Biological Implications of Circadian Disruption By Dr. Laura Fonken (Book)

If you know anyone working shift work or living erratic schedules, you need to read this book.

Dr Laura Fonken has been studying the impact of circadian rhythms on health for over a decade now. She wrote her PhD on how circadian rhythms can make you gain weight, increase inflammation, develop diabetes.

She even showed how artificial light environments such as in a hospital environment hindered healing after surgery. published over sixty academic papers and reviews, twenty of which are focused on circadian regulation of physiology and behavior. You can cheeck out some of them on this blog.

She's published her research thus far in a book. This is an epic read into how our lives have dramatically shifted since the 19th century and the advent of artificial light.

You'll learn how shift workers and others exposed to high levels of light at night are at increased risk of health problems, including metabolic syndrome, depression, sleep disorders, dementia, heart disease, and cancer.

All life on earth evolved under a consistent cycle of light and darkness caused by the earth's rotation around its axis. It's given us our 24-hour circadian system in organisms, ranging all the way from fungi to humans. With the advent of electric light in the 19th century, cycles of light and darkness have drastically changed.

Check out the book here: Fonken, L.K. and Nelson, R.J. (2023). Biological Implications of Circadian Disruption: A Modern Health Challenge. 9781009076685. Cambridge University Press.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0014488624000517

Blue Light Is Torpedoing Your Sleep and Human Health

Can’t sleep?

Slept, and still feel tired?

Your mind isn’t working anywhere you want it to be?

You probably have a blue light problem.

Blue light is epidemic.

The blue-spectrum light now glowing 24/7 from energy-efficient, light-emitting diodes (LEDs).

Since 2011, LEDs are the predominant light source brightening homes, businesses, cities, and the screens of literally billions of electronic devices. That represents a big swathe of humanity — 3.8 billion smartphone users in the world.

A blue light problem is a hormonal problem.

Exposure to high-energy blue light upsets circadian rhythm and can lead to the development of insomnia and other sleep disturbances.

When you live on your LED lights after sunset, you are suppressing melatonin,

You increase alertness, and you don’t even feel like going to bed. You think you’re being so productive staying up into the night on your laptop, but you’re frying your metabolic circuits.


https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lanepe/PIIS2666-7762(24)00122-4.pdf

Even a small speck of blue light has an effect on your body

Even a single speck of LED blue light shining from some electronic component in the corner of the room at night will contribute to poor sleep.

Even if you cover your eyes.

In 1998, there was scientific study done in 1998 because researchers wanted to find out how light really impacted circadian rhythms. They chose to shine it on the back of the subjects’ knees because it was an area they could expose to light while shielding the subject’s eyes from the light.

They used this to try to bring shift forwards or backwards circadian rhythms in people.

Those treated with the light had their biological clocks advanced or delayed up to three hours, enough to overcome the fatigue associated with familiar forms of jet lag or insomnia.

Are you living under blue light?

Dr Laura Fonken was one of the researchers who discovered that blue light can create diabetes symptoms.

They wanted to the effects of light at night on body mass in male mice.

They found that mice exposed to a dim light at night gained 50 percent more weight over an eight-week period than mice that spent their nights in total darkness.

Mice housed in either bright or dim light at night have significantly increased body mass and reduced glucose tolerance compared with mice in a standard light/dark cycle, despite equivalent levels of caloric intake and total daily activity output.

Dr Fonken warned: “In many ways, our society now functions on a 24-hour-a-day schedule. These results suggest that such a schedule may impact metabolic function.”

If you really care about your health, you’d take care of the number one thing that helps your body rest, recover, and reset day after day, and that is your sleep.

If you’re letting in blue light into your sleep routine, you are sabotaging your health efforts. Light is the stealth torpedo in your sleep routine that you don’t even know about.

It’s time to think about the light that you sleep in.

The Dark Side of Blue Light: Maui Says No to Excessive Blue Light

Have you tried driving at night under LED streetlights?

Trying to keep your lane as your eyes adjust to the glare of lights from what seems like every which way—car head lamps, highway lamps, city LED advertisements. to your phone showing the local streetmap.

It’s awful.

Blue light is not always “convenient”

Communities are grappling with how to reduce the impact of artificial light at night.

It feels like it’s been around forever, but LEDs only came to the fore in 2011, when Philips was able to manufacture a possibly commercially viable LED bulb.

And a new generation of outdoor lights spreading across landscapes require greater scrutiny to reduce harm to wildlife.

Scientific studies have shown that high levels of blue light content adversely affect wildlife, such as birds, insects, and turtles.

LEDs disrupt the human circadian rhythm at night and increase glare, which compromises visual acuity for motorists and pedestrians.

