idea. And I don't know if they're, i I'm sure they're trying to think of it, but I just don't know. And it would be nice if, you know, somebody like, and I don't want to get too political. I think RFK gets the light issue, but I think it's so, you can't talk about it politically because it people just can't wrap their head around it.
poppenergetics: They can wrap their head around food, eating organic maybe, and they can you know exercise, but they just can't wrap their head around the light. And so I just think politicians can't really talk about it.
poppenergetics: And I think he gets that I've heard a few comments, but you know from a a real policy change, it's gonna be hard.
poppenergetics: And maybe Musk can, I don't know you know if he could put some research
Scott: Well, I mean,
poppenergetics: If people reach those people, maybe that would help, you know?
Scott: I guess, but, you know, I think the data is starting to come out now that we've got the new biosensors that are starting to come out where you can measure on yourself in real time that there's something going on that doesn't sound good. You know, I think they'll make a big sea change in what's going on.
Scott: The big problem we have as an industry is is that we went out and we sold everybody on the idea that LEDs are great, it's going to save you energy.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: Yeah, it saves you energy, but what did we end up doing? people, whenever you provide somebody a technology that lets them make more something cheaper, they just use use more of it.
poppenergetics: Mm -hmm.
Scott: That's why we have the artificial light at night issues and all this other stuff.
poppenergetics: Right. Mm -hmm.
Scott: So, you know, I think the biggest problem that we need to face is is that, you know, there's just a fundamental flaw in trying to do things that don't occur in nature.
Scott: There is no red light source in nature. There is no blue light source in nature. There is a continuum and that we are even when you go, it's amazing how even over nine orders of magnitude, the difference between direct sunlight and going all the way down to a starry night, the near infrared to visible ratio rat is basically within a very similar range.
poppenergetics: hu Interesting.
Scott: You know, and, you know, that's it's all the body assumes that it always has that to work with.
poppenergetics: Mm
Scott: And now we took created a condition in our environmental, artificial environment that is exactly the opposite.
poppenergetics: hmm.
poppenergetics: Mm
Scott: And I don't think we could have picked a worse combination to do it to.
poppenergetics: hmm.
Scott: And some people, they can get through it. No problem. Other people. It really bothers them, and they don't know why. And that's why I think it's probably the one frustration I have.
Scott: The other frustration is is that we continue to have the medical community ah all about drugs, and we've prevented them from doing some great research in the other areas.
poppenergetics: Mm hmm.
poppenergetics: Mm hmm.
Scott: And I'm not saying that sunlight is going to fix cancer. but it may have an opportunity to make it more, other, the way the pharmaceuticals work more effectively or, and, you know, there's some great studies out there showing that if we can kick, if we can stimulate our melatonin, it causes cancer cell rate, tumor rates to, or growth rates to drop.
poppenergetics: Mm -hmm.
poppenergetics: So a decrease.
Scott: There's all kinds of things that the body, body's been doing this for millions of years.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: It's not stupid.
poppenergetics: So what do you, you know, there's no, I don't know of any studies out there, you know, there are some ah doctors, I think you can mega dose, um, ah melatonin exogenously for these, these effects of helping prevent cancer and treat cancer.
poppenergetics: I just don't think the the data is out there. What do you think about taking melatonin exogenously? I've always been against it only because I always think taking something that the body makes naturally is probably not a good idea because there's a feedback loop always and you're taking it out of context.
poppenergetics: And so, you know, What are what are your thoughts on that since you're you know you studied melatonin?
