#034 Dr Damien Downing - Daylight Robbery: How Sunlight & Infrared Shape Your Health
Damien Downing practises Ecological Medicine. He qualified from Guys Hospital in 1972 and worked in the UK (neuropsychiatry and general practice) then in the Solomon Islands in the Pacific before returning in 1980 to set up a private practice in nutritional and environmental medicine.
He co-founded the British Society for Nutritional Medicine, and is the current president of its successor, the British Society for Ecological Medicine. Damien also co-founded the Journal of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine in 1990 and was its editor for 20 years. Damien is a Contributing Editor of the Orthomolecular News Service. He is a Medical Supporter of the cancer support charity Yes to Life.
Damien has particular interests in lipids, mitochondria, environmental factors, autonomic tone and photobiomodulation
Damien's 1988 book Daylight Robbery was groundbreaking in highlighting the critical role of sunlight and vitamin D in maintaining health. His next book will build on this foundation, delving deeper into the subject with insights from the latest scientific discoveries.
Damien is the author and/or co-author of the following books:
-Daylight Robbery (1988); translated into French as Le Soleil Vital (2001)
-Why M.E.? (1989)
-The Vitamin Cure for Allergies (2010)
-The Vitamin Cure for Digestive Disorders (2014)
> During our discussion, you’ll discover:
(00:07:43) How the sun’s light affect our body
(00:11:45) How light regulates circadian rhythm
(00:20:49) Supplemental melatonin
(00:25:31) Do we need more melatonin as we age
(00:30:08) Ketogenic diets
(00:32:36) Excess blue light vs the absence of natural light
(00:37:21) How light can relax you naturally
(00:45:22) Methylene Blue
(00:47:59) Structured water
(00:54:23) Zeta potential and EZ water
(01:02:31) How can we optimise our light environment
(01:14:02) Rapid fire questions regarding the health industry
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Transcript
Welcome to the VP Lab Podcast, the show
Speaker:where we bring you actionable health
Speaker:advice from leading minds.
Speaker:I'm your host, Rob, and
Speaker:our guest today is Dr.
Speaker:Damian Downing.
Speaker:Arguably one of the pioneers of
Speaker:functional and
Speaker:integrated medicine in the UK, Dr.
Speaker:Downing joins me for a conversation today
Speaker:about all things light.
Speaker:Expect to learn what the role of light
Speaker:really is in the human body, why morning
Speaker:sunlight is needed to help us get quality
Speaker:sleep, and what mal-illumination is and
Speaker:how we can avoid it.
Speaker:Now, on to the conversation with Dr.
Speaker:Damian Downing.
Speaker:Good morning, Dr.
Speaker:Downing.
Speaker:It's great to finally
Speaker:have you on the podcast.
Speaker:I think this one's been almost a year in
Speaker:the making, so I'm pretty chucked that
Speaker:we're able to finally make it happen.
Speaker:I know today's conversation is going to
Speaker:be enlightening, and yes,
Speaker:that was a terrible pun.
Speaker:I'm sorry, I just had
Speaker:to get it out of the way.
Speaker:Anyway, before we dive in, would you mind
Speaker:just giving us an intro, who you are, how
Speaker:you got in the world as ecological and
Speaker:functional medicine?
Speaker:So obviously, I'm a doctor.
Speaker:Way back in the early 80s, I discovered
Speaker:about nutrition, basically,
Speaker:and then about food allergy.
Speaker:And I set up a laboratory doing food
Speaker:allergy testing, the
Speaker:first one in Britain.
Speaker:And then a few of us got together and
Speaker:founded a society which is now the
Speaker:British Society for Ecological Medicine,
Speaker:which I'm currently the president.
Speaker:We describe ecological medicine as being
Speaker:a systems approach to health, looking at
Speaker:the interactions between the individual
Speaker:and the environment.
Speaker:So inputs from the environment are things
Speaker:like nutrition, obviously, toxins,
Speaker:increasingly environmental pollution, of
Speaker:course, and also general lifestyles,
Speaker:stresses, and so on.
Speaker:OK,
Speaker:then in the middle of the 80s, I
Speaker:discovered the work of John Ott,
Speaker:who's the guy who discovered, described
Speaker:the problem of malillumination.
Speaker:That's a fascinating sort of story, Dr.
Speaker:Darning, and I'd definitely like to chat
Speaker:to you a bit more about the food allergy
Speaker:testing a little later on, maybe.
Speaker:OK, so we've obviously
Speaker:worked together in the past.
Speaker:Well, I mean, you've kindly listened and
Speaker:I've talked about the
Speaker:chemistry that nobody cares about.
Speaker:However, I think maybe what drew me to
Speaker:you as a practitioner was your MO, your
Speaker:your modus operandi.
Speaker:You have a very systems-based approach to
Speaker:medicine, which
Speaker:you've already alluded to,
Speaker:even within the sort of the functional
Speaker:and integrated space.
Speaker:And by that, I mean, again, as you've
Speaker:alluded to, you really do start with the
Speaker:basics, focusing on nutrition,
Speaker:mitochondria, lifestyle and, well,
Speaker:today's conversation, which
Speaker:is which is really about life.
Speaker:Now, of course, we're here to discuss
Speaker:what these photons of energy are and why
Speaker:we need them in their natural state, of
Speaker:course, to be healthy.
Speaker:However, I'd like to quickly rabbit-holt
Speaker:that's OK and discuss your your
Speaker:forthcoming book, which
Speaker:which I think which you very kindly sent
Speaker:me the some notes on in
Speaker:preparation for this podcast.
Speaker:Again, maybe it's just the
Speaker:the want to be author in me.
Speaker:And it's but it's also
Speaker:a question I asked Dr.
Speaker:Jenny Goodman earlier on the year.
Speaker:But what drove you to write it?
Speaker:And why in particular did you choose to
Speaker:focus on light as a topic?
Speaker:OK, so way back in the 80s, I wrote a
Speaker:book called Daylight Robbery, The
Speaker:Importance of Sunlight to Health.
Speaker:And that was really based
Speaker:on the work of John Ott,
Speaker:who's the guy who made time lapse films
Speaker:of plants flowering and that kind of
Speaker:thing for Walt Disney.
Speaker:And you can still see some of
Speaker:his work on the Disney Channel.
Speaker:And the story goes that this
Speaker:back in the late 50s, really,
Speaker:he was getting a bit, you
Speaker:know, rickety and arthritic.
Speaker:And so he used an old bicycle to go down
Speaker:the bottom of the garden
Speaker:and that kind of thing.
Speaker:And then one day he broke his glasses and
Speaker:didn't have a spare pair.
Speaker:So it was without for a few days.
Speaker:After a few days, he suddenly noticed
Speaker:that his arthritis had gone.
Speaker:And so he's so excited, he rushed
Speaker:upstairs, we hadn't been able to do for
Speaker:several years and told his wife.
Speaker:And from then on, he went on to look at
Speaker:the effects of light in all
Speaker:sorts of things on people,
Speaker:on diseases and people, on animals,
Speaker:described a lot of things with animals.
Speaker:I think the most remarkable one was that
Speaker:some animals who normally in captivity,
Speaker:they could be very aggressive, like male
Speaker:rabbits, for instance, and also minks,
Speaker:minks were undertaken notoriously nasty.
Speaker:But he put them in the right light, which
Speaker:then they come from a, you know, a cold
Speaker:northern place, is quite a blue light,
Speaker:and they become friendly little animals
Speaker:and won't savage your fingers at all.
Speaker:So it's clear that there was an influence
Speaker:there of light, a very big one.
Speaker:And what he figured out is firstly that
Speaker:we're all deprived of
Speaker:light because we moved indoors.
Speaker:And obviously, light is the
Speaker:environment we evolved in.
Speaker:But we deprived ourselves of it.
Speaker:And secondly, he figured out that we're
Speaker:getting bad light, bad
Speaker:vibes from our devices.
Speaker:This is before we even
Speaker:invented the smartphone.
Speaker:But he got clearly thinking he saw
Speaker:problems coming from lighting
Speaker:installations in the ceiling, from
Speaker:cordless phones and from TVs.
Speaker:Fair enough.
Speaker:And obviously, that's what they
Speaker:introduced to write the book.
Speaker:Yeah, I do like the sort of
Speaker:the thoughts about rabbits.
Speaker:I grew up with rabbits
Speaker:as sort of family pets.
Speaker:And yeah, and I, yeah, I often think, to
Speaker:quote BX-Trix Potter, that Mr.
