HEALTH
Late blast of summer brings feelgood factor
The full spectrum light improves the immune system and generally makes people feel happier. Even if you don’t suffer from seasonal effective disorder most people go into a kind of psychological hibernation when the days begin to shorten. When the sun shines people have fewer inhibitions, spend more time outside and become more informal.

Organic Wellness Therapies and Cancer Part5
Full-Spectrum Light Therapy has revealed the ability to support with improving the all round wellness. Similar to exposure to sunlight, this treatment utilizes the entire range of light such as ultraviolet. A research at Johns Hopkins College Health care School demonstrated a beneficial romantic relationship amongst entire-spectrum light and the prevention of breast, colon, and rectal cancers.

Hidden Secrets of Vitamin D Finally Brought to Light With Full Spectrum Lighting
Supplementing natural sunlight by using full spectrum lights. Readers are cautioned that many lights purported to be full spectrum are not; true full spectrum lighting must contain the entire spectrum of color as well as infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths.

PLANTCARE
Can Grass Seeds Grow Under a Black Light?
While most grass seeds need abundant amounts of light from natural sources or full-spectrum grow lights, these seeds will sprout and survive for a time under limited-spectrum lights, such as black lights.

EYECARE
Reading Aids for Low Vision
If you suffer from low vision, using the brightest light bulbs will help alleviate the strain caused from reading – so be sure to place high wattage light bulbs in the light fixtures in your favorite reading spaces. Full spectrum light bulbs emit light that closely mimics natural sunlight.

WORK BETTER
Stress-busting, natural touches for your office or workspace
Open the blinds on windows in your office or near your cubicle. Natural light gets a lot of credit for keeping busy workers more productive and in a better mood, while poor or harsh overhead lighting is blamed for everything from headaches and eyestrain to depression. For sunny summer days when it’s too hot to open the blinds, consider changing the bulbs in your desk lamps to those with full-spectrum light.

HOME DECORATING
Let there be light in your bedroom
Use soft white or pink-tinted bulbs in your lamps, or the full spectrum bulbs that replicate natural sunlight. They can make a huge difference in how you feel!

MISCELLANEOUS
Song of the Day 10/5
We should all take a cue from Stevie Wonder and find the sunshine of our lives, or make an attempt to catch a few of the real rays, especially in the fall/winter time.

Good morning sunshine!
So, my recent difficulty waking up early and refreshed with the changing of the seasons has prompted me to (re)apply a bit of modern technology to this biological problem. I had to bust out the sunrise alarm clock.

Related posts:

1. Full-spectrum light (issue 32)
2. Full-Spectrum Light (issue 21)
3. Full-Spectrum Light (issue 24)

C3H mice are chosen for these studies as they are prone to tumor development. 98% of males and females will typically develop breast carcinoma.

The following results were seen:

• A: 30 pairs of mice were exposed to pink fluorescent light. 29 female mice developed cancer. Females died 1 month earlier than those in Group B. 1-2 offspring per litter, instead of 6-15.

• B: 30 pairs of mice were exposed to daylight-white fluorescent light. 24 female mice developed cancer.
• C. 8 control pairs were kept exposed to daylight through windows into basement room. They developed cancer 3 months after group A and 2 months after group B.

Source: S.L. Gabby (1961), Observations on the effects of artificial light on the health and development of mice, cited by J.N. Ott (1982), How to Stay Healthy, Devin-Adair (1982), ISBN 0-8159-61 21-9.

An additional study was completed by J.N. Ott in the 1970s using the same type of mice to look at the relationship between light and mortality rates. Over 2,000 C3H mice were used in that experiment. The following results were seen:

• A: Mice kept under pink fluorescent lived an average of 7.5 months

• B: Mice kept under daylight white fluorescent lived an average of 8.2 months
• C: Mice kept under full-spectrum plastic glazing lived an average of 15.6 months
• D: Mice kept under natural outdoor daylight lived an average of 16.1 months

Source: J.N. Ott (1973), Health and Light: The Extraordinary Study That Shows How Light Affects Your Health And Emotional Well-being, Ariel Press, USA, ISBN 0-89804-098-1.

Related posts:

1. Exposure to daylight may prevent myopia
2. Conflict Of Interest In Melanoma Study
3. Sun helps to battle skin cancer?

HEATH
Blue Light May be Key to Fighting Winter Blues
Most people use incandescent lighting in their homes, but this is not a high-quality light, nor one that is recommended if you suffer from the winter blues. Ideally, you’ll want to use only high-quality full-spectrum light bulbs in your home and workspace.