Scott: Um, I don't take melatonin. I know Russ takes a lot of it and, you know, believes in it. Um, I'm like you, I believe that there's other ways, especially once you saw the data associated with exercise or cold water or things like that.
poppenergetics: yeah
Scott: There's so many things you could do that are less aggressive.
poppenergetics: right
Scott: And I think there's also a big problem with a lot of the melatonin that's out there is not being controlled as far as its quality. And I hate would hate to, I'm much more interested in getting people, you know, I look at our product as mainly just being a tool.
poppenergetics: Mm
Scott: And part of the function of that tool is to not only provide you with the the near infrared component, but also to convince you to go outside.
poppenergetics: hmm.
poppenergetics: Mm
Scott: now I say we're kind of one of the worst marketers because the first thing we telling our customers is You know, you you can do best by first going outside more, you know Put a hat on don't get you know, don't burn yourself but just get outside go for a walk and enjoy nature because that's the best balance that you can possibly get and and it's free, you know, but
poppenergetics: hmm.
poppenergetics: Right.
poppenergetics: Right. Well, I always tell people, you know, start with sleep, start with why exercise, get outside, you know, just the basics things first, you know. So we tend to jump to the other things first. us But anyway, I'm sorry I interrupted you there.
Scott: No, but I mean, I just think that, you know, my biggest concern is, is right now with children is, is that their exposure level to, uh, stressors that cause cortisol spiking or cortisol increases is way, is way out, is much larger than any of the
poppenergetics: Mm -hmm.
poppenergetics: Mm
Scott: correct the melatonin effects or the, and I'm just concerned that we're creating, because the problem with cortisol is is once you start pumping it up, then dopamine comes in and convince you that it's a really great thing.
poppenergetics: -hmm.
poppenergetics: Mm
Scott: I mean, the the mafia figured out a long time ago that when you go into a casino, there should be a bunch of flashing lights, a bunch of noise and a bunch of alcohol, you know?
poppenergetics: -hmm.
poppenergetics: Right.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: Now we've convinced ourselves that we should do that in everybody's home by having these TVs.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: And you know a lot of these TVs are getting the point that they are the major light source, at night at least, in a lot of rooms because they're big, and they put out a lot of light, they have high contrast, they're flashing, and what's their function?
poppenergetics: Right. Right.
Scott: Their function is to lock us in. So you don't, A, you don't do any exercise, B, your kids are essentially essentially getting their cortisol boost for the day.
poppenergetics: right
Scott: And nothing to bring it down. So like we watch, when we watch TV, we watch it with ah ah one of our, some of our lights around it.
Scott: You know, that's what we do. I, when I'm at a desk at the computer, we have one of our desk lamps sitting there, you know, that's it.
poppenergetics: Mm -hmm. Right.
Scott: And it's putting, it we put out four and a half optical watts of near infrared and one and a half optical watts of visible, three to one.
poppenergetics: Mm -hmm.
Scott: That's because of the kids, because of the black community. That's what we do.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: And yeah.
poppenergetics: Well, yeah, I've got your lights on, my office, you know, and they're on. I can't wait to put them. all over my office because it's going to give me that therapeutic dose all day long.
poppenergetics: And, you know, I think we've changed our cortisol dopamine hits to light exposure. It's like, it's like junk food at night. You know, it's like, that's how we get our Oh,
Scott: Well, isn't it amazing how kids lock into it? The TV people have gotten it down to a science. You can't get a kid to break loose from a TV unless you, you know, I have a new granddaughter and that's one of the rules is whenever she comes in, all the TVs go off.
poppenergetics: Oh, yeah.
Scott: So, um yeah.
poppenergetics: Yeah, yeah. It's a very addicting thing. and and And when you get away from it and you don't take the dosage of blue light, and like my screens are more black, you know, lit, and I try to keep everything off as much as possible. But when I go into a building now, I go into Walmart or i or a church or whatever it is that is filled with really intense artificial lighting,
poppenergetics: is I'm so not used to it or or somebody shows me their phone or their computer. It's like, wow, i you know it's almost like I'm so desensitized to not seeing that, that hit i I'm so aware of it now, but people get desensitized and I think they just, it's not even a thought process and you know if their hormonal imbalance in the middle of the night is off and they've got they're looking for a hip, it's easy to turn on that computer and or it's you know it's as easy as to get in the fridge and you know get some junk food.
poppenergetics: And so um it's just ah it's an interesting...
