Improving our light environment for better health | Guy Foundation Round Table - Regenerative Health with Max Gulhane, MD

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_03 (00:46):
Welcome back to the Regenerative Health Podcast.
This episode I have the pleasureof reposting a recent recording
from the Guy Foundation's Lightand Health Roundtable seminar
that was recently held withinput from a range of experts on

(01:08):
how we can how light and lightenvironments are affecting our
health and what we can do tore-engineer our indoor
environment to minimize theeffect uh negative effects on
health.
So I uh had the uh privilege ofof speaking alongside uh Scott

(01:29):
Zimmerman, who many of you willknow, as well as uh other
experts, including architects umin the built environment, who uh
have some pretty valuableinsight.
The Guy Foundation are probablythe world's preeminent um
philanthropic uh funders ofquantum biological research and

(01:49):
uh presenting and supporting uhresearch into uh the inputs into
mitochondrial metabolism,mitochondrial function,
including light, uh and whichwas the topic of their autumn
series.
So I would highly encourage youto go to the Guy Foundation's
YouTube page if you'reinterested in delving into these

(02:12):
topics more, and really you'reable to hear from the world's
leading scientists um aboutphotobiology and how light is is
impacting uh health.
Um so please enjoy this thesefollowing talks.
Uh now on to the episode.

SPEAKER_01 (02:31):
It's my very great pleasure to um briefly introduce
the roundtable speaker uhspeaking today, uh Dr.
Max Golhein, physician andhealth educator from
Regenerative Health.
And Professor Stefan Berling, umwho is uh senior executive
partner and head of studio atFASTA Partners, Scott Zimmerman,

(02:52):
who is founder and CEO of SilasInc., Yuliz Dormoy, who's CEO at
AGM Lighting, and uh JamesSherman, partner and
environmental design analyst atFASTA and Partners.
With that, I'll hand over to ourspeaker.

SPEAKER_03 (03:09):
Thank you, everybody, and thank you to the
Guy Foundation for theopportunity to present.
So I am a general practiceregistrar here in Byron Bay, New
South Wales, Australia, and I'mgoing to share a couple of
perspectives that I have had onthis recent uh series, and
really from the perspective ofchronic disease and particularly
metabolic disease uh causationand prevention, ideally.

(03:34):
So uh this was beautifullyrecapped uh just now, but as
many of you have presented andand uh are are aware of that
this massive part of the solarspectrum is uh in in the
non-visible longer wavelengths,is having biologically active
ways, which I think we're onlyre-appreciating or appreciating

(03:59):
from a scientific and uh and andmetabolic uh perspective.
Now, the role of this near forred light and its stimulatory
and beneficial effects onmitochondrial metabolism are how
I'm thinking at the moment, uhuh having a very um relevant but

(04:20):
uh constant effect on preservingmetabolic health while a person
or while a human is in in theoutdoor environment.
And this was demonstrated, um,albeit in a in a narrow in uh
mech way or mechanism through uhthrough Dr.
Jeffery's randomized trial in in24 showing that that glucose uh

(04:43):
lowering effect.
And and really it's I think uhrelevant that um not only is is
this infrared light um uhpresence is is is help is
assisting in myotal metabolism,but it's also um the correct
circadian timing and the factthat features such as insulin
sensitivity, uh lipolysis,glucose metabolism, the the

(05:07):
activity of all the metabolicorgans of uh and processes in
the body running on circadiantiming, which which again
requires uh the appropriatebalanced timing of blue
melanopically stimulating lightat at the right time
contextually with um balancedwith uh the near-infrared and

(05:27):
red spectrum.
So uh and as you can see, andand obviously talked about by by
by uh Dr.
Fosbury is is this massive uhimportance of the natural
environment which is reflectingthat uh that near-infrared light
for human consumption.
Now, what uh are we having herein uh in in our modern built

(05:49):
environments?
And there's a lot to say aboutwhy this is human incompatible
with optimal human health, butreally uh as emphasized, it is
deprived of long wavelengths.
It therefore is uh a and andcall in with a corollary of that
it's it's enriched in unchangingblue light.

(06:10):
And uh this melanophicstimulation in in the absence of
of change and variation throughsunrise to sunset is uh is again
profoundly unnatural withrespect to to the human uh the
circadian system, but also umthe the eye system.
So um that there's m multipleother aspects to why this this

(06:35):
system or this in but indoorenvironment is bad.
I I strongly suspect that thethe presence of radio frequency
radiation, and althoughcontroversial in certain uh
scientific circles, I believethe the animal data is is quite
um compelling.
And I I think that's probably uhacting as an effect mortifier or

(06:58):
potential uh augmenting the thenegative effects, um, the energy
depriving and so KD andmitochondrial disrupting effects
of of a constant isolated bluelight that is uh essentially
this this environment, which isuh is is very detrimental to
mitochondrial health.

