HOME   HYGIENE LIBRARY CATALOG   CHAPTER 19

   Although everybody knows that a sunny climate is good for invalids, the study of sunlight as a health promoting agent has received comparatively little attention. However, there is a lot known about the effects of light) and over the years a great number of books on the subject have been written. One of these, Light and Its Rays as Medicine by Dr S. Pancoast of Philadelphia was published in 1877 and described that doctor's successful employment of color filtered sunlight as a therapeutic agent. In another book written about the same time, How to Prolong Life, the author Dr Charles de Lacey Evans of England said:

   "The life of every created being is the more perfect the more it enjoys the influence of light. Let a plant or an animal be deprived of light, notwithstanding every nourishment, care, and cultivation, it will first lose its color, then its strength, and at last utterly decay."

   It has been observed in Norway that in the "morketiden" (murky time) from November 25 to January 21 when at the high latitude of the city of Tromso the sun never comes into view, the morale of the people is affected. Tromso psychiatrist, Dr Reppersgaard, said, "The whole city slows down, people's concentration and work capacity reduce, and they are always tired".

   "The least desirable elements of human behavior come out," said an Oslo psychologist. Sales of sleeping pills, pep pills and tranquilizers rise sharply, accidents increase.

   For many years observations on the health promoting effects of sunshine have emphasized the special qualities of the ultraviolet spectrum, to which is credited stimulation of the ductless glands, improved circulation, enhancement of red cell hemoglobin and general quality of the blood.

   A recent news report from England described the markedly higher performance of school children whose classrooms were illuminated with ultraviolet-emitting fluorescent lights instead of incandescent lights.

   The beneficial effects of sunlight and artificial ultraviolet light are gained by way of visual processes and by direct exposure of the body. In his fascinating book, Sunlight Could Save Your Life, Dr Zane Kime described how body chemistry responds via both pathways. The favorable effects are general, the same as gained from the training effect of regular exercise, and are readily measurable. They include: improved fat metabolism, lowered blood fats, lowered blood cholesterol, lowered blood sugar, improved circulation, increased heart output, lowered resting heart rate, lowered blood pressure, striking increase in blood oxygen, lowered respiratory rate, less lactic acid formation with exercise, improved calcium uptake, increased energy and endurance, greater tolerance to stress, stimulated immune system and better resistance to disease, and increased production of sex hormones (see further reference at end of chapter).

   Overexposure to sunlight is harmful, however, and people who are indigenous to the tropics have the built-in protection of dark skin. Races who have evolved in latitudes where the sun is less intense and often obscured by clouds, have light-colored skin which permits easier penetration of the sun's rays. They are protected from overexposure to a great extent by the ability of their skin to darken (sun tan) when necessary. Unfortunately for dark-skinned races, their skin cannot tighten to adjust for lack of sunshine, and it is significant that, outside the tropics, they suffer more disease than whites, other factors being more or less equal. In the USA according to Dr Kime, blacks suffer double the incidence of hypertension (high blood pressure), double the deaths from diabetes, almost double the deaths from influenza and pneumonia, and 20% more deaths from cancer. Black babies born jaundiced respond poorly to light therapy, and black children suffer a higher incidence of rickets.

   What stimulated the current interest in the effects of light were the observations in the 1960s of Dr John Ott of Chicago (now of Florida) which were originally reported by Popular Science, February, 1969. Dr Ott has since written two books, Health and Light (1973) and Light, Radiation and You (1982) which are indeed enlightening in that the medical profession are realizing that the value of sunshine goes far beyond cheering people up and allowing them to produce vitamin D.

   Sunshine, apart from directly influencing body chemistry by direct penetration, is reflected by the atmosphere, and that which enters the eyes stimulates hormone production in the body by its influence on the retinal--hypothalamic--endocrine system of glands. The light affects the glandular system by entering the eyes through the pupil and, by way of the retina, appears to cause a reaction with the pineal gland located behind the eyes. The production of the pineal hormone, melatonin, is thereby influenced which in turn interacts with the other endocrine glands. Specifically, the ultraviolet spectrum of light is beneficial, and deprived of it, the body chemistry is adversely affected. Ordinary artificial light does not contain this spectrum, but certain fluorescent lights do, in fact full-spectrum daylight-simulating lights have been developed. Ordinary glass and spectacles shield out most of the ultraviolet light.