Scott: yeah Yeah. Well, i there was this really interesting study where they took cocaine at addicts and they exposed, they, they gave them a hit and they watched their euphoria went up and down in about 30 minutes, but their cortisol level stayed up for about two or three hours, you know?
poppenergetics: Mm -hmm.
Scott: And I, that similar effect is occurring based on the work that Ray did. showed that within an hour at 800 lux using LED lighting, they were able to increase the cortisol level by 30%. And, you know, with no and with no response. And, you know, given all the complexity of the body, you know that there has to be for every yin, there's got to be a yang. And I think that's why I think if we could focus in on
Scott: the cortisol to melatonin ratios or melatonin to cortisol ratios, given we know that they have such a huge effect on neurological effects and other, you know, testosterone and things of that nature.
poppenergetics: who
Scott: If we could just get to the point that we understand that better, I think that, the you know, we'd all be served quite a bit.
poppenergetics: Well, I agree with you and that's why
Scott: But.
poppenergetics: you know what You know, you think like I do. you took ah you You saw something, you're an engineer, and you said, I'm going to make a product. And so I'm just going to be encouraging my patients to think about once I put it in my office. And I know you're coming out with the no flicker. Just give me a little brief um explanation of your technology, because um you know in terms of AC to DC and no flicker, or things like that before we end, so that these people can understand, you know there is more to it than just the infrared part of the spectrum.
Scott: Yeah, I mean, one of the things that we do is is we it's a really a simple concept. LEDs are good at making the visible portion of light you know the in that we can see with our eye.
poppenergetics: who
Scott: But they're lousy at generating the near infrared over a broad spectrum.
poppenergetics: here
Scott: The old little filament bulbs that we used to all have in our little flashlights when we were growing up, you know they are almost 100 % efficient at generating the near infrared.
poppenergetics: right
poppenergetics: Mm -hmm.
Scott: So all we do within our bulb is we put the two of them together you know and make a single bulb.
poppenergetics: Mm -hmm.
Scott: But we were able to also do that in a couple of different versions. We have a DC which runs off a 48 volt DC. We provide a little wall wart that yeah has a allows you to connect up to either our lamp or one of your own lamps that you can screw a little one of our DC bulbs into.
Scott: And it gives you the ability to have a day condition, which is three to one near infrared divisible or a night condition, which is 10 to one near infrared divisible.
poppenergetics: who
poppenergetics: Uh -huh.
Scott: So that gives you that little toggle switch. the ac We had so many people that wanted an AC version that they could just screw in.
poppenergetics: Uh -huh.
Scott: So we made a version.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: it has the same kind of it It has a lot of benefits, but I never was happy with the flicker level at high intensity. Now it doesn't matter as much at high intensity as it does at low intensity.
poppenergetics: Yeah.
poppenergetics: Uh -huh.
Scott: But we've now come up with a new design that sets that ratio, the flicker levels to less than 2 % over the all way all the ranges. That's what I suggest that people wait for us to get that out on the market. It should be just a matter of weeks.
Scott: so
poppenergetics: By the time this is out, I think it'll be about the same time, so.
Scott: Yeah. so Well, the but the point is, is that, you know, I agree with you totally.
poppenergetics: So.
Scott: I don't like clicker. I've never liked clicker. There's no reason for it.
poppenergetics: Mm -hmm.
Scott: I had done a lot of looking at what happens in sunlight and outdoors and reality other than a rock slide or the tiger about ready to eat you. The, the frequency content within the outdoors from the leaves rustling or whatever is about one Hertz.
Scott: And what happens is is that when you go and you look at your TV or your computer, it's pumping out 120 to 240 hertz.
poppenergetics: All
Scott: And then in some cases up into 1 ,000 hertz for like a Philips Hue bulb or something like that.
poppenergetics: right.
poppenergetics: Mm -hmm.
Scott: So using pulse width modulation. So layered on top of all this spectral information is this flicker component.
poppenergetics: Mm -hmm.