(07:18):
So the the the way that I reallythink about this at the moment
is that the modern uh indoorLED-lit environment is is
providing this continuous uh,you could say hyperglycemic,
hyperinsulemic pressure.
And and and what I what I meanby that is I think by depriving
the mitochondrion of the longerwavelength flight that is

(07:41):
helping mitochondrialmetabolism, we're actually
lowering the threshold for thedevelopment of insulin
resistance, for the developmentof metabolic dysfunction, type 2
diabetes, and and thereforepotentially uh making the food,
the diet, um, and themicronutrient carbohydrate

(08:03):
content of the diet relativelymore important than it would
have historically been insomeone existing out in in full
spectrum light.
So, and the converse is true, isthat when we are in full
spectrum light, we are gettingthis basal glucose lowering
mitochondrial lubricationcoolant um with respect to the

(08:23):
the melatonin and the infraredfeatures.
And and this is conducive tometabolic health and and
longevity optimization.
I wanted to give a really quick,interesting uh, I guess, case
study that I that I've comeacross.
And this is these are the twocasenta people in Papua New

(08:44):
Guinea, and this was aninvestigation into their
metabolic and cardiometabolichealth from the 1970s, early
1973.
And this this group of ofsubsistence agricultural uh
farmers relies on the sweetpotato for uh for basically
their entire diet, and they'rethey're they're 90% carbohydrate

(09:08):
uh dietary intake.
Uh very little protein, 25 gramsperhaps per day.
Uh pipe smoking is is very wasvery common in in this observed
cohort of about 800 people overthe age of 15, and it's in this
uh in this central part of PapuaNew Guinea.
So, what what did the authorsnote?

(09:28):
They noted that the populationwas lean, physically fit, and in
good nutritional state.
There was no increase with agein mean blood pressure, serum
cholesterol, fasting bloodglucose, or adiposity.
Glucose tolerance was high.
Uh, there was a low prevalenceof diagnosable cardiovascular
diseases, hypertension, uh,cerebral and peripheral vascular
disease, and skin card diseasewas rare, if not absent.

(09:50):
So uh there's m there's beensaid, especially from you know
different dietary uhperspectives, about why this
population has so littlecardiometabolic disease.
And uh those explanations, Ithink, are really missing the
main thrust of the point here.
And I believe that this is apopulation which is outside all
the time, have prime circadiansignals, have a very enriched in

(10:14):
the infrared and uh environmentin the jungles of New Guinea,
and uh their mitochondria areactually uh uh are operating
optimally.
And yes, they have dental decay,they have um issues related to
potentially that highcarbohydrate diet, but they are
primarily metabolically healthyand intern-sensitive, which is
uh, I think what all of us areentitled to if we live uh

(10:38):
outside and in accordance withour uh design specification.
So, my my the way that I'mthinking about this is that uh,
as many of you have uh discussedas well, is that the modern
built environment is reallyaccelerating chronic disease and
lowering the threshold for thedevelopment of chronic disease.
And in the space report, the GuyFoundation space report, this

(11:00):
great graph um uh pictoriallydepicts this idea of what an
accelerated aging phenotype isis doing.
And and really I think that thethe built environment, the the
indoor cubicle, the theneo-infrared and red-starved,
blue, light enrich, visible-onlylighting is uh a version of in

(11:21):
an induction of of anaccelerated aging phenotype.
And uh getting ourselves out ofthat environment and into back
into natural sunlight is theabsolute priority.
Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_05 (11:35):
Thank you very much indeed.
Um, so uh I think uh we'll thenask uh Stefan actually, probably
not to respond to that, but uhplease uh we're very much
looking forward to hearing yourcontributions.

SPEAKER_04 (11:48):
Look, um it's a tough one, um, because
particularly after uh Brittany'suh summary, uh I would say I've
got nothing to add because theonly thing I could have said is
what I've learned from uh fromEulis and Glenn and Bob and uh
Scott over the last uh fewyears.
But um maybe I can add some somedifferent perspective because I

(12:10):
realize you know you're allteachers and I can't teach
teachers.
But uh I think there's a there'smaybe there is a a challenge.
It's there's like there's abridge to uh there's a bridge to
be built between the let's callit practitioners, consumers,
specifiers like us, and uh andyour incredible knowledge.

(12:34):
Because as that's I'm not justsaying it, I'm always feel
extremely privileged um to talkto some of you and and learn.
And I'm literally just learn.
And uh on the other hand, Iobviously um we're we're we're
fairly guilty, maybe forcontext, because bridge
building, you probably actuallyhave no idea who we are or what

(12:55):
we do.
We're we're architects and we douh relatively big buildings,
well-known buildings, we'reabout 2,500 people in London,
very big, prestigious uhprojects, Apple's headquarters,
Bloomberg's headquarters,airports, I mean, millions of
square feet of uh working space,hopefully a little bit better

(13:17):
than the offices that youshowed.
And uh and I I I feel guilty.
Um well, maybe I feel guilty.
And yet maybe just as a as a tipof an iceberg, I think the
architectural uh communitydoesn't know enough about

(13:37):
everything that you guys know.
And uh I I personally I Ipersonally have been very
interested uh in lightingbecause I worked in theater and
film before I even started inarchitecture, yeah.
As a light, well, I would callmyself a light carrying uh mule,
you know, schlepping lights uhthrough different uh film

(14:00):
locations.
Um but I I do and I didunderstand light and theater and
drama and atmosphere, and thenyou can create the beautiful
setting of a candlelight uhdinner with artificial lighting,
uh and a lot more than theactual candle, but you give you
get the atmosphere, or you youknow, I can create morning uh

(14:23):
atmosphere or evening withartificial light.
And we've done it, and I'vepersonally done it a lot in
projects, but what uh what Ihadn't actually understood is,
and that came quite late in mycareer, is the you know, this
whole thing of the circadianrhythm.