   Dr Joseph Meites, endocrinologist of Michigan State University, in 1969 stated that light entering the eyes causes nerve impulses that influence the lower brain and pituitary gland that trigger the release of other hormones. Dr Meites further stated, "We have no idea how many diseases are linked with hormone problems, but we do know that several diseases such as diabetes, infertility, cancer and thyroid disorders are involved with hormone imbalance".

   In reporting on the effects of exposure to ultraviolet light, Dr Ettinger in his book, Medical Radiation Biology (Chas. C. Thomas) said, "Irradiation of human subjects with erythema-producing doses of ultraviolet resulted in an improvement of work output. In studies on the bicycle ergometer, it has been shown that under these laboratory conditions, the work output could be increased up to 60%. Analysis of this phenomenon revealed that the increased output is due to decreased fatigability and increased efficiency. cardiovascular responses served as an indicator".

   On the other hand, artificial light of the wrong wavelength (particularly pink and red) has a distinctly harmful effect on the body's metabolism, to the extent of causing malabsorption of minerals, various kinds of neuroses, and exacerbating cancer. These effects have been observed in humans, whilst in animal experiments, unnatural light wavelengths have caused infertility and bizarre behavior such as cannibalism.

   Dr Ott's interest in the subject began in the 1960s when he was making a time lapse photography movie for Walt Disney's feature, Secrets of Life. In this type of photography, single pictures are taken at spaced intervals, of say a growing plant, which when shown through a projector at normal speed, give the impression that the plant is growing and maturing in only seconds. The movie may take months to complete.

   In the course of a sequence featuring a pumpkin vine, he noticed that using certain fluorescent lights, all the female flowers on the vine suddenly died, with the male flowers still healthy. When the sequence was repeated with different lights all the male flowers perished. It was only then he realized that the light emissions were responsible, and experimented to find a light source which was like natural daylight and which did not harm the flowers.

   That sunlight has a profound effect on human health became startlingly apparent to Dr Ott through a surprise personal experience. He had been suffering badly from arthritis and had been advised that he would need a plastic hip joint before very long. He had heard many stories about arthritis being affected by weather but had not noticed any improvement at all when visiting sunny Florida occasionally from his home at that time in Illinois.

   One day at home he broke his glasses and because his spare ones were uncomfortable, he made do without them while waiting for new ones. Suddenly, after a few days working outdoors, he found he no longer needed his walking stick and that his arthritic elbow felt fine. From there on he went without his glasses most of the time and after a while found that when he wore them they caused him eyestrain. His oculist re-examined his eyes and discovered that they had improved greatly and prescribed new ones because the previous prisms required to correct a muscular weakness were no longer needed.

   Dr Ott decided to have his hip joint x-rayed again and the x-ray showed a distinct improvement. A physical examination revealed the complete disappearance of a 30% restriction to the rotational movement of the hip joint, and of course, the hip joint operation was no longer necessary.

   Many experiments with plants and animals were made, all of which showed that natural unfiltered sunlight is essential for optimal body condition, but that the necessary light spectrum can also be provided by certain fluorescent lights.

   Here is an extract from Dr Ott's book:

   "As I did not want to give the living animals too much ultraviolet light to start with, I was not certain just what intensity would be within a safe limit. While in the process of trying to decide how much ultraviolet to give the animals, my wife and I had dinner one evening in a restaurant known as 'Well of the Sea', in the basement of the Hotel Sherman in Chicago. As soon as we entered the restaurant I noticed there were black light ultraviolet lights placed throughout the ceiling.