Scott: Now, as I told you before, Peter Light, up in Alberta, was able to show, he what he did is he probed the they measured a single cell, a fat cell that he was measuring, pre -apatitis, and was able to show that if he turned on a blue light, a blue LED, he could actually change the voltage potential in that cell.
poppenergetics: who
poppenergetics: Mm -hmm.
poppenergetics: Mm
Scott: And he was able to show that that had
poppenergetics: -hmm.
Scott: could occur up into the thousands of Hertz, which what we spend a lot of time part of the locking in of our kids is this high re repetition threat flashing going on.
poppenergetics: Mm.
Scott: And it is, ah you know, there's a, even down to the cellular level, there's an effect. Do we understand it all? No, we don't. But the point is, is it doesn't occur in nature. And I keep on coming back to that as my main theme. Our product products are designed to mimic as close as we can to nature and still provide energy savings. The problem is going to be is is that our products typically have between 50 to 60 lumens per watt. um The DOE standard for our bulbs has now, we they've had a rule change and they're going to force us in four years in 2028
Scott: to have to meet 120 lumens per watt. Well, that basically negates our ability to put in the near infrared component back into lighting or displays or anything else.
poppenergetics: Right. Right.
Scott: So, and that and coupled with the fact that they have now mandated certain coatings on the outside of buildings, hospital glass, even homes, these low E glasses, those block almost all the near infrared component and the UV component from getting into our buildings.
Scott: And there those mandates are essentially creating, just those two are creating an environment that I believe is unhealthy and causing a lot of illness in the population.
poppenergetics: Yeah.
Scott: They're all they're all with great intentions.
poppenergetics: Well, that's why.
Scott: They were all with great intentions. They were going to save the planet, but the reality is, you know, You can't change things in nature without doing a whole lot of science that they didn't do or we didn't do.
poppenergetics: Right.
poppenergetics: or not Or they don't look at it, you know, it's it's like or or think about, you know.
Scott: Well, yeah, but but now we're seeing we're seeing there's been enough time since then. you know This didn't just happen overnight. This started back in the 50s when fluorescent lights came out.
Scott: They have extremely high flicker rates.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: Um, they have a very narrow spectral lines and people at the time were saying, this gives me a headache.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: This causes me problems. Now we've, been are what?
poppenergetics: Or epileptic seizure.
poppenergetics: Or epileptic seizure, you know, something, you know, I mean, we know.
Scott: Yeah. Well, you know, or, or they don't even know why they don't feel good.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: But you know, now we've transitioned that into LEDs. And now it used to be that you could still go, you might have worked under a fluorescent light at at work, but you came home to an incandescent light at night and you read a book with your kids where it was reflecting in the air if you read off the book pages into your face.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: Now that's exactly the opposite, you know?
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: And, you know, that's, we could do, you know, it's not hard to mimic nature.
poppenergetics: Yeah.
Scott: if we're willing to get over ourselves and accept that, hey, there's certain LEDs can do one thing, incandescents can do another, they're easy to put together, put them together, and you get actually a better product than what you get from either one separate, so.
poppenergetics: Well, hopefully, hopefully we can get some policy changes before that takes in effect. You know, you got four years and I, you know, if we can get some people in there that um understand light, keep the data going.
poppenergetics: And that's why i i I appreciate what you've done so much because you've taken it out of the theoretical realm and put it into the practical realm and you don't see that a lot.
poppenergetics: And so, you know, I just want to,
Scott: Probably, you know, for me, if I'm going to make a product, I have to believe in it. And I do not believe that this will solve all your problems.
poppenergetics: Right.
Scott: I just believe it's better than what you got and what you got is harmful.
poppenergetics: No.
Scott: So.
poppenergetics: I agree. and and And I'll probably leave it with that. you know i Yeah, I'm here.
Scott: Scott, you still there?
poppenergetics: Can you hear me? Can you see me? Oops. Did I lose you? Did I lose you? Hello? Are you there?
poppenergetics: Oops, I think I just lost you.
poppenergetics: Well, I think I'll have to leave it with that then.