(14:43):
And I possibly learning againfrom a few of you was on a side
uh trip that we uh should makethe the light in our buildings
follow the the colortemperatures of the outside to
help people with a circadianrhythm.
I've now had a lot of youtelling me that's complete

(15:03):
nonsense and it doesn't work.
But uh, as this is only going tobe recorded and on YouTube, I
would never admit that I waswrong.
Um but I have learned uh a fewlessons.
But I do think I think what isinteresting is if you take the
two topics, is it's yes, wespend too much time inside, you

(15:24):
know.
First answer, get a dog.
That could be the solution tothe problem.
But then if you assume thatpeople not are not all gonna
have a dog and they will stillspend 80 or 90 percent inside,
there is there is a job to bedone to give them the best and
healthiest environment.
And we had the benefit ofworking or still have with the

(15:46):
most incredible clients.
So, Steve Jobs, we worked withhim for two years.
He wanted the best environmentfor his people.
If I would have known way backthen what I know now, we would
have done it differently.
Yeah, we he we at that pointpeople didn't even have uh LED
lights, and we were one of thefirst adopters of LED lighting.

(16:09):
And uh it's in the building.
But if I know, if I would haveknown now, what I did know then
is it so what is the cocktail oflights that we should put in
those uh fittings?
James is going to talk about it,and we're trying.
I mean, Glenn has come and toldus that we got it wrong again,
but we we are trying to put acocktail of different uh LEDs in

(16:34):
to get uh the right spectrum oflight into uh into spaces.
And I think uh number one on thelighting topic, I would love to
have uh, or I would encourageall of you, maybe without being
selfish, maybe for the wholetrade of architecture.

(16:55):
We need one needs to get verysimple messages out of what are
the negative effects of badlighting and what are the
benefits of good lightingwithout losing extremely long
words and uh you knowmitochondrial uh aging is is
borderline.

(17:17):
But uh I think one needs to getthings out that you can explain
to a client it's worthwhiledoing your lighting differently
to what you're doing right now.
And uh and we we in our team, wegot, I said, I want all the
research in the world where isthere any smoking gun that
proves it is bad for you?

(17:39):
And the only thing that we withour little uh teams could find
out is that there's lots ofresearch, but we couldn't
actually find the smoking gunthat proves look without.
I mean, I don't want to namedrop, but I mean these are I
know very, very importantpeople.
You can just check out ourclients, and we always deal with

(18:01):
the top of the food chain in theclient organizations.
So these are people they wouldbuy the best light if they would
know what the best light is.
So at this moment, there is avery clear problem of I would
not know, James possibly knowsbecause we're working together.
But what do you buy and what isthe argument why you should get

(18:25):
this one?
And uh that's my first plea, butit's not obviously telling you
something you don't know, butyou know, I'd be super happy to
help.
We have we have contacts toeveryone in the industry, but I
still need an argument.
And the next one goes with uhwindows and glazing again.
Glenn, you started it off.

(18:46):
We since then have spoken todifferent people in the glass
industry.
Yeah, I I heard you, uh Jeffrey,just in in the the moments of
introduction, that one should uhyou know have different
different glazing.
We we as foster and partnershave built thousands and tens of

(19:06):
thousands, hundreds of thousandsof square meters of glass in
buildings, but it is all beinguh let's say driven by energy.
Yeah, you try to do the mostenergy efficient uh glass
building, yeah.
Apple Park, if you look atrenders, it's a hundred percent
glass.
But if you now look at it, maybeone could have had a different

(19:28):
cocktail of coating.
But to work specifically on whatis the right cocktail of coating
that lets the right amount of UVlight through and lets the right
amount of uh solar uh light uhthrough, but keeps uh keeps the
right balance.
I mean, I saw a few of your inyour summary, you always talk

(19:50):
about the Goldilocks, you know,a little bit, uh but not too
much.
Uh I think that would be anamazing piece of research, and
uh I think one can just do it.
Yeah.
Well, Stefan basically, my my mything isn't a lecture, my thing
is it's basically an offer withall your brain power.

(20:10):
Well, I think a lot of thesethings in today's world, I feel,
is like connect the dots.
If one connects the dot, one canactually get things uh moving
pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_05 (20:22):
Thank you.
Thank you for that, and and uhthank you for the for the offer.
I think everybody on this call'sears uh has uh pricked up at
that.
And perhaps in response to someof your questions, Scott, uh can
we ask you to present yourthoughts?

SPEAKER_00 (20:39):
Well, thank you, Stefan.
You're basically uh I think uhwas a great preempt to what I'm
trying.
To talk about.
But what I'd like to say is thatwe've had a series of things
where Bob has dealt with thetheoretical and I've dealt with
the theoretical side.
Len's been doing stuff showingthat there's uh experimentation,
and Roger's showing practicalimplication.