Speaker:McGregor had a ride.
Speaker:They're probably best found in pies.
Speaker:They are vicious, nasty creatures, at
Speaker:least from my experience of them.
Speaker:And I'm surprised I
Speaker:haven't ended up with tularemia.
Speaker:I'll tell my mother that she's got to
Speaker:sort of stick her rabbits into his
Speaker:sunlight when she brings them in at all
Speaker:something to that extent.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:anyway,
Speaker:yeah, no, it's definitely something I'm
Speaker:looking forward to reading
Speaker:and for the book, of course.
Speaker:And yeah, I think maybe we could jump
Speaker:into light specifically now.
Speaker:Now, the way I understand it, half the
Speaker:sun's energy is non visible.
Speaker:And then sort of infrared light makes up
Speaker:sort of the other 10% ish.
Speaker:Well, excuse me, infrared light is, I
Speaker:think I've got this
Speaker:right, just half the light.
Speaker:Infrared, you know, rough figures, 50%.
Speaker:And then depends on your climate.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And then 10% is coming from ultraviolet.
Speaker:I think that's correct.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And the rest visible, which is just 40%.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Can you explain how these frequencies
Speaker:interact with our bodies at a cellular
Speaker:level, and why they're important in the
Speaker:context of this conversation?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So in terms of, okay, that's what hits
Speaker:the earth from the sun.
Speaker:The next thing you need to know is that
Speaker:green stuff, green spaces, plants,
Speaker:leaves, that kind of thing reflects the
Speaker:near infrared in quite a big way.
Speaker:To the extent that if you're in a park or
Speaker:a forest or whatever, and it's probably
Speaker:why forest bathing is good for you.
Speaker:The light coming into your eyes, there'll
Speaker:be five times as much infrared,
Speaker:near infrared, in
Speaker:particular, as there is visible.
Speaker:But obviously, you don't see it and you
Speaker:don't really feel it.
Speaker:So presumably, that is why, you know,
Speaker:green stuff is good for us,
Speaker:and we like it, and so forth.
Speaker:And then the infrared also
Speaker:has some special properties.
Speaker:The first is that it
Speaker:penetrates very well into our bodies.
Speaker:And we can,
Speaker:things like the cerebrospinal fluid in
Speaker:our brain, and the amniotic fluid in a
Speaker:pregnant uterus, they
Speaker:transmit that infrared very well.
Speaker:And lots of other things transmitted
Speaker:around so that we got our
Speaker:numbers wrong on infrared.
Speaker:And in fact, it seems that about 70% of
Speaker:your cells, if you're an adult, will be
Speaker:receiving some of that near infrared.
Speaker:And if you're a child, and therefore
Speaker:smaller and so forth,
Speaker:it's 100% of your cells.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And then when it gets there, the next
Speaker:thing is that infrared has some
Speaker:particular properties,
Speaker:has a particular resonance.
Speaker:The one that everybody knows about, which
Speaker:is thought to be, well, thought by some
Speaker:people, to be the way that infrared light
Speaker:works, is that it interacts with complex
Speaker:four of the electron
Speaker:transport chain in the mitochondria.
Speaker:So it's a key part of energy production
Speaker:in every cell in the body.
Speaker:And that does seem to be
Speaker:true that that happens.
Speaker:But there is also an interaction or
Speaker:several interactions
Speaker:with water in the body.
Speaker:And since 99.9% of the molecules in your
Speaker:body are by number are water molecules,
Speaker:there's a lot of scope for that kind of
Speaker:interaction could go on everywhere.
Speaker:Would that ends with where light works at
Speaker:complex four, would that be working on
Speaker:cytochrome C oxidase?
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And that's the enzyme that then helps to
Speaker:produce energy in the form of oxidative
Speaker:phosphorylation or ATP.
Speaker:Is that correct?
Speaker:Yes, it is.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I think, Dr.
Speaker:Darning, I'd love to also dig into a bit
Speaker:about how light specifically helps to
Speaker:regulate our circadian rhythms, because I
Speaker:do feel that's often
Speaker:overlooked by a lot of people.
Speaker:It's taken for granted that we need
Speaker:sunlight, but how and why is light
Speaker:important for regulating our circadian
Speaker:rhythms, especially in the morning?
Speaker:And then how does that then play a role
Speaker:in the way our bodies operate?
Speaker:Right, okay.
Speaker:I have to go back a bit.
Speaker:And we have to talk about melatonin.
Speaker:Ah, yes.
Speaker:Okay, can we do it that way?
Speaker:Okay, perfect.
Speaker:Yes, definitely.
Speaker:Got a few questions there.
Speaker:Okay,
Speaker:so we thought that when I wrote Denite
Speaker:Robbery, we thought that melatonin was
Speaker:stuff that was produced
Speaker:by the pineal at night.
Speaker:And some of it got into the brain and
Speaker:helped you to sleep.
Speaker:And maybe it was also an antioxidant.
Speaker:Now we've had to completely reframe that
Speaker:because melatonin is as old as oxygen.
Speaker:This is old as
Speaker:mitochondria, in fact, really.
Speaker:And it's been, as they say, it's been
Speaker:evolutionarily conserved,
Speaker:you know, we obviously need it.
Speaker:Clearly, its main purpose
Speaker:is to, is as an antioxidant.
Speaker:And particularly in the mitochondria,
Speaker:because what are the costs of the,
Speaker:like, mitochondria, use oxygen and
Speaker:produce ATP, is that there's a bit of a
Speaker:percent, it's not perfect.
Speaker:So there's a bit of
Speaker:percentage fallout from it.
Speaker:So we always produce some oxidative
Speaker:radical oxidizing radicals
Speaker:by that process.
Speaker:Those being reactive
Speaker:oxygen species, is that correct?
Speaker:Yeah, correct.
Speaker:Yeah. And so the amazing thing is that
Speaker:melatonin is produced when it's needed,
Speaker:where it's needed, which is predominantly
Speaker:in the mitochondria.
Speaker:And just the fact of producing the ATP
Speaker:will trigger the production of melatonin.
Speaker:It's a kind of an
Speaker:automatic process there.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So
Speaker:when we need that most for the whole
Speaker:body, we need it when we're active.
Speaker:And so the way it's supposed to work, in
Speaker:the morning, bright light, particularly
Speaker:blue light, or high energy visible, as we
Speaker:call it, blue and green, hitting the
Speaker:eyes, sends a signal to the brain.
Speaker:This is the suprachiasmatic nucleus we
Speaker:don't need to get
Speaker:into the technicalities.
Speaker:Sends a signal to the brain, it's wake up
Speaker:time, time to do some activity.
Speaker:And so that switches off the brain cycle
Speaker:of melatonin, which we'll come to in a
Speaker:moment, and switches on
Speaker:the whole body activity.
Speaker:And you can make that work even better by
Speaker:some reasonably vigorous exercise for
Speaker:something like 20 minutes in the morning,
Speaker:because that will activate your whole
Speaker:body production of melatonin.
Speaker:And we can record that from
Speaker:the blood level of melatonin.
Speaker:But the stuff in the
Speaker:blood is the spillover.
Speaker:It's the stuff that's left over.
Speaker:I mean, it may be a good idea that it
Speaker:goes around everywhere in the body.
Speaker:It's the stuff that hasn't been used in
Speaker:the cells, and particularly in the
Speaker:mitochondria, to mop up free radicals.
Speaker:Now, the brain is different.
Speaker:Because the brain is about 2% of body
Speaker:weight, but it uses about
Speaker:20% of the energy molecules,
Speaker:it is so intensive that it has to have a
Speaker:special system for this.
Speaker:And basically, that
Speaker:happens when you sleep.
Speaker:So what happens when you sleep is that
Speaker:your body is effectively paralyzed,
Speaker:except for all the bits
Speaker:like breathing, of course.
Speaker:And that prevents you,
Speaker:you know, burning up,
Speaker:doing adrenaline driven stuff.
Speaker:And in the brain, the pineal switches on,
Speaker:and it pumps melatonin right into the
Speaker:third ventricle in the
Speaker:middle of the brain there.
Speaker:And from there, it diffuses all around in
Speaker:the cerebrospinal fluid, and
Speaker:then into the brain tissue.
Speaker:And at that point, it also it connects
Speaker:with what we call the glymphatic system,
Speaker:right, which is the kind of the lymphatic
Speaker:system of the brain.