Outdoor environments are changing rapidly and in ways that can impact wildlife species.

Maui says no to excessive blue light

To protect wildlife, Maui has passed an ordinance saying outdoor lighting must be shielded from shining upwards and contain less than 2% blue content from 400-500nm.

The ordinance went into effect on 1st July 2023.

According to the bill, all outdoor lighting fixtures, except for neon, must limit short wavelength content to no more than 2% of blue light. Mercury vapor must not be used for new outdoor lighting fixtures.

Bright, onshore lighting confused endangered turtles on Maui and they travel inland, sometimes crossing roads and getting hit by cars or attacked by dogs or others predators.

Seabird fledglings, too, get disoriented by bright lights while making maiden voyages from burrows out to sea. If the young birds tire and fall to the ground, they can get injured or eaten by rodents, feral cats or other animals.

This isn’t the first time that blue light is being contested. Environmentalists brought a lawsuit against Grand Wailea resort on Maui, a luxury beachfront hotel surrounded by a sprawling 40 acres of lush tropical landscape. It aims to protect endangered Hawaiian petrels by forcing the hotel to change its lighting. That suit is currently in the settlement phase

People are waking up to the harms of blue light

Similar efforts are underway in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, North America, and South America.

But what they still don’t know is that not only will this protect wildlife, it will also protect the health of their human residents.

Artificial blue light HURTS your health

Check out this graph about how much blue light are in different types of light sources.

That’s the the percent of blue content between 400nm and 500nm.

If you’re concerned about blue light dangers to your health, maybe the angle you need to take with your local government is how outdoor artificial light at night hurts animals.

Many people treat their pets better than they treat themselves.

Many companies are recognising the demand for actually-safe LEDs and are racing to make them. For an outdoor artificial lighting in a city that will be acceptable to those who still want a safe-energy energy LED, you can check this company out—https://lumileds.com/technology/led-technology/nightscape/.

Are you also affected by artificial outdoor city light blaring into your bedroom at night?

You need to move. It’s no small matter that your health hinges on your circadian rhythms. If your day-night cycles are out of whack, your hormones can never be optimal, leading to chronic metabolic issues such as diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. Research is even linking blue light to cancer.


Get black-out curtains. Try these http://bluelightdiet.com/links

Use a sleep mask. http://bluelightdetox.com/manta

Get blue light blocking glasses https://bluelightdiet.com/blog/topfivebl.

What are you doing to mitigate the blue light toxicity in your environment?


What You Should Know about Wireless Radiation: Health Impacts on Babies and Children

Wireless radiation is just one form of electromagnetic fields (or EMFs).

These are invisible waves of energy emitted by electronic devices like WiFi routers, cell phones, and baby monitors.

You can’t see them, but these EMFs are how your iPad and all mobile devices connects to the cell tower.

You cannot sense these as with other pollution such as smog, noise pollution, but your body is definitely sensitive to these fields.

Children are uniquely vulnerable to wireless radiation.

Children are more vulnerable to wireless radiation and cell phone radiation because they have smaller heads, they have thinner skulls, and they have developing brains. Research shows that children absorb higher levels of wireless radiation.

Wherever you are using your wireless device, this radiation is being absorbed into your body, quite intensely, whenever it’s nearby. So, if it’s in your head, you’re going to get high levels of absorption of the non-ionizing radiation into your head and brain. If it’s near the abdomen and you’re pregnant, your body will receive that radiation as will your developing baby.

Wireless radiation is linked to a wide range of symptoms.

Before it even becomes an acute disease, Some studies of people living near cell towers have also confirmed an array of health complaints, including dizziness, nausea, headaches, tinnitus and insomnia, from people identified as having "electromagnetic hypersensitivity."

Wireless radiation is considered a carcinogen.

In 2011, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an arm of the World Health Organization, cited troubling but uncertain evidence in classifying wireless radiation as “possibly carcinogenic to humans.”

In 2018, a study by the federal government that was nearly two decades in the making found “clear evidence” that cellphone radiation caused cancer in lab animals. A major study in Italy produced similar results.

The main reason for this new classification was its linked to gliomas.

Cellphone radiation was classified a “possible carcinogen” in 2011 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, a conclusion based on human epidemiological studies that found an increased risk of glioma, a malignant brain cancer, associated with cellphone use.

Gliomas are the most common CNS tumors in children and adolescents; it is usually a fast-growing cancer that affects your child's brain or spinal cord.

Leukaemia and brain cancer are BOTH among the top five most common childhood cancers in most countries that track such statistics, from Singapore, Malaysia in the tropics to the UK, across Europe.