(21:02):
But one of the things, as theengineer in the crowd, uh, one
of the problems is we first haveto be able to quantify some of
these effects, like you werethat and give you the proof that
you need to convince yourcustomers.
So, you know, what I'd like totalk about is how we can
quantify the impact of uh LEDlighting and displays and and

(21:24):
look at at the glazings and andtry and uh essentially uh
understand that on aquantitative level.
Like I say, I'm the engineer atheart.
But the first thing you have todo is look at the I'd like to
show the two graphs.
The graph on the left is whatpeople think about when they
think about sunlight, and itshows this major peak in the

(21:46):
visible, and there's not muchgoing on in the infrared.
But from a biologicalstandpoint, that's there's not
we need to go take a step backand get in everybody in the same
unit of measure, which I wouldargue is the electron volts.
Biologists like it, and it'svery easy to convert uh the

(22:06):
spectrum uh the spectrum on theleft into terms of electron
volts.
And when you do, all of a suddenyou see this amazing spike.
And it was always funny.
You know, I found these the allthese people that were doing it
in solar simulators and andsolar cell work, and they always
had this spike at about 0.075.
And I was talking to Bob, andBob said, Well, of course,

(22:27):
that's the H-opacity window inthe sun.
Well, okay, great.
Um, you know, uh that's one ofthe beauties of working with an
astrophysicist.
But um what you see is that uhonce you convert this thing into
terms that biologists careabout, which is the number of

(22:48):
photons per second and whatenergy level those photons have,
you see a massive shift in howyou view sunlight.
And through Marcus's equations,you can translate that into the
basics of metabolic uhprocesses, which is electron
transfer rates uh in our all ourdifferent cellular products.

(23:09):
And lo and behold, if you lookat that, that oval that I show
in the top right is where mostof the metabolic the energy
levels that most of themetabolic processes in the body
occur between 1.2 and 0.2electron volts, or essentially
one micron to six micron.
So then if you go down and youstart thinking about how that

(23:32):
impacts um uh what we've done,the green in the graph is uh
standard LED, 500 lux, thedashed line being the attempts,
the recent attempts to add alittle bit of the infrared in.
And the red line in the middleis an incandescent bulb at 500
lux.

(23:52):
And what you see is this massiveamount of photons that are being
generated by an incandescentbulb, and then the top one being
the sunlight, um uh assuming ablack body, the sunlight has a
black body.
And the black lines are whathappens when it gets through and
filters through this whole thingas as uh because going through

(24:14):
the atmosphere, water vapor andCO2 uh strongly absorb and
creates these series of bands.
So if you can go to the nextslide, Bethany.
So if you do that and you lookat all this stuff and you put
everything in the same terms,all of a sudden you see this
amazing coincidence.
Not only does H- uh from the suntranslate into and align with

(24:37):
the H-band, what do we call theH-band, one of the peak areas uh
of one of the windows, but youalso start to see that the
biological processes that arefundamental to metabolism seem
to kind of line up inside thesebins or these windows.
Bear in mind that the in that inthese range of wavelengths, we

(25:02):
have the highest transmissionthrough the atmosphere.
These and what the astronomersdid is they have came up with
some nomenclature, uh, thehistory of which is kind of fun
to look at.
But anyway, it's Ijlm and Q.
And what's really cool is thatyou know it appears that one can

(25:27):
make an argument that thesebiological or these process,
these um redox reactions aretaking advantage of what uh is
transparency windows with highlevels of photons, the peak
level of photons per second, um,that align.

(25:48):
And you could talk about what wecall a photon-assisted Marcus
equation, where the photons thatuh we are in actually enhance
the ability, the efficiency, notthe changing the actual donor
acceptor number, but actuallychanging the vibrant state, the
what they call lambda around it.

(26:10):
So, and if you look at thetable, you can see that there's
it gives you an idea of howwavelength versus electron volt
and its associated step kind ofall align in a very nice, clean
manner.
Coincidence, maybe?
I don't think so.
Bethany, if you can do the nextslide.
So, you know, when you startlooking at this, um you you have

(26:33):
water vapor, which is definingall these bins or these bands,
uh uh, but then you also have umthe uh the bands that are are
associated with with sunlight,but then you also have to take
into account that the body isliquid water, is essentially

(26:54):
liquid water.
So in the visible spectrum, it'sgood transmission.
In the in the eye band, which ismost photobiomodulation occurs,
which is from 750 to 900 um or700 to 900, we have these
translucent nature of the of theskin or the body, as Bob has

(27:15):
showed multiple times with someof his pictures.
Uh photons penetrate deep andbounce around.
But as you get out into beyondone micron, water starts to
strongly absorb.
And so what we end up with is asystem that's kind of much more
akin to what happens in the UV,where most of the body uh

(27:36):
absorbs strongly and localizesall those photons, creating
extremely high photon densities.
So, in general, you canbasically say, and one of the
things I'd like people to uhtake away from this whole thing
is that you know we what we endup needing to figure out on a
quantitative level is to movefrom two-dimensional type

(27:58):
thoughts, where we're talkingabout irradiance per meter
squared, and start thinkingabout density where we take the
penetration characteristicsoptically, and you find that
there is a huge, huge change inthe amount of photon density,
which then can be, if it isassisting in the actual redox

(28:19):
reactions, as we believe basedon some of the data, it appears
that what you've got isessentially a cladding of solar
cell on the outside of our skinthat is extracting as much work
as it possibly can anddistributing it out through the
body.
So if you look at within each ofthe bands, you see that the

(28:40):
number of photons, uh, there'sphotons everywhere in each one
of these bands, essentiallysunlight, incandescent,
campfire, even to some extent,uh saunas and things of that
nature, can actually fill up allthese bands, which uh with a
massive amount of photondensity.