Speaker:And what happens with that is that, at
Speaker:this point, synchronized
Speaker:with the melatonin delivery,
Speaker:you start pumping fluid and toxins and so
Speaker:forth, waste products, out of the cells
Speaker:into the extracellular fluid there, and
Speaker:particularly into these glymphatics,
Speaker:which are paravascular.
Speaker:So every vein, every artery in the brain
Speaker:there has an outer tube around it.
Speaker:And there's a flow
Speaker:through that of the water.
Speaker:And also there's an in, but it is around
Speaker:the arteries as well.
Speaker:And so the flow there is pumped by the
Speaker:contraction of, by the pressure wave
Speaker:going through the artery, or when it also
Speaker:pumps the stuff outside there.
Speaker:And that, of course, is the problem with,
Speaker:you know, if your blood pressure goes up,
Speaker:so is all the time your blood pressure is
Speaker:high, there's less room
Speaker:for pressure variation.
Speaker:So the pumping action is impaired.
Speaker:But so the are the para arterial vessels
Speaker:pump cerebrospinal fluid, rich in
Speaker:melatonin at that point into the brain
Speaker:and melatonin acts as does, or
Speaker:does ever, as an antioxidant.
Speaker:And then the output circle is that the
Speaker:the paravascular, paravenus
Speaker:glymphatic system pumps a load of fluid
Speaker:with no toxins and so
Speaker:forth out of the brain.
Speaker:And then it connects with the main
Speaker:lymphatic system of the
Speaker:body, but only when it comes out.
Speaker:A lot of that goes through the nose here
Speaker:and connects with the tonsils, which are
Speaker:reasonably described as the the toilet of
Speaker:the brain, or the drain
Speaker:of the brain, if you like.
Speaker:And so that's sending the because one of
Speaker:the points of the lymphatic system is not
Speaker:only does a there's a route for bad stuff
Speaker:to go out, but it delivers that bad
Speaker:stuff, the cells and the molecules to the
Speaker:lymphatic system to lymph nodes here and
Speaker:everywhere in the body.
Speaker:That's where the immune system gets this
Speaker:information about what
Speaker:it's got to deal with
Speaker:and can get activated
Speaker:appropriately as necessary.
Speaker:So all that stuff comes out.
Speaker:So it's a beautifully coordinated system.
Speaker:And it happens naturally when you sleep
Speaker:and particularly deep sleep, level four.
Speaker:So that is why you can't detox your brain
Speaker:and think or do stuff at the same time.
Speaker:Yeah, that's fascinating.
Speaker:And it sort of it does just show the
Speaker:importance of getting that of why it's
Speaker:important to get that natural light first
Speaker:in the morning to sort of well to start
Speaker:that system going, I suppose.
Speaker:I mean, what's your saying?
Speaker:A good night's sleep
Speaker:starts the morning before.
Speaker:Dr.
Speaker:Darling, yeah, what are your thoughts on
Speaker:supplemental melatonin?
Speaker:I mean, everyone and their uncle has an
Speaker:opinion of this, obviously.
Speaker:I fall into the camp where I don't
Speaker:necessarily think it's a bad thing.
Speaker:And I definitely utilized it and found
Speaker:that there's really no
Speaker:detriment, at least for me.
Speaker:I don't notice that there's any sort of
Speaker:negative feedback loop that seems to sort
Speaker:of exist, again, subjectively.
Speaker:And I do find, yeah, that it definitely
Speaker:helps recovery in terms of aches and
Speaker:pains and far more so than playing around
Speaker:with things like lapisarcoma glutathione,
Speaker:which I think most people associate with
Speaker:being the body's master antioxidant.
Speaker:Obviously, there's definitely, as I
Speaker:mentioned, there's some controversy
Speaker:around it, especially in the UK, where
Speaker:it's not available over the counter.
Speaker:And, but yeah, do you think that
Speaker:supplemental melatonin is something that
Speaker:should be looked at more
Speaker:freely or is it an issue?
Speaker:Well, it's a slightly
Speaker:complicated question.
Speaker:Firstly,
Speaker:you can boost your own melatonin
Speaker:production with red near infrared light.
Speaker:And that clearly is
Speaker:the that clearly works.
Speaker:Now, it's been shown to work.
Speaker:We don't have enough studies yet to say
Speaker:how good how much so
Speaker:forth you need to do.
Speaker:But I mean, you could just, well,
Speaker:actually, let's start from your point
Speaker:there that first thing you
Speaker:need is a good night's sleep.
Speaker:Second thing you need or that can help is
Speaker:sunlight and or red light to boost your
Speaker:own production of melatonin.
Speaker:And the paper that showed this was a
Speaker:study on young athletes,
Speaker:and they gave them a red light, one of
Speaker:those whole body red light maps,
Speaker:and take half an hour of
Speaker:that late in the evening.
Speaker:And then after a couple of weeks, they
Speaker:measured their
Speaker:melatonin levels in the morning.
Speaker:So we don't know exactly what was
Speaker:happening in that one.
Speaker:But we can see that there was an effect
Speaker:that melatonin came up, their sleep
Speaker:improved, and their athletic performance
Speaker:improved, compared to controls.
Speaker:So it obviously works.
Speaker:We just don't know all
Speaker:the parameters properly yet.
Speaker:But I as to taking the supplements of
Speaker:melatonin, well, it's clear that small
Speaker:doses like, you know, three, four
Speaker:milligrams, that kind of thing can have a
Speaker:definite effect taken last thing at night
Speaker:and help with sleep and so forth.
Speaker:But it's also interesting that people
Speaker:with cancers seem to tolerate a huge
Speaker:amount more of melatonin without
Speaker:completely zonking out.
Speaker:And presumably that is because there's a
Speaker:lot of justification for melatonin.
Speaker:There's a lot of stuff there that
Speaker:melatonin can help to mop up.
Speaker:So people have given people with cancer
Speaker:10s, 40, 50 milligrams several times a
Speaker:day and got benefits with it.
Speaker:But what they don't do is don't give it
Speaker:at night, because then it's going to, if
Speaker:you, you know, dim
Speaker:your attention to body,
Speaker:you want it all to be directed there.
Speaker:So I don't think that, you know, I
Speaker:haven't yet seen, I
Speaker:suppose, I haven't yet seen
Speaker:a real bad effect from taking
Speaker:supplemental melatonin.
Speaker:But in a way, it's not fixing the the
Speaker:real problem, is it?
Speaker:No, of course.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's, again, just
Speaker:another patch to sort of, well,
Speaker:I do find, yeah, again, anecdotally,
Speaker:that's quite effective.
Speaker:What about as we get older?
Speaker:I know this starts to sound a bit woo and
Speaker:a bit out there, but it definitely does
Speaker:seem to be something, at least from my
Speaker:view of the literature, that as we age,
Speaker:there's some
Speaker:calcification of that pineal gland.
Speaker:Do you think there's a case to be made
Speaker:that as we get older, and our 50s, 60s,
Speaker:70s, 80s, etc., that maybe a low dose of
Speaker:melatonin, even if it's just a dose that
Speaker:is equivalent to what's produced in the
Speaker:body, so sort of 0.3 to 0.5 milligrams,
Speaker:is that maybe an effective strategy that
Speaker:people should maybe think about,
Speaker:especially from a
Speaker:controlling oxidative stress?
Speaker:Well, if it's brain you're after, you
Speaker:know, brain where the problem is, then,
Speaker:yes, and I mean, if you're thinking about
Speaker:pineal, but remember, the pineal doesn't
Speaker:really have much to do with whole body
Speaker:melatonin, so if it's non-brain, then I
Speaker:don't see the point.
Speaker:I've often given it, when I've
Speaker:put it on a longish term basis, I've
Speaker:always told people to leave it off for a
Speaker:couple of days, and like, for instance,
Speaker:take it Monday to Friday, leave it off at
Speaker:weekends, and that seems to allow the
Speaker:dial to reset, so you don't become
Speaker:tolerant of it, you know,
Speaker:you don't get used to it.
Speaker:Yeah, that makes sense, and I suppose it
Speaker:almost sort of starts to talk to a bigger
Speaker:question about sort of calcification of
Speaker:the pineal gland, and why we exclude,
Speaker:well, not maybe historically, but I think
Speaker:there's been an interest in recent years
Speaker:about sort of getting rid of all phytic
Speaker:acid in the diet, and to the point where
Speaker:we are, yeah, I mean, ask any carnivore
Speaker:going, and they'll sit there and sort of
Speaker:preach the values of never ingesting any
Speaker:form of phytic acid, but I do find it
Speaker:interesting that, yeah, that by getting
Speaker:rid of these, I suppose what we would
Speaker:call these natural additions to our
Speaker:appetite, that we actually may be doing
Speaker:some level of damage to cells, to organs,
Speaker:and our bodies like the pineal gland,
Speaker:where maybe it's becoming, they're
Speaker:becoming calcified, because we're not
Speaker:getting enough phytic acid in our diets.