   "They had been installed solely for ornamental purposes to cause designs on the waiters' coats, as well as the menus, to fluoresce in the otherwise subdued light. The next morning I went back to the restaurant with a meter to measure the intensity of the ultraviolet at various distances from the ceiling, such as table level and the eye level of the waiters as they walked directly under the various light fixtures. I also wanted to ask the captain of the waiters a number of questions. In view of the general concern, especially at the time, regarding the danger of overexposure to ultraviolet, I wondered how long the lights had been installed and whether he had experienced any unusually high turnover among the personnel working in the restaurant. I asked him if any of the men had complained of any eye problem, skin cancer, or other difficulties such as sterility, which might be attributable to working long periods of time under the black light ultraviolet. The captain told me that he had essentially the same group of men working for him as when they had opened the restaurant 18 years before. He said that the ultraviolet lights had been in use continually during that time, and that the health record of his men had been so consistently excellent that the manager of the hotel had checked into the situation, with medical supervision, to try to determine why this particular group of men was always on the job, even during flu epidemics, when other departments in the hotel would be shorthanded because of employees' illness".

   Here is another case quoted from the book:

   "Obrig laboratories, located just north of Sarasota, Florida, is one of the largest manufacturers of contact tenses and has approximately one hundred employees. During the entire flu epidemic (1968-69) not one employee was absent because of any flu-type ailment, according to Philip Salvatore, Chairman of the Board. Obrig Laboratories was the first to design a new building using full spectrum lighting and ultraviolet transmitting plastic window panes throughout the entire office and factory areas. The added ultraviolet seemed to tie in closely with the results noted at the 'Well of the Sea' restaurant in Chicago. Mr Salvatore mentioned that the Obrig employees had not been given any mass inoculation against Hong Kong flu. He also commented that everyone seemed happier and in better spirits under the new lighting, and that work production had increased by at least 25%".

   Having delivered a lecture on the subject, Dr Ott was approached by the manager of a radio station, WILZ, of St Petersburg, Florida, Mr Richard Marsh. Mr Marsh told him of the deterioration of morale and efficiency at the station when deep pink fluorescent lights had been installed. The staff had become irritable and difficult to manage, two of them tendering their resignations. When it was realized that the pink lights were irritating everybody, they were replaced and an immediate return to good morale and efficiency occurred. The two resignations were withdrawn.

   The animal experiments described are more specific, and the effects of poor light varied from infertility, congenital defects, all male litters, to falling hair, shrivelled tails, dental cavities and so on. And for years the poultry industry has known and used the fact that light received by a fowl's eyes stimulates the pituitary gland and increases egg production.

   Dr Ott described many other observations of the effect of poor lighting on humans, including some related to cancer. He relates them as being observations and nothing else, but there can be no doubt that any factor that can affect hormonal balance must influence any disease of metabolism.

   One particular case was in 1961 when the Communicable Disease Center of the US Public Health Service in Atlanta reported that a school in Niles, Illinois, had the highest rate of leukemia of any school in the country. In fact, it was five times the national average. Dr Ott visited the school and interviewed the teaching staff, superintendent and maintenance staff. He learned that all of the children who had developed leukemia had been located in two classrooms. Because of glare, the windows of these particular classrooms had been customarily shielded by translucent greenish curtains, light being provided by "warm white" fluorescent lights which are strong in the orange-pink part of the light spectrum. When the lighting was changed, no further problems occurred and the situation has since been normal.

   Previous reference has been made to the Hunzas, the vigorous long-lived people of the mountainous westernmost part of Kashmir, now Pakistan. In her book, Health Secrets of Hunza, Renee Taylor describes the custom of Hunzas of "sunning" their eyes by blinking them directly at the sun. They consider it a health-giving activity, the origins of which are unknown. This activity could easily be overdone, I imagine, and it is not necessary because the light can enter the eye without looking directly at the sun.

   What about other forms of radiation? It is known that nuclear and x- ray radiation can cause great harm. Dr Ott describes the disturbing effects of emissions from color television receivers. One case was the disruption of a rat breeding program when the litters dropped from eight to 12 babies down to one or two, and many died. The disruption was caused by a color TV set located 15 feet away from the rats and with two partition walls in between. It took the breeding program six months to return to normal after the TV set was removed.