(29:01):
But when you actually go to thenext slide, Bethany, look at it
from the standpoint of thephoton density, meters or
millimeters cubic or in to thethird power or cubed, um, you
get uh a better understandingthat you know if I'm using this

(29:22):
to enhance the capability ofmetabolic processes, it's the
longer wavelengths that really,and we're if you look at the
graph, you'll see that that's alog scale on the left.
So it's a huge, massive amountof localization, just like the
same thing that happens in theUV.

(29:43):
UV, UVB is absorbed within theouter 50 microns.
Yeah, water is as lowabsorption, most of the
absorption is in the proteins,lipids, and cholesterol.
So you get an enhanced opticaleffect.
Um, the same thing appears to behappening in the longer
wavelengths, but it's actuallyuh lined up with essentially

(30:04):
enhancing the efficiency of theredox reactions or the electron
transport chain, and maybe evendefining why it is what it is.
You can go to the next slide,Bethany.
So basically, what I'd like tosay is that I think what uh
Stefan and the other or what uhRoger and others have said all

(30:27):
saying is we need to startquantifying some of these
effects.
We can.
Um it's been a limitation of forthe industry in that uh we just
now are getting spectrometers tomake it out to a thousand
nanometers.
But what we're what this isgoing on is a thousand to six
thousand nanometers.
And it kind of gives you aperspective of how little of

(30:50):
this the solar spectrum we caneven uh measure or on a uh
reasonably measure, but how muchpotential there is for making
things better and getting youknow a better idea of what being
able to answer Stefan'squestion.
Because at the end of the day,customer needs to be showed

(31:13):
here's the reason, here's thequantity, here's the effect.
But uh to do that, we need tochange how we look at sunlight
as far as its unit of measure.
We need to go in and uh thinkabout how it's not just the uh
incident, the photons incidentin the body, but actually the
density of photons in the bodyat what particular wavelength or

(31:37):
the electric energy level.
And you know, I'd like to endwith this little thing just to
give us a perspective.
Um, the comments aboutcircadian.
This is a graph that shows for asweat monitor.
Um, what it shows is uhsimultaneously measures cortisol
and melatonin every threeminutes simultaneously.

(31:59):
And what it shows is I went todinner with my wife, and you see
the cortisol levels as westarted eating.
You can see the appetizer, thenyou can see the main course, and
you see the things styking up,cortisol is going up.
All of a sudden, now nowheremelatonin spiked and then went
back down, and cortisol wasbrought back into check.

(32:20):
On the the other side of thegraph, uh, we were watching TV
at night uh with the in thedark, and 10 lux was able to
generate cortisol spikes, youknow, in once you were sampling
at a fascinating.
So it is a matter of getting themeasurement tools that we have,
getting everything everything inthe same units of measure, and

(32:43):
bringing that all together,which I think can then have to
answer Stefan's prop questions.
So thank you.

SPEAKER_05 (32:49):
Scott, thank you very much indeed.
Uh that's fascinating, uhfascinating.
Um, if we can move on to Ulysseand then James, to Ulysse, over
to you.

SPEAKER_06 (33:01):
And uh thank you, Jeffrey, Nina,and to the Guy Foundation, for
having me as part of the roundtable today.
Uh, very exciting.
Um, what I'm going to talk aboutis so unscientific, it's
unbelievable.
So, so there's going to be nobamboozling whatsoever.
Um, so I'm I'm the CEO of AtramLimited, a specialist lighting
distributor, uh, working witharchitects and designers on

(33:21):
projects, um, uh, predominantlyin in England.
Um, I've been in the industryfor about 35 years, and I've
watched it evolve from what I'dcall an analog industry into a
digital one.
Um, a little while back,probably uh five, six years ago,
I was saying internally withinbusiness that I thought that
light today was sat somewherebetween technology and health

(33:41):
and well-being.
Um, unfortunately, somebody saidprove it.
Um, and that led me down a pathof curiosity.
Um and actually, one of thefirst pieces of work that I came
across was uh Scott's work on ummelatonin and the optics of the
human body, and that reallypiqued my interest.
And it sort of led me down thispath and down this rabbit hole,

(34:04):
which is really I'm strugglingto get out of um around the
interaction between light andlife.
And through that process, I'vebeen really lucky to spend time
with Glenn, Bob, and Scott,who've all really uh contributed
to expanding my horizons.
Um, and I've also been followinguh Roger's work for about the
last four years.
Um, and it really has been anabsolutely mind-blowing,

(34:26):
wonderful mind expansion.
So, having said all that, Irealize that um around you know,
facing all uh you know thescience people uh in front of
me, you know, I'm technicallypart of the problem, but I also
would like to be part of thesolution.
And that's really driven fromthe fact that um, you know, it's