Speaker:No, you have a point there.
Speaker:I mean, I have to say, I still got to say
Speaker:that, you know, we wouldn't start, for
Speaker:many things, with phytic acid, you have
Speaker:to start with sugar.
Speaker:Sugar?
Speaker:Like, sugar is the thing that is most bad
Speaker:for you, most destructive of immune
Speaker:systems and health in general.
Speaker:Oh, okay, from that perspective, yeah,
Speaker:no, there's an interesting, I don't know
Speaker:how much of the online dietary
Speaker:space you follow, but there's
Speaker:slowly a shift happening to following a
Speaker:very high sugar, a very low fat diets, I
Speaker:think one of them is
Speaker:called the snake diet.
Speaker:And the idea is that by increasing, not
Speaker:just carbohydrates, but sugar intake, in
Speaker:its entirety, you can lose a lot of
Speaker:weight purely because you are able to get
Speaker:the, you're able to bypass a lot of the
Speaker:dysfunction that we see in, in
Speaker:mitochondria today, where there's this
Speaker:sort of elevated CER response in the sort
Speaker:of an inability to burn fat.
Speaker:And a lot of people are now utilizing
Speaker:very high sugar intakes to just improve
Speaker:energy intake and to improve weight loss
Speaker:because you aren't being met by this sort
Speaker:of inability to burn fatty acids.
Speaker:Mechanistically, it does make sense.
Speaker:But then, as you pointed out,
Speaker:you're going to end up with a lot of
Speaker:inflammatory signaling further down,
Speaker:increased levels of AGEs, increased
Speaker:levels of oxidative stress.
Speaker:And so, yeah, not to mention the issues
Speaker:that would arise with gut issues.
Speaker:Quite.
Speaker:So, yeah.
Speaker:You've made my case for me.
Speaker:Yeah, no.
Speaker:The whole diet thing I
Speaker:do go forth and back on.
Speaker:Where do you, a bit of a tangent maybe,
Speaker:but where do you currently stand on
Speaker:ketogenic diets and their
Speaker:efficacy with long term use?
Speaker:Well, I would say with the large majority
Speaker:of people, it is beneficial to move
Speaker:somewhat in the ketogenic direction.
Speaker:But I mean, the thing that people have
Speaker:said about diets for ages is that you
Speaker:shouldn't, it shouldn't be a diet that
Speaker:you go on until you've lost
Speaker:the weight or lost it, whatever,
Speaker:and then you abandon.
Speaker:It should be a lifestyle change.
Speaker:And you see, that's the thing you have to
Speaker:bear in mind that our
Speaker:lives have changed so much.
Speaker:There used to be that we
Speaker:had basic healthy food,
Speaker:some meat, a lot of veg and hardly any
Speaker:grains and so forth.
Speaker:Now we've got huge amounts of ultra
Speaker:processed food and so on and so forth.
Speaker:You need to readjust that balance.
Speaker:And I think it's the same with sunlight.
Speaker:We become so deprived of natural sunlight
Speaker:and so exposed to unnatural light and
Speaker:electromagnetic fields, wavelength,
Speaker:particularly, you know, all
Speaker:these devices around us here,
Speaker:and so forth.
Speaker:You've got to, you know, you've got to
Speaker:reset that first before
Speaker:you can get anywhere else.
Speaker:How was that for a segue?
Speaker:That's perfect.
Speaker:And it brings us straight back on track.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:I was I was just
Speaker:about to get there myself.
Speaker:So yeah, no, I couldn't
Speaker:really put it any better myself.
Speaker:I think, just to close that point up,
Speaker:it's interesting when you follow people
Speaker:in the online space that most of them
Speaker:start with an extreme view, whether
Speaker:eating just vegetables or just meat.
Speaker:Then at the end of the day, they always
Speaker:slowly start to come back to center and
Speaker:then sort of follow fairly well
Speaker:structured omnivorous diet.
Speaker:We'll have to have the carbohydrate
Speaker:discussion another day.
Speaker:Yeah, I think, yeah, let's get back to
Speaker:light and this
Speaker:concept of mal-illumination.
Speaker:To start off with, and I know we touched
Speaker:on where it was first coined and where
Speaker:John Ott came into the picture.
Speaker:With this artificial light side of
Speaker:things, do you think it's the excess blue
Speaker:light that's creating the issue?
Speaker:Or is it the absence of natural light
Speaker:that's maybe the primary driver there?
Speaker:Yeah, no, you're right.
Speaker:I mean, it is logical that blue light,
Speaker:particularly at night and so forth, where
Speaker:it's designed to be a wake up trigger in
Speaker:the morning, if you're getting it at
Speaker:night, there's a pretty good chance that
Speaker:it will disturb your sleep.
Speaker:But it isn't really, it certainly isn't
Speaker:that blue light is
Speaker:essentially harmful for us.
Speaker:It is that blue light is meant to be
Speaker:balanced with that much
Speaker:larger amount of the infrared.
Speaker:And it just isn't.
Speaker:People like Russell Wright, who's big in
Speaker:the melatonin field, makes the point that
Speaker:as we moved indoors and come to depend on
Speaker:electric light, we've deprived ourselves
Speaker:of visible light a lot, but much more
Speaker:we've deprived ourselves of the infrared.
Speaker:And for a start, you remember the old
Speaker:light balm, so we can't use it.
Speaker:In-condescence, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:the reason why you can now get a three
Speaker:watt or whatever bulb that does the work,
Speaker:that used to need a 60 watt one, is that
Speaker:all that extra energy was
Speaker:going to heat to infrared.
Speaker:And so we were getting from the lights
Speaker:and so forth, we were getting infrared.
Speaker:And probably also he's right, in a way we
Speaker:were kind of designed
Speaker:to sit around a campfire.
Speaker:In the main thing, you know, you are all
Speaker:facing a campfire, around a circle,
Speaker:around the campfire, you're all facing
Speaker:the fire, you're all got your chest and
Speaker:your heart and so on, particularly it's
Speaker:open to the campfire.
Speaker:There's a nice bit of vagal
Speaker:stimulus from the infrared there.
Speaker:And then if you start doing a bit of
Speaker:communal singing or
Speaker:whatever, it gets even better.
Speaker:You know, it's perfect,
Speaker:vagal work, shall we say.
Speaker:And we've lost that as well.
Speaker:Yeah, that's an interesting point.
Speaker:And I'll quickly before I
Speaker:forget, there is some data from
Speaker:Yugi Nakashima.
Speaker:He's an engineer and I think he's worked,
Speaker:obviously out of Japan with a name like
Speaker:that, but he's worked at Caltech.
Speaker:And he's done some initial
Speaker:experimentation looking in, well, he's
Speaker:done a few studies actually, and we can
Speaker:link them in the show notes in the
Speaker:podcast showing that high levels of blue
Speaker:light does seem to have a negative effect
Speaker:on the skin and that it can increase,
Speaker:well, oxidative stress in the dermis and
Speaker:drive up ROS and that there's obviously,
Speaker:from that point onwards, a negative
Speaker:association between, well, obviously that
Speaker:blue light and then various skin
Speaker:conditions, excuse me,
Speaker:and obviously people with psoriasis,
Speaker:eczema, according to his research anyway,
Speaker:may benefit from just
Speaker:less blue light exposure.
Speaker:Yeah, but they also benefit as, you know,
Speaker:every cosmetic doc you come across has a
Speaker:room full of different red, infrared
Speaker:masks and things like that
Speaker:for the face because they work.
Speaker:Yeah, so again, you can fix that not by
Speaker:depriving yourself of blue light so much
Speaker:as by giving yourself decent infrared.
Speaker:Get it from the sun, get it from a green
Speaker:space, possibly just as good.
Speaker:Yeah, no, it just proves the fact that I
Speaker:think ultimately we just need
Speaker:to get out into the sunlight.
Speaker:You raised an interesting point, which
Speaker:is, I suppose, the topic of this whole
Speaker:conversation, get out into the sunlight.