Acquiring Vitamin D through your…eyes?
According to two researchers, German Ophthalmologist Fritz Hollwich, MD as well as John Ott, Hon. D. Sci, the array of bodily organs and systems that depend on full spectrum light is astounding. “When the eyes are exposed to natural light the pituitary gland, thyroid, adrenal glands, ovaries, testes, pancreas, liver, and kidneys all function better.”

Sunlight emerging as proven treatment for breast cancer, prostate cancer and other cancers
Johns Hopkins University Medical School conducted a ten-year epidemiological study that showed exposure to full-spectrum light (including the ultraviolet frequencies) is positively related to the preventionof breast, colon and rectal cancers.

REPTILECARE
What Can I Feed My Wild Brown Anole Lizard?
They require full-spectrum light during the day and temperatures between 75 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit.

Keeping Your Reptile Warm and Healthy
Full spectrum UV bulbs simulate the different degrees of natural sunlight, but nothing can duplicate the real thing. Whenever possible, place your lizard’s habitat in a location that allows access to natural sunlight.

HOME DECORATING
Customize your Kitchen for the Rainy Days!
Installing full-spectrum light bulbs or additional bulbs of low-wattage are also some of the things one can do in creating a cheerful space.

Beauty Lighting – Looking Your Best
Aside from using the right cosmetics, there are a few things you can do in regards to light to increase your outer beauty. First of all, pay attention to the light in your house

WORK BETTER
11 Ways To Be Happier At Work
Dr. Kryder says the best way to recover from a bad encounter at the office that’s leaving you feeling anxious or upset is to take a walk—outside! “Full-spectrum light such as sunlight has been shown to elevate mood,” she says.

PLANTCARE
Indoor Container Garden 4
This is video 4 of my experiment growing vegetables indoors. This is after 3 full weeks of growth. I also got a smaller full spectrum light bulb (27 watt cfl, 100 watt incandescent equivalent) and a hangable lamp.

BIRDCARE
Parrots and the Benefits of Full Spectrum Lighting
Did you know that birds see much more vibrant and enriching colors when exposed to full spectrum bird lights or natural sun light?

Related posts:

1. What is the relationship between sunlight and breast cancer?
2. Full-Spectrum Light (issue 42)
3. Full-Spectrum Light (issue 12)

Around the world different people are talking about how they use full-spectrum lighting in their day-to-day lives.  We feature some of the best here.

HEALTH
Top 10 Ways to Beat the Winter Blues
Use light therapy which should elevate your mood. This is the standard treatment for SAD. Purchase special full spectrum light therapy bulbs and fixtures engineered to simulate natural light. These lights are very similar to sunlight. …

Health tips for January from Hazel Courteney
This is why we tend to feel more depressed and sleepy during the winter months. therefore, get out into the daylight as much as you possibly can, especially in the mornings, and if you work in an office without full spectrum lighting …

Ways to Beat Depression
Also, keep your shade up during the day, and if you live somewhere that doesn’t get much sun, think about getting a full spectrum lamp or light box. 6. Friends with Benefits. On cold, rainy days, it can be seriously tempting to cancel …

Natural Treatment For Season Affect Disorder | Healthy Horizons Blog
Replacing your light bulbs to full spectrum light at home and in your workplace can make a significant difference. Full Spectrum Light is actually a marketing term. It has no precise scientific definition, …

The “Sleep Mistake” Which Boosts Your Risk of Cancer
What your body needs for optimal functioning is the full-spectrum light you get outdoors. Using full spectrum light bulbs in your home and office can help ameliorate this lack of high quality sunlight during the day.

PLANTCARE
The Gardener’s Eden – Joyful New Beginnings: Bright-Green Herb
Rotate the pots once a week to keep seedlings growing straight, as opposed to leaning toward the light. For best results, you want to start your seeds beneath full-spectrum grow lights (keep the light source very close to the plants and …

Defender Network » Blog Archive » Growing Healthy Food Indoors
That’s why it’s best to grow herbs under grow lights. Select full-spectrum lights and leave them on for 12 to 14 hours a day. Keep the tops of the herbs close to the bulbs and the plants should thrive. …

Keeping Houseplants Healthy in Winter
If you have no brighter windows (due to shade trees or apartment living), you might want to consider the purchase of plant lamps that are designed to provide the full spectrum light your plants need. They can be mounted under shelves, …

Related posts:

1. Full-Spectrum Light (issue 11)
2. Full-Spectrum Light (issue 18)
3. Full-Spectrum Light (issue 12)

This paper (published in 2006) was one of the early articles that started to explore the relationship between industrialisation – specifically our ability to have light after sundown – and our health.