(34:46):
really difficult to unsee whatwe've seen and to unlearn what
I've, you know, what I'velearned.
Um, and so really, you know,what I'm gonna talk about is
nothing necessarilyrevolutionary, um, but you know,
it probably sort of goes in linewith some of the things that
that Max has uh has been talkingabout.
But you know, essentially, youknow, we all know that uh you

(35:07):
know all life has evolved underthe full same spectrum.
Um modern humans today spend 90%or more of their time indoors.
Uh and that means that we'reaway from natural light.
Um the trajectory, in my mind,is one which is going to keep us
for more and more indoors.
Um, and really is a process thatfor me in my head started with

(35:28):
the first industrial revolution.
Um, and if we look at that inrelative terms, you know, in
terms of how long modern Homosapiens have been around, um,
you know, our modern indoorlifestyle accounts for about
probably 0.09% of our time onEarth as say as modern Homo
sapiens.
We chase convenience.

(35:49):
Um Dave Wallace and I talkedabout this a little while, a
little while ago, and I thinkyou know, it it's created a sort
of a convenience conundrum.
You know, we we we we try anddevelop safe environments and we
and we we sort of uh wehibernate in them um much more
than we should do.
And that that's created a shiftand a disconnect from the
natural world um and itsbenefits.

(36:13):
You know, as humans, we classifyourselves as the most
intelligent species on theplanet.
You know, we've understoodphotosynthesis for so so many
years, you know, roughly I think250 years, but we're only now
starting to understand thatthere are, you know, that light
you know affects you know humanbiology.
And I think, yeah, for me it'sit's it's a fascinating time to

(36:35):
be in, I'm gonna say lighting,but I'm gonna rephrase that and
say that you know to beconnected with light.
Um and it's it is trulyfascinating, but I think over
time we have reduced ourunderstanding of light.
We knew more about it 100 yearsago than we do today, and that's
a problem.

(36:55):
We we keep reducing ourunderstanding.
Um and you know, within thenatural world, there's there's
there's an amazing circularitygoing on.
Um, and so many people don't seeit.
They don't, you know, we we takethings for granted.
You know, we we breathe out CO2,plants take in CO2, they they
send us back oxygen, we breathein oxygen.
But then beyond that, we'restarting to get this

(37:17):
understanding that there'sanother pathway, which is the
infrared pathway and how plantsreflect infrared beautifully.
Um and you know, we take thatin, we need it, we we we we use
it.
Um then we talk about the builtenvironment, you know, and and
um Stefan, you know, very kindlybrought the subject up with

(37:37):
glazing, you know, and so thisis not a lighting problem, it's
a light problem.
You know, and lighting plays apart, but glazing plays a part
at the same time.
Um and you know, we need to tryand think about how you know
design can be used in astrategic fashion um to make use
of the natural world to allowsome of the you know longer

(38:00):
wavelengths to come back intothe built built environment
naturally, and also potentiallyto you know, we we need to try
and find solutions you know, umwithin the artificial lighting
environment.
I think Max, was it Max that youmentioned um the term?
No, I think it was actually umuh Bethany, you're recounting
something that Roger had saidabout um evolutionary uh

(38:23):
mismatch, um, if I rememberrightly from your from your
opening, you know, the the sameevolutionary environmental
mismatch, I think, is is isreally quite a clear one.
Um, you know, techniquestechnically speaking, our
physiology hasn't adapted.
Um it hasn't adapted, it hasn'tevolved to spend so much time in

(38:43):
under artificial light sources.
Um and you know, I'd say thatyou know we're living these
ultra-processed lives.
Um and you know, we we wecontextualize ultra-process with
nutrition, but I think it'sequally applicable to transport
systems and then onto thingslike artificial light.
Yeah, I I I see light asnourishment.

(39:06):
Um and uh you know, if I consumefast food as an example, you
know, I know I'm going to behungry about half an hour later.
It happens every time.
I I I I I love a I love aMcDonald's, you know, I'm not
gonna deny that, but I'm hungryagain.
And I think part of that isbecause I've been fed, but I've
not been nourished.

(39:27):
And just like fast food, I wouldsay that artificial light today
is doing the same for us ashumans.
We are being fed, but we're notbeing nourished.
Um and then the other crazything that comes about is that
we've also reduced our metricsof light for humans to a metric
related to vision.
We talk about Lux and Lumens.

(39:48):
When we light plants in indoorenvironments or even in
greenhouses, we give them PPFD,photosynthetic photon flux
density, which is an energeticvalue of light.
And we give plants energeticvalues of light because we want
them to be productive, we wantthem to grow.
Don't we want the same thing forhumans?
But yet we've we've we've we'venarrowed it down to just the the

(40:11):
visible path of the spectrum,we've narrowed down our
understanding of light to justbeing a visual aid, and that for
me is a problem.
And it becomes an even biggerproblem, and I think it was
Stefan who was talking aboutjoining dots together.
Global populations are aging.
The IMF released a study earlieron this year, uh, their world
economic outlook, and it clearlyshows that the the world