Speaker:You raised an interesting point earlier
Speaker:about the vagus nerve and light and I
Speaker:know you work a lot with light in your
Speaker:practice, having visited you myself and I
Speaker:know that you, excuse me, I know that you
Speaker:also talk a lot about calming the nervous
Speaker:system down and we've discussed things
Speaker:like stellate ganglion blocks in the past
Speaker:and looking at ways to regulate the
Speaker:nervous system in that respect.
Speaker:Now, would you be open to elaborating on
Speaker:how light can help to get you into more,
Speaker:get this right, parasympathetic state?
Speaker:I think it's got to do with the stellate
Speaker:ganglion, but I'm maybe incorrect.
Speaker:That's a bit of a one-off, the stellate,
Speaker:but it's an interesting story.
Speaker:The stellate ganglion is really just a
Speaker:collection of bundles and nerves in the
Speaker:sympathetic immune system, the
Speaker:sympathetic nervous system that basically
Speaker:runs all runs down here.
Speaker:And so it's a fusion of the sympathetic
Speaker:nerves coming out of the
Speaker:fifth and sixth cervical.
Speaker:And
Speaker:20% of people don't even have one.
Speaker:But you're telling me that.
Speaker:There's a technique that they've used for
Speaker:years, that amesotis use and so forth.
Speaker:If you pump local anaesthetic into the
Speaker:sympathetic nervous system via the
Speaker:stellate ganglion, you can treat things
Speaker:like excessive sweating and also
Speaker:tachyaglutamism, you know, heart running
Speaker:too fast and bad rhythm.
Speaker:Which is kind of quite surprising in
Speaker:itself, but it does work.
Speaker:But it has also been shown now that you
Speaker:can do the same thing with red light.
Speaker:So all you need to do is put it there,
Speaker:put the red light there,
Speaker:and you get the same effect.
Speaker:Presumably because you're dealing there
Speaker:with kind of unhealthy
Speaker:cells of the nervous system
Speaker:in general.
Speaker:And what we do know that rare infrared
Speaker:does, it just makes
Speaker:everything work that bit better.
Speaker:Probably biocidochromacy oxidase and also
Speaker:the virus effects on water and a whole
Speaker:bunch of other stuff too.
Speaker:What also strikes me about that is if you
Speaker:put a mark there, yeah you can get the
Speaker:stellate ganglion, which is around here,
Speaker:but the vagus nerve is
Speaker:going down there as well.
Speaker:So you can probably get that.
Speaker:And if you irradiate both the vagus and
Speaker:the sympathetic, then presumably they'll
Speaker:both work better and you'll be in a
Speaker:better kind of harmony.
Speaker:At the same time, what
Speaker:else is here is the thyroid.
Speaker:I was about to say exactly that, yeah.
Speaker:And there's several studies showing that
Speaker:with not very much irradiation with near
Speaker:infrared and red of the thyroid, you can
Speaker:improve the production of thyroid hormone
Speaker:and you can actually treat Hashimoto's
Speaker:thyroiditis, which is the commonest
Speaker:autoimmune disease there is, and which is
Speaker:the cause of 95% of
Speaker:underactive thyroid production.
Speaker:You can improve that.
Speaker:You can even damp down the antibody
Speaker:levels and the benefit lasts for months.
Speaker:So take that on.
Speaker:I mean how much else could you treat with
Speaker:autoimmune diseases and so forth?
Speaker:But stick a light on there.
Speaker:I mean fantastic effects.
Speaker:Yeah, no, it's definitely a modality that
Speaker:more people need to be aware of.
Speaker:And like you said, you don't
Speaker:need fancy bits of equipment.
Speaker:A simple basic red
Speaker:light panel will suffice.
Speaker:Have you looked into
Speaker:these red light IVs at all?
Speaker:They're definitely popping up and...
Speaker:IVs?
Speaker:Yes, have you come across them at all?
Speaker:Yeah, I do use IV
Speaker:lasers of all colors, really.
Speaker:Okay, intervene directly.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker:Is that light actually, I mean obviously
Speaker:that there are photons of light, but is
Speaker:that sort of moving through circulation
Speaker:beyond just the point to which it's being
Speaker:introduced to the body?
Speaker:Oh yes, yeah.
Speaker:I mean, just do it straight and it
Speaker:certainly is picked up by the molecules
Speaker:in the blood and transported all around.
Speaker:You can even do that with...
Speaker:Oh, I've got one on here, this thing.
Speaker:And what we used to call the laser watch,
Speaker:which just shines
Speaker:light into the veins here.
Speaker:And that carries it all around the body.
Speaker:And that certainly
Speaker:has a beneficial effect.
Speaker:If you want to get more power,
Speaker:more impact, you can use
Speaker:photoactivator molecules.
Speaker:The most popularly safest ones are
Speaker:riboflavin, vinvinibitu and curcumin.
Speaker:And you can probably have...
Speaker:We talked now about this as antimicrobial
Speaker:photodynamic therapy.
Speaker:And you can get
Speaker:results on all sorts of it.
Speaker:The guys, they published some papers
Speaker:showing that this can work really well on
Speaker:infections like COVID.
Speaker:There's slightly different techniques
Speaker:with COVID, but I think really most
Speaker:infections can respond to this and
Speaker:they can't become resistant.
Speaker:This is a problem.
Speaker:So, I mean, what I'm
Speaker:looking at now, this is,
Speaker:not stuff for people to
Speaker:do themselves, obviously.
Speaker:I'm looking at things like Lyme disease,
Speaker:Borrelia and the other bugs there, which
Speaker:people end up on antibiotics for weeks,
Speaker:which is not a great thing.
Speaker:And so you can combine the antibiotic
Speaker:therapy with the photodynamic therapy.
Speaker:I think you can achieve
Speaker:the same result much better.
Speaker:Well, there's evidence that you can.
Speaker:Yeah, I think there's
Speaker:antibiotic therapies.
Speaker:Obviously, they have their place.
Speaker:But when people start to run them for
Speaker:months, if not years on end, you're
Speaker:ultimately going to end up with, God
Speaker:knows how many other issues, all sorts of
Speaker:bad fungal infections
Speaker:developing, et cetera.
Speaker:Obviously, we can't have a conversation
Speaker:about photodynamic substances and
Speaker:photoelectric substances without touching
Speaker:on methylene blue, which is definitely in
Speaker:vogue at the moment.
Speaker:Now, I think that it is an
Speaker:incredibly useful compound.
Speaker:I think that there is something to be
Speaker:said about it causing disruptions in
Speaker:people with already healthy functioning
Speaker:electron transport chains.
Speaker:And that has probably been used a bit too
Speaker:willy-nilly to be blunt about it.
Speaker:However, as a tool, I think it's
Speaker:incredibly effective.
Speaker:I do, again, especially at the doses that
Speaker:some people are starting to take it out,
Speaker:worry that you start to inhibit certain
Speaker:enzymes like MAO, which can maybe create
Speaker:issues with histamine and
Speaker:other similar reactions.
Speaker:What do you think about methylene blue at
Speaker:the moment, just broadly speaking?
Speaker:It took me a while to be persuaded of the
Speaker:merits of methylene blue,
Speaker:but I did come around to it.
Speaker:And I pretty much agree with all you say.
Speaker:I mean, it's the first
Speaker:ever synthetic drug, really.
Speaker:And it's not a naturally
Speaker:occurring thing in the body.
Speaker:So it's not, it's not also
Speaker:molecular in the strict term.
Speaker:But nonetheless, it does have some
Speaker:remarkable properties.
Speaker:And of course,
Speaker:red light and lasers would activate
Speaker:methylene blue as well, vice versa.
Speaker:And there are a lot of circumstances in
Speaker:which it may be beneficial to shift more
Speaker:electrons around the body.
Speaker:But actually, it's a case of, as the
Speaker:Irish say, if I was going there, I
Speaker:wouldn't start from here.
Speaker:What you should be starting with is the
Speaker:sunlight, having its interaction with
Speaker:structured water and enabling the general
Speaker:flow of electrons around the body and the
Speaker:zeta potential, the negative charge that
Speaker:keeps our blood cells apart.
Speaker:That's a perfect answer.
Speaker:And again, you're setting
Speaker:up my segues for me today.
Speaker:The next thing I want
Speaker:to talk about is water.
Speaker:Now, I know there's this synergy between
Speaker:light and water,
Speaker:specifically structured water.
Speaker:And I think most people would likely
Speaker:agree with this, at least from an
Speaker:intuitive standpoint.
Speaker:Before we sort of dig into this a bit
Speaker:more, though, would you mind helping me
Speaker:and the audience to understand what
Speaker:exactly structured or easy waters it's
Speaker:sometimes also called actually is?