In fact, leukaemia and brain cancer account for more than half of all childhood cancers. Check out the population statistics in countries such as the UK, Germany, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia. By contrast, these cancers are rare in adults.

While these childhood cancers are rare and have high overall survival, it remains the first cause of death from

disease in children and adolescents. Can you imagine what the leading factor to such cancers are?

They’ve been concerned for a long time.

“They” being the many official institutions. For example, before the WHO’s 2011 official declaration, between 2008 and 2011, the European Union Parliament and the Council of Europe passed multiple resolutions against the “early, ill-considered, and prolonged use of mobiles and other devices emitting microwaves.”

The European parliaments’ advice for an exposure level was called A.L.A.R.A. (as low as reasonably achievable). (How low is still up to you to achieve as there are no standard regulations.)

Many medical associations in North America and Europe have also issued public statements to warn about the serious health risks associated with using wireless devices. Among them, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine wrote:

Wireless radiation is linked to autism and spectrum disorders.

A majority of studies that have looked at something called oxidative stress have found an effect. Now oxidative stress can lead to inflammation and more inflammation can lead to a lot of other health implications.

Dr. Martha Herbert documented in her publications, looking at autism and ADHD, there is inflammation in the brain. With electromagnetic fields, there are studies showing inflammation as well.

Many clinicians, doctors, and health professionals have found reducing electromagnetic fields can help with kids who have behavioral problems or have autism and other health issues. It’s been a way to impact or reduce electromagnetic fields that can support the child’s resilience.

Wireless radiation can cause behavioural problems in children.

If you are pregnant and exposed to cellphone radiation, your baby could be born susceptible to behavioural issues. A Yale study in 2012 found hyperactivity and reduced memory in mice exposed to cellphone radiation in the womb, consistent with human epidemiological research showing a rise in behavioral disorders among children who were exposed to cellphones in the womb.

The researchers exposed the pregnant mice to radiation from a muted and silenced cell phone positioned above the cage and placed on an active phone call for the duration of the trial. A control group of mice was kept under the same conditions but with the phone deactivated (such as being on “airplane mode”).

After the mice were born, researchers conducted psychological and behavioral tests, as well as measured their brain electrical activity.

“We have shown that behavioral problems in mice that resemble ADHD are caused by cell phone exposure in the womb. The evidence is really, really strong now that there is a causal relationship between cellphone radiation exposure and behavior issues in children. — Dr. Hugh Taylor, the author of the mouse study and chair of the obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences department at the Yale School of Medicine”

Concerned scientists are advocating for education around possible harms of wireless tech and how it should be used with care around children.

The BabySafe Project was conceived jointly by Dr. Devra Davis of Environmental Health Trust and Patti and Doug Wood of Grassroots Environmental Education after attending a conference in Stonington, Connecticut — it was where Dr. Hugh Taylor of Yale School of Medicine presented the results of his important study on fetal exposures to cell phone radiation. https://www.babysafeproject.org/science

Your child may already be suffering from EMF

A case in Canada saw three young children with an environmental intolerance, medically known as electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS). They regularly suffered with symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, nausea, concentration and memory problems, anxiety, abdominal pain, nosebleeds, ringing in the ears, and more. These symptoms were otherwise unexplainable.

In May of 2012, to accommodate children with EHS and to provide choice for parents who want to heed health warnings to reduce exposure for children who are most vulnerable, the BC Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils (BCCPAC) called for a moratorium on Wi-Fi in schools.

EMFs health impacts begin pre-conception.

Higher levels of exposure could reduce sperm quality in men and increase miscarriage risk in women. The two miscarriage studies, conducted by Kaiser Permanente and funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, are particularly interesting because they're some of the only ones to date that actually measured EMF exposure in subjects using a magnetic field monitoring device.

"We took [913 pregnant women] and asked them to wear the monitor for the duration of their pregnancy. Studies right now aren't using the meters because most of them are focusing on cancer. Cancer can take 20 years to develop—you can't measure your exposure from 20 years ago, so in those cases, you just ask how much the person uses their cell phone." — reproductive epidemiologist De-Kun Li, MD, PhD, the principle investigator on both studies (one published in 2002, one published in 2017).

Any safety regulations is out of date.

Any safety data is so out of date, it is not even funny.

No standards even consider the impact to a pregnant woman, as that research didn’t exist 25 years ago.

For example, the US Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, based on an adult male and they don’t even consider a child’s developing brain. They last adjusted its woefully outdated health standards for wireless radiation a quarter-century ago, well before wireless devices became ubiquitous, heavily used appliances synonymous with modern life.

5G wireless radiation is a new beast.