(40:34):
population is aging.
If the world population isaging, then theoretically, and
this is what goes on in my mind,we're going to be probably
working later on in life.
If we're going to be workinglater on in life, then surely.
We need to have more youthfulproductivity levels to be able
to keep things going.
The UK, as an example, is aboutto become a superage society

(40:56):
either next year or the yearafter, where is it 20 or 25% of
the population is going to be 65or over.
So we have a we have a sort of aresponsibility in a certain
sense to ensure that people areremaining healthy.
And just as Max um showedearlier, you know, Alistair's
graph of um of morbidityexpansion and morbidity

(41:17):
compression, you know, the builtenvironment can play a
significant part in that, andlight equally plays a massive
part.
Is it is it a technologicalchallenge?
I think to a certain degree,yes, there are some
technological challenges, butwhen it comes to lighting and
artificial light, the biggestchallenge at the moment is

(41:38):
legislative because we'rechasing lumens for what all the
time.
We want energy efficiency,energy efficiency, energy
efficiency all the time.
We are seeking uh environmentalsustainability goals without
even thinking about the impacton human sustainability.
And I think that's a that's alsoquite a quite a big problem.
As I say, uh it's not a lightingproblem, it is a light problem.

(42:01):
Um in uh we we use light, weunderstand its power in
therapeutic applications.
Shouldn't we also be thinkingabout it in a preventative sense
so that we don't have to use thetherapy quite so much later on
in life?
Um we we we know, we've heardyou know especially from from

(42:24):
you know uh the team at the GuyFoundation about the challenges
that happen on the spacestations.
My question is how different isa space station to our modern
office environments?
And I'd say they're probably notthat different in reality.
Um, so the only difference thatwe have against uh you know
somebody on the on the spacestation, we have a choice, we
can step outside.
Um, and uh you know, uh who wasit who's talking about getting a

(42:47):
dog?
Was that Stefan?
No.
Or is that Max?
Anyway, someone was talkingabout, yeah, I think it was
Stefan who's talking aboutgetting a dog.
You know, we have a choice thatthe astronauts don't have, but
we can see acceleratedmitochondrial aging in the
astronauts.
Maybe those moments when we stepoutside make the difference.
Um, I don't know if anyone cansee, but I've got this little
button here.
This is my little lease button,which has 11 measurement points,

(43:11):
and it goes into the nearinfrared um zone as well.
Um, I I took some measurements.
First, first set of data thatI've chosen to take from it, you
know, a day at the weekend wherewe did a three to four hour walk
outside versus a gloomy indoorday where I didn't leave the
office at all.
My infrared consumption on thegloomy indoor day was at 0.57%

(43:33):
of the day at the weekend.
You know, that's that's thedifferential that we're seeing
with the built environment.
So when we come back toarchitecture and design, you
know, I think you know thereshould be a priority to design
for positive human outcomes, youknow, embracing concepts flight
through the biophilic andsalutegenic principles, and not
necessarily as a luxury but as anecessity.

(43:54):
Because, you know, again, youknow, uh we need to drive human
sustainability in in a in inparallel to the environmental
piece.
Yeah, and light is not just forvision, it is for our health.
So that's that's me.

SPEAKER_05 (44:10):
Yes, thank you very much indeed.
Um, and back to the architectsagain in in terms of uh what are
you going to do about that?
Uh James.

SPEAKER_02 (44:21):
Thanks a lot, Jeffrey, and thanks to everyone
for sharing all of yourincredible knowledge.
Uh, I suppose I come at thistopic from the perspective of a
designer.
And so for that reason, possiblyother designers who are
considering integratingnear-infrared light into
interior spaces, might find whatI'm about to say the most
interesting, but I hope it'llalso be interesting for all the

(44:41):
other members of the panel andwho are listening to this.
I thought I would start with uha brief description of one of
our projects where we've triedto integrate near-infrared light
into an interior space becauseit's been highly instructive for
us.
Actually, Stefan, who who satnext to me, uh is the one who
kind of uh challenged us tothink uh outside the box.

(45:04):
The project I'm gonna describeto you very briefly because I
actually want to focus mostly onthe learnings that we had from
that project, is in our ownoffice.
So we're sat in a meeting roomhere, and just across the way
we're looking at it now, is themain building of our office here
in Battersea in London.
And we undertook a project alittle while back to refurbish
the main space that we all sitin every day and that we bring

(45:26):
all of our clients to.
It really is the kind ofcenterpiece of fostering
partners and the and the FPexperience.
And it's it's kind of undergoinga large retrofit right now to
refresh a lot of the interiorfinishes and to, you know, kind
of uplift the space in a bunchof different ways.
But lighting was going to bepart of that.
And initially, what we hadthought was we were just gonna

(45:47):
replace these old fluorescentlamps, which we had in our
ceiling, uh, two LED lamps, uh,and possibly get a little bit
more operation out of them withsome different color
temperatures and be able to geta little bit more flexibility
and in how the office waspresented to both ourselves and
to our clients, our visitors.
Uh, but Stefan was the one whosaid, well, is that really the
best we can do?
Is that the best light that wecan provide for people working

(46:09):
in that space?
And that sort of sent us back tothe drawing board.
And actually, in talking with alot a number of people in this
panel, including Eulis, who wasa very valuable partner in this
exercise, we conceived of a newa new way to light the office,
which incorporated both uhelements of near-infrared
spectrum and also uh also bluelight.