In summary this paper finds (in its typically science-rich language):  “maintenance of a solar day-aligned circadian rhythm in endogenous melatonin and in clock gene expression by exposure to a bright day and a dark night, may be a worthy goal.”

In short, get up when the sun gets up – stay in light during the day.  Then dim the lights after sundown.

If you don’t have access to good quality daylight during the day, we recommend using a full-spectrum light. We, or any of our partners worldwide, would happy to help you choose the right bulb for you. Shop now or ask a question

Related posts:

1. What is the relationship between sunlight and breast cancer?
2. Why is circadian disruption relevant?
3. Sun helps to battle skin cancer?

Around the world different people are talking about how they use full-spectrum lighting in their day-to-day lives.  We feature some of the best here.

WORK BETTER
Lampara UVSetting Up Your Office For “Health”
By simply replacing your antiquated fluorescent tubes with full-spectrum tubes, you can instantly enhance your environment and your well-being! Full spectrum lighting emits a natural, balanced spectrum of light that is the closest you …

HEALTH
Five natural ways to beat the winter blues | Green Earth Awareness
Full-spectrum lights have a color temperature greater than 5000K and a CRI of over 90 — whether or not they’re labeled as “full-spectrum” depends on the manufacturer. Read all about full-spectrum lights and other green lighting options …

Treat Winter Blues With Feng Shui | Human Condition
·Full spectrum lighting for your indoor environment: Research has shown that native Alaskans suffer less from SAD than people in the lower 48 states – even though they have less light in winter – because they spend more time outdoors. …

Nighttime Light and Cancer | Personal Care Truth or Scare
Get enough sleep to wake fully refreshed; Increase your exposure to natural sunlight or use a full-spectrum light box. (Morning exposure is best); Decrease exposure to bright light at night (Use red or yellow light, which appear to …

“Lights, Camera, Action” 3 Keys To Busting The Winter Blues | real …
Use full-spectrum lighting in your home and your office. I often recommend that clients replace the fluorescent lights at work with full-spectrum bulbs whenever possible. I used to get migraines almost every year starting in early …

Effexor – Feeling Good-What Emotional Intelligence Is All About
However full-spectrum light used in the poultry industry causes chickens to live twice as long, be calmer and less aggressive, and produce eggs 25% lower in cholesterol. Apparently, even human cholesterol levels drop when people are …

HEALTH -EYECARE
Intense Humours: 5 Tips for Healthy Vision..
While dim lighting may not harm eyes, it can cause temporary eyestrain. When you do use artificial illumination, use full-spectrum light bulbs, which mimic natural light. 2.Keep your computer screen clean, at or below eye level, …

PLANT CARE
The 4 Vital Ingredients For Thriving Corals « Saltwater Aquarium …
Mimicking the tropical suns rays is a must for healthy photosynthesizing corals, having a regular 10-12 hour rhythm with a dawn and dust period (actinic light only) are ideal. Also using full spectrum bulbs with the right colour …

Adam Weekley » Caring for your household Bonsai Tree correctly is …
Household bonsai trees must have 2 to four hours of natural or artificial sun light. For bonsai, full spectrum flourescents could offer the essential light levels but the tree wants to be located in close proximity to the light. …

Home And Family » Seven Tips For Your Windowsill Herb Garden
If you still feel that the sunlight is inadequate, you can either use a fluorescent light or a full-spectrum grow light. Containers Herbs can be grown in plastic, clay or terracotta containers or even in herb wheels. …

Related posts:

1. Full-Spectrum Light (issue 12)
2. Full-spectrum lighting (issue 9)
3. Full-spectrum Light (issue 14)

HEALTH

What To Do When You’re Feeling Blue
If the weather or the short days are bringing you down, try to block the outside views and fill your space with as much light as possible. You might even get full spectrum light bulbs for your living and work space where you spend the …

Alternative Treatments for Depression | health 71
light therapy has been used to treat depression. Particularly useful in seasonal affective disorder (SAD), the light therapy focuses on exposure to full spectrum light, especially natural sunlight for several hours a day.

THE GERM THEORY OF DISEASE CAUSATION IS DEAD
by J.E. Ante « Kansas …
Full spectrum light and sunlight have a natural limiting effect on vitamin D production but UVB only lights do not and so they may poison the body with too much vitamin D3 production if used more than 15 minutes per day.