Speaker:And then why specifically that's so
Speaker:critical to our health?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Okay, so I have the struggle now, because
Speaker:the guy who isolated vitamin C, Albert
Speaker:Schenk-Yorgy, I have no idea how to
Speaker:pronounce it, I still don't know.
Speaker:Anyway, 60 years ago, he got very
Speaker:interested in water.
Speaker:And he remarked that
Speaker:there are a number of
Speaker:references stating that all sorts of
Speaker:liquids, not just water,
Speaker:can become more structured
Speaker:when they're in contact
Speaker:with a suitable surface.
Speaker:But let's take the water
Speaker:because it's more clear there.
Speaker:Water is all to do
Speaker:with charge and things.
Speaker:If it was something to be water soluble,
Speaker:it needs a bit of charge.
Speaker:They're either positive or negative.
Speaker:And what we now understand is that if you
Speaker:put water in contact with a surface that
Speaker:has a little bit of
Speaker:charge there, doesn't it?
Speaker:It could be negative or positive, quite
Speaker:honestly, it will take on a shape.
Speaker:And it will become what various people
Speaker:have called liquid ice
Speaker:and that kind of thing.
Speaker:And Schenk-Yorgy remarked that there are
Speaker:two melting points for water.
Speaker:One is
Speaker:zero degrees centigrade
Speaker:where solid ice becomes liquid.
Speaker:And the other is somewhere between 30 and
Speaker:40 degrees, so somewhere around our body
Speaker:temperature, where this liquid ice will
Speaker:melt and become water.
Speaker:But you don't go
Speaker:outside these parameters.
Speaker:Water in contact with a surface will form
Speaker:just a monolayer, just one layer of
Speaker:molecules of water
Speaker:taking on a hexagonal shape.
Speaker:Ordinary solid ice has a hexagonal shape,
Speaker:but it has it in three dimensions.
Speaker:Liquid ice has a hexagonal shape, but
Speaker:only in two dimensions, right?
Speaker:So the successive
Speaker:layers don't bind together.
Speaker:And what happens when you do that is that
Speaker:the ratio of hydrogen into oxygen becomes
Speaker:different because of the hexagonal shape.
Speaker:So it chucks protons out.
Speaker:So that's the first reason why it's
Speaker:called EZ, exclusion zone water.
Speaker:And so the surface on the surface there,
Speaker:it has a negative charge and the bulk
Speaker:water, as they call it
Speaker:outside that, has a positive charge.
Speaker:Now, what can then happen is that
Speaker:infrared light in particular
Speaker:will cause more layers of
Speaker:structured water to build up.
Speaker:And you can even get from that, you can
Speaker:get a flow of the
Speaker:protons and so forth outside.
Speaker:You get flow in the bulk water,
Speaker:spontaneously get flow.
Speaker:But you'll also in the hexagonal water,
Speaker:you'll get a flow of both
Speaker:electrons and protons along it.
Speaker:It's a very good conducting system.
Speaker:And it seems that if you like, I call it
Speaker:an electron superhighway.
Speaker:And that enables communication everywhere
Speaker:throughout the body.
Speaker:And when you think about it,
Speaker:because there's so much surface inside
Speaker:the body, we're kind
Speaker:of all surface, really.
Speaker:And so all these surfaces, the cells and
Speaker:the molecules, you know, big proteins and
Speaker:so forth have a lot, can accommodate a
Speaker:lot of structured water around them.
Speaker:And the whole interstitium, the bit
Speaker:outside the actual cells, is full of
Speaker:molecules that will do that.
Speaker:And some of them, of course, are
Speaker:collagen, the thing, the
Speaker:stuff that holds us together.
Speaker:And without collagen,
Speaker:we become a blob really.
Speaker:And so this is a super conducting system.
Speaker:And this actually makes a lot of things
Speaker:work better, including the mitochondria
Speaker:and their energy production.
Speaker:Yeah, no, I can imagine if you've got
Speaker:electrons that are flowing more easily
Speaker:through a medium, you're going to have
Speaker:improved cellular communication, you're
Speaker:going to have improved
Speaker:mitochondrial function.
Speaker:And as I recently spoke to, as you know,
Speaker:Jillian Kralth, and she was talking
Speaker:specifically about the other roles that
Speaker:mitochondria play beyond just energy
Speaker:production in the body in
Speaker:the spruce production of ATP.
Speaker:So no, it makes complete total sense.
Speaker:And thank you for bringing up that point
Speaker:about superconductors.
Speaker:I know that's something that Jack Cruz,
Speaker:bless him, goes on about a lot when I
Speaker:actually understand a
Speaker:word of what man's saying.
Speaker:That was great.
Speaker:Thank you very much, Dr.
Speaker:Darling.
Speaker:I'll admit I may have to re-listen to
Speaker:some of that, but I got the gist.
Speaker:So thank you.
Speaker:I'd like to move on to this concept of
Speaker:zeta potential, which I know sort of
Speaker:underlies a lot of what you've just said.
Speaker:Now, again, I'm to quote A.A.
Speaker:Milne, a bearer of very little brain.
Speaker:So I don't understand the
Speaker:concept, it's an instant parity.
Speaker:But what I do understand is that it's
Speaker:essentially a negative charge that keeps
Speaker:cells separate and flowing.
Speaker:Maybe beyond this point, though, I sort
Speaker:of fall into the I'm
Speaker:a bit dense category.
Speaker:So I don't understand it entirely.
Speaker:But could you help us to understand what
Speaker:zeta potential is, and how this
Speaker:combination of light and water then I
Speaker:suppose makes life possible?
Speaker:Yeah, if you've come
Speaker:across live blood microscopy,
Speaker:dark field microscopy.
Speaker:So to one or the first, if you're sick
Speaker:and you go and somebody takes a sample of
Speaker:blood and looks at a microscope that way,
Speaker:one of the first things they're likely to
Speaker:say is, oh, look, all your red blood
Speaker:cells are clumping together.
Speaker:Now,
Speaker:you've got positive
Speaker:charges, negative charges.
Speaker:Like charges repel each
Speaker:other, opposite charges attract.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So the zeta potential is the negative
Speaker:charge on the surface of the red blood
Speaker:cells that keeps them apart, stops them
Speaker:clumping, and therefore
Speaker:makes them flow much better.
Speaker:I mean, there's a load more to that, but
Speaker:that's basically it.
Speaker:And where it comes from is the
Speaker:the structured water on the surface,
Speaker:which is is negatively charged and the
Speaker:positive charge goes away from that.
Speaker:And that is obviously helped by infrared
Speaker:light, building up the
Speaker:layers of the structured water.
Speaker:But it's also helped by ultraviolet,
Speaker:which increases the
Speaker:negative charge in those layers.
Speaker:And of course, there's Stephanie Seneff,
Speaker:this is at MIT, isn't she?
Speaker:She's a brilliant writer and thinker
Speaker:about these sorts of things.
Speaker:She reckons that one of the main purposes
Speaker:of cholesterol is to provide the sulfate.
Speaker:Because cholesterol is a
Speaker:lipid, it's oil soluble,
Speaker:typically it's in the
Speaker:membrane of the cells.
Speaker:And typically the thing
Speaker:is called lipid rafts.
Speaker:On there, it doesn't
Speaker:wander off in through the water.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Well, if it's there on the surface of the
Speaker:cell, the membrane of a cell, then the
Speaker:sulfate charge it brings with it will
Speaker:provide a negative charge to the to the
Speaker:cell as well will boost
Speaker:negative charge if you like.
Speaker:So that makes everything flow better and
Speaker:improve the oxygenation and everything.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And so, I mean, that's all about
Speaker:providing electrons.
Speaker:And you see the ultraviolet has a role
Speaker:there as well as the infrared.
Speaker:And, you know, the biochemists say that
Speaker:we need they say that we pH.
Speaker:So we urinate out hydrogen ions, protons,
Speaker:positive charges.
Speaker:And also they make the point that
Speaker:we need all of these things.
Speaker:We produce water by
Speaker:mitochondrial activity.
Speaker:And that water is guys pure water and
Speaker:it's some what we could
Speaker:call deuterium depleted water.
Speaker:So it doesn't have the deuterium the
Speaker:message that messes
Speaker:up with the whole ATP.
Speaker:Deuterium, which is a
Speaker:double hydrogen molecule,
Speaker:it makes the structured water layer
Speaker:there, particularly around the
Speaker:mitochondria more viscous.