(46:30):
And so what we're doing is we'rekind of retrofitting our
existing uh uh uh lamps toincorporate four different
channels of light.
And we've heard, as Stefanmentioned, from some of the
amazing researchers who are partof this session, that that might
not even be enough.
But we thought, okay, we'regonna take that step and use it
as a learning opportunity to seewhat we can learn from this.

(46:51):
And so we've incorporated an 850nanometer uh near-infrared LED
source into that.
Uh, it's just about to befinished, actually.
Probably in the next month orso, we're gonna be able to start
taking measurements and startreally understanding what it is
we're able to provide with thatparticular solution.
But enough of the summary.
I think what I really want tofocus on is what we learned uh
through that process.

(47:12):
So the first thing we learned isthat um there are plentiful
near-infrared LED sourcesavailable.
And actually, lighting suppliersare quite confident in utilizing
those because they use, theythey perform in much the same
way as visible LED lightsources.
So uh in all the in all themanufacturers that we spoke
with, there really wasn't muchtrepidation to using LED sources

(47:35):
for producing near-infraredlight.
Now, I know a number of peopleon this panel uh believe quite
strongly that LED sources maynot be the best sources for
producing near-infrared light,that in fact filament or glowing
light sources may actually bepreferential.
Uh, but one of the things wenoticed, and this is perhaps one
of the barriers to integratingbroad spectrum near infrared
light emission in interiorspaces, is that modern LED

(47:57):
manufacturers just are not verycomfortable with integrating
filaments into their products.
So that could be a potentialbarrier.
Secondly, uh, if you incorporatea bunch of different LED sources
into a light fixture, that's notthe end of the story.
You also need to control those.
You need to provide power to allof those.
And one of the big barriers thatwe found so far is that

(48:18):
manufacturers of othercomponents that go along with
lighting systems, like powersupplies or what we call LED
drivers, um, are just not readyto provide drivers that drive
many different channels of lightwithin a single light fixture.
We see early indications thatthis is probably going to change
next year.
There are already some reallyexciting products coming out
which might allow this a littlebit more easily, but they're not

(48:41):
available yet.
So currently the solutions arequite inefficient.
You end up having three or fourpower supplies to drive a single
light fixture just because youneed enough uh channels of
different control for those LEDsources.
And then finally, controlsystems are the thing that
ultimately are installed in thebuilding and that govern how all
the lights are functioning atany time.
And you may, many of you may befamiliar that in Europe uh the

(49:05):
predominant control methodologyis called the digital
addressable lighting interfaceor DALI, which is predominantly
the systems that are usedthroughout throughout projects
in Europe.
And that system just doesn'ttake account of any light which
is non-visible.
So anytime you add uhnon-visible light sources to
your mix in a in a lightfixture, you have to effectively

(49:26):
kind of trick this the controlsystem into controlling those
light sources, which it doesn'tunderstand natively, which also
involves a certain inefficiency.
So you you end up needing morecontrollers, and that's more
cost and more material.
Uh so at the moment, there justisn't a lot of support for these
kind of light sources in in thatway.
And then from a designerperspective, you know, designers

(49:48):
really love being able tocalculate and predict what
they're gonna get.
But a lot of common tools,software tools that lighting
designers use in our industrysimply don't make use of near
infrared light as part of thecalculation that they allow.
That doesn't mean that itdoesn't exist.
In fact, our group has beenhunting for quite a while now to
try to find softwares which doaccomplish this.

(50:09):
And there are softwares outthere that do.
And one of the things that ourmultidisciplinary team is so
good at is also building, youknow, kind of customized tools
around unique capabilities thatwe want to achieve.
And we've been doing that aswell.
But a lot of these tools thatexist are exist only in research
scenarios.
So there are tools like Radianceor Spios, which is a tool made

(50:30):
by ANSIS, which are used heavilyin research and in really
targeted design of, say,automotive lighting or other
kind of very niche aspects oflighting, but definitely not
used and not really understoodwell in architectural lighting.
And then finally, I'll justtouch on something that Ulyss
mentioned, which is regulation.
One of the biggest barriers toincorporating any non-visible

(50:53):
light into an interior space iscurrent regulation that has been
driven by primarily energyefficiency.
As I'm sure you will understand,any light, any energy that you
use to produce light which isnon-visible is inherently
understood these days as energyinefficiency because we're so
focused on providing light forpeople to see for tasks, for

(51:14):
navigation, for other things.
And any energy spent outside ofthat is considered to be
wasteful.
So we absolutely need toreorient uh you know
policymakers to understand whatUlyss was mentioning earlier uh
about the beneficial impacts ofspending energy in this way.
And I know there are a number ofpeople on the panel, I see Glenn
and Bob and others who are verypassionate about this topic.

(51:35):
So I'm not not, you know, thisis nothing nothing new for me,
but I just want to highlightthat as a topic potentially for
future discussion or fordiscussion in the next phase.
Yeah, I think that's that's itfor me.

SPEAKER_05 (51:49):
James, thank you very much indeed.
Uh well, what a fascinating uhuh hour and uh 12 minutes we've
had.

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