Get Some Winter Sunshine – The London Word
I was there to test Real Sunlight; a treatment that fully replicates natural sunlight and sunbathing, creating full spectrum sunlight with reduced UVA and UVB light. Evidently it is a safe and vetted way of guaranteeing that you catch …

Seasonal Affective Disorder: A Plan of Attack | Building Cathedrals
In October, replace “soft white” lightbulbs with full spectrum bulbs, or the really bright fluorescent ones. (2) Immediately upon waking in the morning, open all shades and blinds and turn on all lights. (This sets circadian rhythms …

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark | Medical Information
That’s why full spectrum light and energizing your body for greater absorption of light is essential. Whether it’s winter or just feeling dark, this article will give you some natural modalities to absorb more light! Light is one of the …

The more sun you get the less likely you are to get Breast Cancer …
Johns Hopkins University Medical School conducted a ten-year epidemiological study that showed exposure to full-spectrum light (including the ultraviolet frequencies) is positively related to the prevention of breast, colon and rectal …

Keeping the Dark Days Bright
Unlike standard office and home lights, full-spectrum lights contain a range of rays from ultraviolet to infrared, with rainbow colors of violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, and a multitude of shades between. …

PLANT CARE
Caring for your indoor Bonsai Tree correctly is critical
In house bonsai trees ought to acquire two to four hours of natural or artificial sunshine. For bonsai, full spectrum flourescents can provide the required light quantities but the tree wants to be placed close to the light. Watering …

TERMINOLOGY
What Is Full Spectrum Light?
What is full spectrum light? Most of us may know nothing about it. On the whole, if we have healthy eyes, certain amount of light can be let in our eyes. But if the amount of light is reduced, some vision errors may occur.

Related posts:

1. Full-Spectrum Light (issue 13)
2. Full-Spectrum Light (issue 17)
3. Full-Spectrum Light (issue 23)

Too Hot to Handle
The Listener

To go out in the sun to get the vitamin D essential for good health or to stay in the shade to avoid skin cancer? Ruth Laugesen tries to make sense of an increasingly controversial dilemma.

An oddity of human disease first piqued epidemiologist Robert Scragg’s interest back in the early 1980s. No one’s sure why, but winter is the killing season for cardiovascular disease. In most countries, 30-40% more people die from heart disease and strokes in winter than in summer.

For Scragg, it was the start of a decades-long interest in the role of vitamin D in protecting the body against a range of illnesses. Scragg and many other researchers had a hunch that lower vitamin D levels in the body during winter could be the reason for higher mortality from cardiovascular disease. The major source of vitamin D is the sun, with very little coming from diet.

“Each winter, vitamin D levels in the body go way down, and that’s due to the sun’s rays not being as strong in winter as they are in summer,” says Scragg, associate professor at the School of Population Health at the University of Auckland.

The study of vitamin D in the body and its role in protecting against a wide range of chronic illnesses has become a boom area in medical research. It was already well established that low vitamin D is critical for maintaining optimum bone and muscle function, and preventing rickets and bone fragility.

But a tantalising new wave of research has found low levels of vitamin D are also associated with an astonishing array of serious conditions: internal cancers, diabetes, strokes, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, tuberculosis, osteoporosis and respiratory infections.

The full article is well-worth reading and can be found here.

Related posts:

1. Sun helps to battle skin cancer?
2. To sunblock or not to sunblock?
3. Vitamin D Deficiencies At Epidemic Levels

At Viva-Lite we are passionate about the role of light in peoples lives, to the extent that we created a range of light-bulbs that allow full-spectrum lighting indoors.

This recent discussion we came across looks at the role of sunlight and cancer and illustrates the importance of light in our lives.

“If one is to believe Esther John, an epidemiologist of Northern California Cancer Center, a daily dose of sunlight can decrease the chances of breast cancer by an amazing 40%. A short walk in the sun can also relieve stress and increase blood circulation in addition to reducing the risk of breast cancer. It is a well known and researched fact that the instance of breast cancer is more in cloudy and colder regions. An exposure to the full spectrum light is inversely correlated to colon, rectal and breast cancers.”

The full article can be found here.

Related posts:

1. Circadian disruption and breast cancer.
2. Sun helps to battle skin cancer?
3. Vitamin D Deficiencies At Epidemic Levels

“This study was designed and executed by an advocate, not a neutral party, and the advocate failed to properly disclose that she is not a neutral party,” said Joseph Levy, vice president of International Smart Tan Network, the educational institute for the North American indoor tanning community. “That conflict of interest clouds some of the irregularities reported in the paper.”