Speaker:So it slows down the energy production.
Speaker:I think Stephanie was at
Speaker:Senate that you mentioned.
Speaker:I think she's done a lot of
Speaker:works directly into this idea of
Speaker:deuterium depletion as well.
Speaker:And I know we're getting off
Speaker:on a bit of a tangent there.
Speaker:But yeah, how if you were just to
Speaker:elaborate on what you were just saying,
Speaker:why is a deuterium such an issue when it
Speaker:starts when it comes down to the sort of
Speaker:flow of electrons and mitochondrial
Speaker:function in general?
Speaker:What mitochondria do is using this
Speaker:electro, the complex is the big molecules
Speaker:of the electron transport chain.
Speaker:They build up protons, positive charges
Speaker:in the inter-membrane space.
Speaker:They have a double
Speaker:layer thing on top of them.
Speaker:And inside there, they build up protons.
Speaker:So it's exactly like a battery.
Speaker:I mean, it is a battery.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And then those protons go back into the
Speaker:inside of the mitochondria through this
Speaker:molecule called ATP synthase, which has a
Speaker:three-way symmetry if you like.
Speaker:It rotates.
Speaker:Every time a proton is pushed through
Speaker:that, it rotates the head of
Speaker:the molecule by 120 degrees.
Speaker:And that
Speaker:upgrades one molecule of ADP,
Speaker:adenodiphosphate to ATP, triphosphate.
Speaker:That's our main energy currency.
Speaker:So this is a very small thing.
Speaker:I've still got a video that somebody in
Speaker:Japan actually managed to put a
Speaker:fluorescent marker on it and film it
Speaker:going around by 120 degrees at time.
Speaker:It was a wonderful thing.
Speaker:But this is very, very small.
Speaker:It's the opposite of stuff
Speaker:that's visible from space.
Speaker:It's barely visible at all.
Speaker:And it is therefore easily clogged up by
Speaker:stuff getting in there, like deuterium,
Speaker:which is just a molecule that's just that
Speaker:bit too big for the whole process.
Speaker:So it slows down the rotary action.
Speaker:Yeah, I think there's a case to be made
Speaker:again about why reducing carbohydrate
Speaker:consumption can be an effective tool to
Speaker:help reduce deuterium as well.
Speaker:As I understand it, following a lower
Speaker:carbohydrate actually diet actually helps
Speaker:to reduce the
Speaker:deuterium levels in the body.
Speaker:Dr.
Speaker:Darling, I know we've only really
Speaker:scratched the surface today, but I also
Speaker:know that you probably have patients in a
Speaker:life beyond just keeping me and the
Speaker:audience entertained.
Speaker:So I'd like to pivot to maybe talking
Speaker:about what we can do to optimize our
Speaker:lighting environments and
Speaker:subsequently our health.
Speaker:Now, I know there are a
Speaker:lot of parallels here.
Speaker:And of course, we've got to touch on the
Speaker:piece about EMS because they obviously
Speaker:are going to play a
Speaker:large role in it as well.
Speaker:But if you would be open to providing a
Speaker:framework that the audience could maybe
Speaker:use to optimize the environments in which
Speaker:they live, they operate, I think that
Speaker:would be very helpful.
Speaker:Obviously light being the focus.
Speaker:And again, I know there are many moving
Speaker:pieces, but when working with patients,
Speaker:how do you counsel them in this regard
Speaker:and tell them to see
Speaker:the width of the trees?
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So the first thing you need to understand
Speaker:is that it's not an absolute, it's not a
Speaker:binary, a black and white thing that you
Speaker:have to get all the devices, RID or
Speaker:whatever, and be totally free of EMFs.
Speaker:You can't really do that
Speaker:in the real world anyway.
Speaker:And actually, you don't need to because
Speaker:it turns out every bit helps.
Speaker:One of the most interesting studies in
Speaker:this regard was one that Trevor Marshall
Speaker:did about 10 years ago, where he gave
Speaker:people a hood that screams out
Speaker:electromagnetic fields, or at least some
Speaker:of them, it partially screams in her.
Speaker:And he asked them to wear this for four
Speaker:hours sleeping and four
Speaker:hours waking in the 24.
Speaker:So that's one third of the
Speaker:time they were using this thing.
Speaker:These were people with active, they were
Speaker:on treatment for autoimmune diseases,
Speaker:cold assortment of them.
Speaker:Right. And so they did this for three weeks.
Speaker:And 90% of them experienced an effect.
Speaker:Now that
Speaker:is really surprising to me that, I mean,
Speaker:the best that can have done
Speaker:is to reduce their EMF exposure by 25%.
Speaker:And yet it has an effect.
Speaker:And it is not surprising to me that it
Speaker:wasn't always a good effect, because
Speaker:we've learned this about electro
Speaker:sensitive people, certainly, that you
Speaker:have to be very careful
Speaker:about switching it off.
Speaker:You know, every body's
Speaker:just got adapted to it.
Speaker:Maybe it's like food allergy is the, you
Speaker:know, the other side of
Speaker:food allergy is an addiction.
Speaker:Quickly on that one, do you think that's
Speaker:having a sort of an immuno that's
Speaker:obviously driving an
Speaker:immunological response then?
Speaker:Would that be correct?
Speaker:There's people who are electro
Speaker:magnetically sensitive?
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:certainly an inflammatory response.
Speaker:Yeah, that was it.
Speaker:Sorry, I was just trying to maybe
Speaker:understand and paint a picture for the
Speaker:audience as to what happens when people
Speaker:are electro magnetically sensitive, that
Speaker:that's sort of upregulating many of the
Speaker:immunological processes
Speaker:that then drive inflammation.
Speaker:Okay, perfect.
Speaker:Yeah, sorry to interrupt you.
Speaker:No, no, no, it's okay.
Speaker:So I think that what you need to do, that
Speaker:we should all do, is at least try and
Speaker:limit EMF exposure, get less bad vibes.
Speaker:And, you know, the way to start that
Speaker:obviously would be your sleeping area,
Speaker:you know, no phones, no anything there
Speaker:that's emitting whatever, Wi-Fi, if you
Speaker:have to have it far, far away.
Speaker:And so forth.
Speaker:So there you're getting, you should be
Speaker:getting, you know, maybe eight hours
Speaker:of relatively free things.
Speaker:And the other thing you should be doing
Speaker:is getting more sunlight.
Speaker:And ideally, first thing in the morning,
Speaker:when you activate the adrenal, the
Speaker:adrenaline driven sympathetic system, and
Speaker:with some exercise, you can bring your
Speaker:melatonin level up nicely.
Speaker:Yeah, back to the melatonin piece again.
Speaker:That's very sort of sound advice.
Speaker:And I think there's definitely some tips
Speaker:and tricks there with
Speaker:regards to EMF exposure too.
Speaker:And I think maybe utilizing things like
Speaker:magnesium supplementation in the evening
Speaker:to sort of help offset that, that those
Speaker:calcium, those calcium voltage channels
Speaker:are, are good ideas.
Speaker:And yeah,
Speaker:we don't have time to go into that.
Speaker:There are a long list of things here that
Speaker:things that can help in this regard.
Speaker:And he has absolutely right magnesium and
Speaker:vitamin D, of course, still important.
Speaker:Just because we have discovered this
Speaker:other stuff about light doesn't mean that
Speaker:vitamin D went away.
Speaker:So this is one of the hood type things that you can put on.
Speaker:I'm not going to put it on because it
Speaker:completely mess up the earphones and the
Speaker:glasses and so forth.
Speaker:But it covers the whole, you can get
Speaker:beanie hats that do the same thing, but I
Speaker:don't see the sense of that.
Speaker:We don't want to just scream the top
Speaker:third of your brain, do you?
Speaker:And also, a good point,
Speaker:you know, let's get the, while we're
Speaker:getting good light to the stelaganglin
Speaker:and the vagus nerve and so forth in the
Speaker:neck, let's also screen
Speaker:some EMF's away from the neck.
Speaker:That makes sense.
Speaker:That's what's good.
Speaker:Take the thyroid as well.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:The other thing I
Speaker:wanted to show you is this,
Speaker:which is a space blanket.
Speaker:Which is a space blanket, you know, sort
Speaker:of thing they give you
Speaker:at the end of a marathon.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And there's a guy online called Peter
Speaker:Vito who figured this out.
Speaker:He published a thing saying,
Speaker:maybe this is the second best light
Speaker:therapy device there is.
Speaker:The first one being the sun, obviously.