Until now, most of us use the second-, third-, and fourth-generation cell phones (2G, 3G, 4G) that emit radiofrequency in the frequency range of 0.7-2.7 GHz.

Fifth-generation (5G) cell phones are anticipated to use the frequency spectrum up to 80 GHz.

That’s an astounding leap!


I hope this compilation of research and studies will help you make a more informed decision about Wifi and its use in your family.

Resources & recommendations

Evidence that Fluoride Is Causing Lower IQ in Kids: Federal court rules against EPA in lawsuit over fluoride in water

Evidence that Fluoride Is Causing Lower IQ in Kids: Federal court rules against EPA in lawsuit over fluoride in water

How did we allow an entire industry to dispose of their hazardous waste into our drinking water supply? A U.S. District judge in San Francisco, California ruled that there is increasing evidence that the amount of fluoride typically added to water is causing lower IQ (intelligence quotient) levels in kids, and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been ordered to address how fluoride in water could risk children's intellectual development.

This is after environmental nonprofit Food & Water Watch and health advocacy groups such as the Fluoride Action Network, have been in court for nearly a decade after the EPA denied their petition against local water utilities adding in fluorides.

Five Ways Artificial Blue Light Is Not Your Friend

What is blue light?

Blue light is a high-energy visible light with a wave length between 400 and 450 nanometers (nm).

From a natural source, such as the Sun, the shorter, high energy blue wavelengths collide with the air molecules causing blue light to scatter. This is what makes the sky look blue.

Artificial blue light comes from light-emitting diodes (LEDs), often used in energy-efficient light bulbs, as well as the lighting in our electronics, laptops, phones, TVs, tablets – anything powered by electricity likely has blue light.

Artificial blue light is quite different from blue light received from a natural source (like the Sun) as part of a balanced light spectrum. Although an LED bulb and an incandescent lamp might both be rated at the same brightness, the light energy from the LED might come from a source the size of the head of a pin compared to the significantly larger surface of the incandescent source. Looking directly at the point of the LED is dangerous for the very same reason it is unwise to look directly at the sun in the sky.

Sources of Blue Light Exposure

Most of us are exposed to much more blue light that we realize. Sources include:

  • Sunlight (the biggest source)

  • Electronics like TVs, phones, tablets and computers

  • Light bulbs and other sources of artificial lighting: fluorescent light, compact fluorescent light bulbs and LED light (LED bulbs are especially harmful)

Blue light at night messes up your circadian rhythm

Research has demonstrated that nighttime light exposure suppresses the production of melatonin, the major hormone secreted by the pineal gland that controls sleep and wake cycles. 

Do you remember when nighttime lights were a cosy hue of amber and orange?

Until 1879 when Thomas Edison patented the electric lightbulb, artificial lighting didn’t exist and after sunset, people relied on candles, lanterns, and fires for light. Blue wavelengths of light that are absent in light sources like candles, lanterns, and fires.

Today’s new lighting tech in LEDs have almost nothing BUT blue wavelengths of light. In many countries, night street lights that were once orange-coloured emissions from older sodium lights are rapidly being replaced by white-coloured emissions produced by LEDs.

Local LED street lighting has dramatically reduced even nocturnal insect populations.

The lower your melatonin levels, the greater your risks of cancer.

Blue light at night ruins your sleep

30,000+ cells in the eye sense blue light and these cells signal the pineal gland to suppress the secretion of the hormone melatonin. Melatonin is necessary for sleep, and when it is suppressed at night, when it should be increasing, it literally affects yoru sleep quality.

Light at night is part of the reason so many people don’t get enough sleep,

blue light can cause immune issues

A study found a direct link between blue light exposure and an increased risk of breast cancer and prostate cancer. People exposed to high levels of outdoor blue light, like street lights, at night had a higher risk of developing breast cancer and prostate cancer, compared with those who were less exposed.

Blue light can cause diabetes

A Harvard study looked at the connection of blue light at night to diabetes and possibly obesity. The researchers put 10 people on a schedule that gradually shifted the timing of their circadian rhythms. Their blood sugar levels increased, throwing them into a prediabetic state, and levels of leptin, a hormone that leaves people feeling full after a meal, went down.

Quality light is life

The light you live in is directly related to your quality of life.

that light and sleep are two of the most under-used tools for improving health (and that improper management of both are two of the biggest reasons for many health problems)

References & Resources

  1. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/14/increase-in-led-lighting-risks-harming-human-and-animal-health

  2. Towns and cities reversing their decision on LEDs to mitigate the harmful impacts on health and ecology https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/19/good-heavens-north-yorkshire-village-hawnby-switches-to-dark-sky-friendly-lighting

  3. 10 ways to protect yourself from blue-light exposure and melatonin suppression