Dr. DeAnn Lazovich, lead author of “Indoor Tanning and Risk of Melanoma: A Case-Control Study in a Highly Exposed Population,” set for publication in the June issue of American Association for Cancer Research, failed to disclose in the paper that she is part of a University of Minnesota group that initiated programs to discourage indoor tanning use three years before designing and engaging in data collection for this study. Those interactions may themselves have tainted subjects and controls used in the study. (http://www.cancer.umn.edu/research/profiles/lazovich.html)

The International Smart Tan Network has revealed that The University of Minnesota group engaged in deceptive practices in 2001 when, using a National Cancer Institute grant, it developed a bogus indoor tanning training program in order to obtain data from indoor tanning facilities for future studies. According to reports, the Minnesota group told salons they were attempting to help operators lower their risks, but the University of Minnesota refers to the same grant on its web site as an effort to reduce indoor tanning usage.
http://www.cancer.umn.edu/research/profiles/lazovich.html

Tanning advocates in New Zealand also see serious flaws in the study. Tiffany Brown of local sunbed business Get Brown Tanning said today, “There is a clear failure here to disclose a major conflict of interest. This really is quite deceptive research. Once again relative risk factors are used instead of absolute risk- a typical scare-mongering technique of the anti-tanning brigade.

‘In suggesting tanners double their risk of melanoma, the authors ignore the more telling figure that the absolute risk of melanoma is quite low for both tanners and non-tanners. The largest study to date shows that both indoor tanners and non-tanners have less than a 0.3 percent risk of contracting melanoma and most studies show no statistically significant difference between the two groups.”

The nature of “relative risk” figures in melanoma data was the topic of an article published by The Association of Health Care Journalists May 7 by Dr. Ivan Oransky, a Reuters Health editor.
http://www.healthjournalism.org/blog/2010/05/tanning-beds-what-do-the-numbers-really-mean/

Oransky quotes Dr. Lisa Schwartz, a general internist at Veterans Affairs Medical Center in White River Junction, Vt., and co-author of “Know Your Chances,” a book that explains health statistics to consumers.

“Melanoma is pretty rare and almost all the time, the way to make it look scarier is to present the relative change, the 75 percent increase, rather than to point out that it is still really rare,” Schwartz told The Wilmington News Journal’s Hiran Ratnayake, who interviewed Schwartz in a recent story on melanoma and indoor tanning.

On reading the study through, Brown found intriguing the authors’ continual mention of previous evidence of the relationship between melanoma skin cancer and sunbed use as being “weak” and inconsistent. “Why then did reputable scientists and researchers previously report there were strong associations in the research? Particularly, this new study does not confirm the often-commented conclusion made by the IARC report that risk of melanoma sky-rockets when tanning beds are first used under the age of 35.” The authors of the study state “With at least 29 reports to date, past history of indoor tanning has been only weakly associated with melanoma.”

“In fact,” says Brown, “18 of 22 previous studies show no statistically significant association. This new study simply adds to inconsistencies in the total dataset available about any relationship between sunbed use and melanoma skin cancer.”

The International Smart Tan Network point out the study showed individuals who had the most outdoor sun exposure in their lives had a 15 percent lower risk of melanoma when compared to those who had less sun. The paper is actually the latest in a line of studies showing that people who get the most UV exposure outdoors are less likely to contract the disease.

“Despite what the authors in this paper set out to prove, the fact remains that whatever relationship UV exposure has with melanoma is still not understood because paper after paper, including this one, continue to show that people who get more sun exposure have fewer melanomas,” said Dr. William Grant, founder of the independent Sunlight, Nutrition and Health Research Center (SUNARC). Grant, an independent advocate for UV exposure as the natural and intended source of vitamin D, published a peer-reviewed meta-analysis this year showing that indoor tanning is not a risk factor for melanoma in individuals with skin that can tan, with UV-related risk isolated only in the fairest-skinned “Skin Type I” subjects.
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/New-Study-by-SUNARC-Shows-Tanning-and-Melanoma-Link-Scientifically-Flawed-1131725.htm

Brown believes tanning operators with excellent standards of care are uniquely positioned to educate the public about all aspects of ultraviolet light exposure as it relates to skin in a practical way. “We teach the basics of how the skin tans and burns to help our sun-loving clients understand why a ‘less is more’ approach is best. We’ve proven that education with regard to possible benefits of moderate UV exposure within the limits of risk-minimizing tanning behaviour actually serves to reduce the incidence of over-exposure and/or erythema (sunburn). And as this new study proves, that is a positive step in improving public health outcomes.”

Speaking for International Smart Tan Network Joe Levy said, “We think the promotion of this study has more to do with justifying a dinosaur mentality about UV light in an era when vitamin D research is proving that decades of overzealous sun avoidance may have skyrocketed SPF sales, but has caused epidemic-level vitamin D deficiency and great confusion in the world’s population.”

Related posts:

1. Sun helps to battle skin cancer?
2. The Sun. What it really does to you.
3. Circadian disruption and breast cancer.