Speaker:So what he worked out is this thing will
Speaker:reflect EMF's, photons,
Speaker:whatever, back into you.
Speaker:And we're all producing biophotons, as
Speaker:they call it, all the time on UWEs,
Speaker:ultra-weak photon emissions,
Speaker:they also call it.
Speaker:And they range from ultraviolet to
Speaker:infrared, with something
Speaker:of a peak in the yellow.
Speaker:But normally you can't see them because
Speaker:it's much more light around.
Speaker:But you can reflect them back in.
Speaker:So use this and just wrap it around
Speaker:yourself outside like clothing.
Speaker:You don't want to put it next to the skin
Speaker:or the metal will just conduct the heat
Speaker:away from your body.
Speaker:But you put it outside, I think, or just
Speaker:under or above the top sheet or under the
Speaker:bottom sheet or something like that.
Speaker:It will work fine that way.
Speaker:I mean, he says if you do it under the
Speaker:under sheet, then get some earplugs as
Speaker:well, because it keeps doing
Speaker:sort of sound.
Speaker:But he got some benefit from it.
Speaker:He said that, you know,
Speaker:it's a strange effect.
Speaker:It's not like just being warm.
Speaker:There is a definite effect there.
Speaker:I now started using it with patients.
Speaker:I got one guy who was not only
Speaker:electro-sensitive, but actually
Speaker:photo-sensitive, light-sensitive.
Speaker:And so he hadn't been out for months
Speaker:because he seemed to react to the light.
Speaker:He started using this for seconds.
Speaker:He began with, I think, 20 seconds a day,
Speaker:built up gradually day by day until he
Speaker:was doing it for 75
Speaker:minutes several times a day.
Speaker:At which point he said, you're going to
Speaker:have to move on from here, otherwise
Speaker:you're not going to
Speaker:have time to have a life.
Speaker:And so he started going outdoors as well.
Speaker:And lo and behold, he tolerated just for
Speaker:a few seconds to begin with, but
Speaker:gradually more and more and more.
Speaker:And so last thing I heard from him, this
Speaker:is a year after starting this project
Speaker:with the space blanket, is that the
Speaker:sunlight is having, sunlight is starting
Speaker:to have a profound
Speaker:effect on my energy levels.
Speaker:And I think this is going
Speaker:to be a real breakthrough.
Speaker:That's incredible.
Speaker:I was just doing a quick Google while you
Speaker:were talking and looking into sort of how
Speaker:space blankets were made, because
Speaker:embarrassingly I didn't know.
Speaker:And I wonder if there wouldn't be all
Speaker:some sort of Faraday effect with, by
Speaker:using them to potentially, if you're sort
Speaker:of sleeping at night.
Speaker:And if you're sort of trying to offset
Speaker:that EMF exposure in the evening, maybe
Speaker:it would be a useful
Speaker:tool in that regard too.
Speaker:I was looking at some day to the other
Speaker:day on Faraday cages and they were
Speaker:started to talk about why they may be
Speaker:detrimental from the point of view of you
Speaker:actually offsetting all electromagnetic
Speaker:frequencies, including the Schumann
Speaker:residence, which as you know, all too
Speaker:well is rather
Speaker:beneficial when it comes to life.
Speaker:So there may be some issues there, but I
Speaker:mean, that is a
Speaker:discussion for another day.
Speaker:The whole discussion around
Speaker:electromagnetic sensitivities beyond just
Speaker:WiFi and all these electric magnetic
Speaker:fields, excuse me, that are just so
Speaker:profoundly affect our health, both
Speaker:positively and negatively.
Speaker:Excuse me.
Speaker:That's a very good thing
Speaker:with that, the Faraday issue.
Speaker:I hadn't thought about that.
Speaker:It's a very good idea.
Speaker:Well, I'm glad I was able
Speaker:to be of some value today.
Speaker:Little brain still working.
Speaker:Little brain still working.
Speaker:Dr.
Speaker:Darling, I'd love to end off with just
Speaker:asking a few rapid fire
Speaker:questions, if that's okay.
Speaker:Okay, so your thoughts on structured
Speaker:walkthrough devices, are they a bit
Speaker:gimmicky or they have potential?
Speaker:I have yet to be convinced that the
Speaker:devices will work, but I have to say that
Speaker:I no longer regard it
Speaker:as absolutely impossible
Speaker:that they work.
Speaker:So I honestly don't know,
Speaker:ask me in a year or something.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Perfect.
Speaker:From a clinical standpoint, what's the
Speaker:one light based therapy or tool that you
Speaker:use that you feel moves the needle the
Speaker:most for most people?
Speaker:Well, for me, it would be the endo light,
Speaker:the laser watch thing.
Speaker:But if you look around, the most widely
Speaker:used one, and presumably it hasn't be
Speaker:because it works, is the
Speaker:cosmetic infrared masks.
Speaker:Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker:If you'd asked me that question, I would
Speaker:have just said bog
Speaker:standard red light panels.
Speaker:But yeah, I suppose the
Speaker:masks also are a good option.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But either of those are a better entry
Speaker:level thing than doing one of these.
Speaker:So if you're not spend too much, you can
Speaker:get the small infrared light mats for, I
Speaker:don't know, 60 quid these days.
Speaker:Yeah, no, they definitely have come down
Speaker:in price and they're not nearly as
Speaker:expensive as they previously were.
Speaker:Okay, two more.
Speaker:What do you think about blue blocking
Speaker:glasses and their use in the evenings?
Speaker:Well, it's all right.
Speaker:But you could also use
Speaker:infrared light to balance it out.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:This is true.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Replace all your bulb
Speaker:with incandescent options.
Speaker:And I use one like the full spectrum
Speaker:light I've got up here,
Speaker:so I can't really show you.
Speaker:Just don't tell a green piece.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm afraid so.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And the final one, maybe this is a
Speaker:complete dual topic and
Speaker:just something of an opinion.
Speaker:What do you think about all this
Speaker:engineering that's
Speaker:currently going through the news?
Speaker:Glad you asked.
Speaker:I've done a submission for the ultimate
Speaker:news service on this and with colleagues
Speaker:I have and also for BSCM.
Speaker:The best measure is this.
Speaker:Firstly,
Speaker:it's not doing the work that we
Speaker:absolutely have to do in reducing climate
Speaker:change and so forth,
Speaker:even turning it back.
Speaker:Even if it works on climate change, it's
Speaker:just a fix and who knows how long it
Speaker:will, you know, would be of any benefit
Speaker:to in terms of global warming.
Speaker:Secondly, of course, there's the law of
Speaker:unintended consequences.
Speaker:You know, stuff will happen
Speaker:that we never thought about home.
Speaker:So who do you think of that?
Speaker:Like, I mean, the obvious example of that
Speaker:is microplastics going on.
Speaker:But most importantly, there's good
Speaker:evidence that sunlight
Speaker:is essential to health.
Speaker:That I mean, we've known for 100 years,
Speaker:at least, that the nearer the equator you
Speaker:are, the less your
Speaker:chance of getting cancer.
Speaker:And we know that ultraviolet light
Speaker:exposure is basically good for you.
Speaker:They say that depriving yourself, living
Speaker:up in northern places like this,
Speaker:depriving yourself of
Speaker:sunlight is as bad as smoking
Speaker:for your health and your life expectancy.
Speaker:And so you can fix that.
Speaker:So it's a very bad idea.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:no, I'm glad you, that's your view.
Speaker:I definitely share
Speaker:your views there as well.
Speaker:Dr.
Speaker:Downing, if people would like to work
Speaker:with you, or if you view your books,
Speaker:where's the best place they can find you?
Speaker:Oh, well, the,
Speaker:I'm on land, it's drdaneandowning.com.
Speaker:But the book will be out later this year,
Speaker:and I think it's going to
Speaker:be called Coherent Health,
Speaker:The Power of Light and Water.
Speaker:Just look for Coherent Health.
Speaker:A bit later on, you'll get that.
Speaker:Now, the book is about stuff that you can
Speaker:do for yourself and
Speaker:should do for yourself.
Speaker:I'm not trying to sell my services.
Speaker:Okay, that's perfect.
Speaker:Well, we'll be sure to link to all of
Speaker:that in the show notes.
Speaker:And thank you so much for your time.
Speaker:It's been a pleasure to pick your brain
Speaker:and to learn a little
Speaker:more about light and water.
Speaker:Yeah, great.
Speaker:Thank you very much.
Speaker:I've enjoyed it.