   Again from Health and Light, here is an observation on the effect of radiation on biological rhythms:

   "However, as far back as 1729, M. de Mairan submitted a paper titled Biological Observations to the French Royal Academy. He noted that the sensitive plant folded its leaves at sunset in a fashion similar to the way in which the plant reacts to touch or agitation. He further noted that the phenomenon occurs even if the plant is kept in the dark and not exposed to the sun or the great outdoors. In an attempt to explain the persistent rhythms of the sensitive plant in the darkness, Mairan went on to suggest that all such rhythms are being forced on the organism by some unknown factor in the universe. Nevertheless, research procedures today, in studying the phenomenon of the so-called built-in biological time clock in relation to light and darkness, consider light only as that part of the electromagnetic spectrum to which the human eye is sensitive. What the human eye does not see is generally thought of as darkness, with the connotation that no further radiant energy exists that could produce a photobiological or photosynthetic response. This may raise questions about similar responses that have been observed in so-called darkness and have been called chemosynthetic because of the theoretical absence of any light energy.

   "Accordingly, I designed an experiment to determine if some of the wavelengths of general background radiation, beyond the human range of vision, might be directly controlling at least some of the so-called circadian rhythms.

   "Six sensitive plants (Mimosa pudica) were placed at noon in a dark closet made of wood but the walls and ceiling of the room were of concrete four to six inches thick. The outer walls of the building were of brick, and the roof of slate, interior construction was of wood and plaster.

   "The leaves of the plant remained open and the leaf stems, or petioles, in the upward daytime position until sunset. Then the leaves folded and the petioles dropped downward to the normal night-time position. They remained in this state until sunrise, then both the leaves and petioles resumed their normal daytime, open and upward position.

   "As the only practical shielding against some of the general background radiation--especially cosmic radiation--is a massive amount of earth, six sensitive plants were taken at noon to the bottom of a coal mine, 650 feet below the surface. The leaves and petioles of all six plants immediately assumed their night-time position, not waiting for the sun to set. The area where the plants were placed was lighted with regular incandescent bulbs.

   This suggests that the day-night responses of the plants react to some form of radiation capable of penetrating the building material surrounding the 'dark' closet at the surface of the earth, but not to the bottom of a coal mine, 650 feet down".

   Thus it is apparent that all life on Earth is attuned and to a greater extent dependent on natural radiation of all wavelengths, and at the same time is harmed in varying degrees by "unnatural" or man-made radiation. Recent epidemiological and laboratory studies, worldwide, have revealed that radiation such as from microwave communications, power transmission lines, video display terminals, radio frequency welding machines, and so on, is a distinct danger, greatly increasing the risk of miscarriages, birth defects, neurological impairments, circulatory problems, cancer and leukemia in animals and humans. Farm animals kept in the proximity of overhead power transmission lines have been observed to be affected, particularly in respect to aborted pregnancies and birth defects.

   Involved in these studies, Professor Ross Adey of Loma Linda, California, says there is evidence that electrical fields from power lines can modify the activity of enzymes and other cellular mechanisms in the body. Dr Robert Becker of New York thinks radiation affects the pineal gland, which in turn influences the pituitary, thyroid and adrenal glands, so affecting hormonal balance and the entire function of the body at cell level. Thus unnatural forms of radiation increased the risk of all kinds of defects, including cancer.

   The latest bulletin from John Ott describes his recent observation that long-chain clumping (rouleau) of human red blood cells occurs in five minutes when a blood sample is placed directly in front of a video display terminal. When the sample is removed and directly exposed to low-level ultraviolet light for another five minutes, the cell rouleau breaks up and blood structure returns to normal. This experiment is described in The International Journal for Biosocial Research, July 1985 (Tacoma, Washington).

   On the subject of the ultraviolet wavelengths of light, it should be noted that ordinary glass effectively shields ultraviolet. Thus, even in a sunny climate, people who wear glasses or contact lenses will not receive this wavelength in their eyes. Car windshields and ordinary windows have this shielding effect. It is possible to get glasses and contact lenses of special material which does not shield out ultraviolet. I wonder how many hyperactive people wear glasses in addition to eating the wrong things?

   Dr Leo Wade, Vice President and Deputy Director of the Sloan Kettering Institute in 1971 said:

   " . . . increasing interest has been manifest regarding the pineal gland. Although this is solidly encased in the skull, it responds to some way to light. The gland seems to have an as yet undefined role in the control of the endocrine glands, some of which are known to affect the progress of neoplastic (cancer) disease. More questions are posed than answers provided by the present knowledge of this gland".