It's time to ban blue-rich LEDs at night

As a wrap up to Breast Cancer Awareness month, it is now time to take action and replace harmful blue-rich LEDs with healthy blue-free lighting in the evening and at night

The banning of low blue incandescent and halogen lights, and their replacement with blue-chip LEDs, has created an unintended health crisis over the past 10 years. It is not surprising, if you understand the physiology of circadian disruption, that obesity, diabetes, heart disease, psychiatric illness, and breast cancer rates have been climbing since the widespread introduction of blue-pump LEDs in 2014.

The full explanation of this evidence and the relevant scientific citations can be found in my book, THE LIGHT DOCTOR.

October 23rd     

9 years ago: False energy metric boosts static blue-rich LED sales

The Department of Energy promulgated a misleading metric, lumens per watt, to promote the “energy efficiency” of blue-chip LED lights. But lumens primarily measure the amount of green and yellow wavelengths in white light, which contribute to visual brightness, and do not measure the blue or red wavelengths that are vitally important for human health.

October 24th

7 years ago: Narrow band of blue wavelengths in white light is the key cause

Using light wavelength filters and specially designed LED chips with different amounts of blue content, the harmful effects of nighttime light were narrowed to a band of sky-blue light between 440 and 495 nm.

October 25th

6 years ago: Zero Blue white light became commercially available

By 2017, light bulbs and light fixtures were developed and brought to market containing near-zero levels of 440-495 nm sky-blue light. These offered white LED lights that were safe to use at night because they prevent melatonin suppression and circadian disruption.

October 26th

3 years ago: NIH National Toxicology Program confirms bright blue-rich light linked to breast cancer

In 2021 the National Toxicology Program of the National Institutes of Health. published a seven-year study of the relationship between light at night, circadian disruption, melatonin suppression, and breast and other cancers, which pointed to blue-enriched light as a key cause.

October 27th

1 year ago: DOE bans low blue incandescent & halogen lights

In 2023 the Department of Energy banned the majority of low blue light sources, including incandescent and halogen lights, because they did not meet the flawed lumens per watt energy standards.

October 28th

1 year ago: 248 leading scientists reach consensus that blue-rich LEDs should carry a warning label

In 2023, 248 of the world’s leading scientists studying the interaction of light and circadian clocks reached a consensus that:

·         Light at night bright enough to cause circadian disruption increases the risk of breast cancer in women

·         Exposure to 460-495nm blue light at night suppresses melatonin production and disrupts circadian rhythms.

·         Light used in the evening (during the three hours before bedtime) should have as little blue content as practically possible.

·         LED lights with high 460 - 495nm blue content should carry the warning label “maybe harmful if used at night”

October 29th 

This year: Breast cancer diagnoses in young women are accelerating at nearly 4% per year.

It took the news of Princess Kate’s cancer diagnosis to bring public attention to what epidemiologists have known for some time. In 2024 studies showed the rate of new cancer diagnoses in young people has been climbing steeply since 2016

Breast cancer diagnoses in women aged 20 - 49 years have been accelerating at nearly 4% per year. At the same time, colorectal cancer diagnoses in young people are increasing at 2% per year

This is the same time frame as the almost universal transition of lighting to blue-rich LED light in light bulbs, fixtures, and screens.

October 30th     

Now is the time to change the lights to reduce breast cancer risk

We can no longer ignore the association between our increasing exposure to blue-rich light and the escalating rates of breast cancer in young women.

It is urgent that we implement blue-free lighting solutions for evening lighting in our homes, workplaces, hospitals, schools, and senior living facilities.

October 31st

The Global Scale of the Breast Cancer Epidemic

In today’s highly electrified society, breast cancer is the leading cancer diagnosis in women. 2.1 million new breast cancer cases are currently diagnosed each year in the world’s 2.8 billion adult women

We can conservatively estimate that up to half of the 2.1 million breast cancer cases diagnosed in the world each year may be linked to the widespread use of unhealthy electric light. That is over a million cases per year. We are faced with a cancer epidemic of a scale that Thomas Edison could never have envisaged.

Sources

For further details and background on each of these scientific developments please consult my new book THE LIGHT DOCTOR: Using Light to Boost Health, Improve Sleep and Live Longer. This also provides the citations to the scientific peer-reviewed literature.

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