Josh Dech - CHN (02:56.674) Beauty, in that case, Scott Ciaverri, welcome to the show.
Scott Chaverri (03:00.159) Thanks for having me, excited to be here.
Josh Dech - CHN (03:01.952) I'm excited to have you here, sir. This conversation is one that the world needs and frankly that I am super dead curious about. We're getting into light. We're talking about infrared, near infrared, how light affects our bodies. It is a fascinating topic. Now, I will tell you, I just had a fella named John Stuart Reed at the time of recording today. I just published his episode. It was all about sound.
and cymatics and how sound affects our world, affects our body, our cells, how cancer cells even have their own song when you pick up the sound. And now we're talking about another, it's super crazy, we're talking about another form of physics, I guess is the word. don't know, I'm not a physicist. We're talking about light. But before we get into it, can you give us a quick overview about what makes you qualified to talk about this?
Scott Chaverri (03:47.294) Yes.
Scott Chaverri (03:52.697) well, I'm the founder and CEO of Mito Red Light, Inc. So we are a red and near infrared light therapy company. So we've been a business six years. And we're a light therapy company because now we have some products that even go beyond red and near infrared light, although red and near infrared light is our core competency.
So we've got many different products, many different form factors, which are designed to deliver beneficial wavelengths to the body because our view is that most modern humans are massively deficient in these beneficial wavelengths of light.
Josh Dech - CHN (04:27.758) Okay, let's dive right into this then. You say we're deficient in these beneficial wavelengths of light. It's not a steak. I'm not eating it. Why is this light beneficial? Why do I even care? Why can't I hide in a box under a tree like the guy from The Princess Bride? Why can't I be a mole?
Scott Chaverri (04:43.839) Well, you could, but I wouldn't advise it. if you, mean, just to take that thought experiment to its logical extreme, let's say, you know, we had twins born at birth and there were twins and then one of them just lived in a typical normal life and the other one lived underground. And then we looked at them 20 years later, which do you think would be healthier?
Josh Dech - CHN (05:01.634) You're a sick man, Scott.
Scott Chaverri (05:08.983) the one that was exposed to sunlight or the one that was deprived of sunlight? I mean, think the answer is obvious.
Josh Dech - CHN (05:14.382) Well, I've seen the Princess Bride so I can answer that question, yeah.
Scott Chaverri (05:18.111) Now, unfortunately, the sad thing is that many of us modern humans are living much more like the guy that I described growing up in the cave because we're spending, according to an EPA study done 20 years ago, 93 % of our time indoors.
And this is very much disconnected from how our ancestors pre-industrial revolution would have lived. They would have been outside pretty much all day long, whether it was hunting and gathering or farming. And now, due to industrial revolution, we've moved indoors. We're sitting in front of computers or we're working in an office or a factory. And we are essentially deprived of sunlight. And so my core premise is that
just if you compare how we, the environment that we evolved in, and the environment that we surround ourselves now, they're massively different and that would have meant there's a significant reduction in the amount of sunlight we're exposed to. And then you can...
Josh Dech - CHN (06:19.864) But Scott, isn't the sun scary? Doesn't it cause cancer?
Scott Chaverri (06:24.231) No, no, actually it's funny. If you actually look at the data, sun exposure is, increasing sun exposure is inversely correlated with cancer and cancer death, the only exception being skin cancer. And again, the skin cancer issue is generally about repetitive burning. So I would even argue that
skin cancer issue is really driven by our dysfunctional relationship with the sun where you have folks that aren't getting any sunlight pretty much during the week and then maybe they're going out on the weekend and getting burned repeatedly and that
because they're not building a base tan and they're not outside and they're not building a solar callus, that they're actually more susceptible to injury from the sun. And that repeated injury can, in some cases, increase the risk for skin cancer. But to just blame that on the sun is ridiculous. It's actually a dysfunctional relationship with the sun that's resulting in that. so, and again, the data is pretty clear that the more sun, the less cancer. And there's probably a...
Josh Dech - CHN (07:30.296) I love that.
Josh Dech - CHN (07:34.83) It's funny you say that I mean looking at the data we see the hot spots for skin cancer the UK the least sunny rainy wet horrible place ever on earth I love the UK for its architecture, but the weather is abysmal and they have extraordinarily high rates of sun cancer with very little sun
Scott Chaverri (07:52.243) That's right. And so part of that may be that, you know, there's a vitamin D story there. And actually, so maybe we should take a step back. So what is the sun and what is the solar spectrum? So generally, we divide it up into three components. There's ultraviolet light, which is UVA, BNC.
That by the way, that's about 9 % of the Sun's energy then there's visible light Which is the light we can see and you know high school physics Roy G Biv That's about 39 % of the Sun's energy and then there's infrared and infrared is broken up into near mid and far and that's actually about 54 % of the Sun's energy so
The hypothesis why skin cancer might be high in the UK is that the sun that they are getting is deficient, largely deficient in UVB, most of the year. And so that's resulting in low vitamin D levels, and that's been correlated with increased cancer rates. So the solution would be to get more sun, and in particular, more UVB, but in a rational way, not to go out in two hours and burn.
but 10 to 15 minutes midday sun on a regular basis to get that UVB light and to make that vitamin D on a regular basis would probably be a good idea.
Josh Dech - CHN (09:13.806) I'm going to tell you Scott, the extent of my knowledge about the sun and it takes about two sentences because it's so limited. The sun is bright, it's shiny. Don't stare at it directly. Be in it safely. It is beneficial because we have photoreceptors in our eyes and on our skin, which can open and close to let in more or less light. It's beneficial for mitochondria. So energy production in our cells, oxygenation, vitamin D, which we need for survival basically.
Scott Chaverri (09:36.34) Yes.
Josh Dech - CHN (09:42.584) That's about the extent of my knowledge on the sun. I am not an astrophysicist. I am not a sun-is-is-ist, if that's a word. So I know very little about why the sun is good, but we can say that the sun is the life source of every living thing on earth. Yet we're telling humans to avoid it. Why? It is ridiculous.
Scott Chaverri (10:03.453) Right, right, which sounds ridiculous on its face, right? Like, there would be no life on Earth without the sun. Interesting thing about light, light travels in a wave, sound travels in a wave, but light can travel through a vacuum, whereas sound requires a medium to travel through, so that's a difference. I so I see them getting...
They're both traveling in waves, but they're very different from that standpoint, right? Because the sun comes to us, the light comes to us from the sun through the vacuum of space, where a sound wouldn't travel through the vacuum of space. But yes, so, and then we typically describe the light with respect to the wavelength, and these wavelengths are very, very small. We describe them as in nanometers, or billionths of a meter.
Ultraviolet light for instance is 200 nanometers to 400 nanometers and that's very high energy light So the the wavelengths are very the crests of the wavelengths are very close together So there's a lot of there we say that's high energy light One of the analogies I like to tell on this to really kind of get it people understand it is kind of the crossfit battle ropes
So if you think about the battle ropes, like if you're rocking them out and you want to get the crest of the wave close together, you have to put a lot more energy into the system. Whereas if you have slow waves and there's a lot of distance between the crests, it's much lower energy you need to put into the system. So that would be infrared light, which is much longer wavelength, lower energy, and generally speaking, much safer. So...
Josh Dech - CHN (11:15.458) Hmm.
Scott Chaverri (11:39.431) Ultraviolet light, high energy, short wavelength, important for vitamin D. Visible light, you've got blue light, which is important for circadian signaling, like I think you touched on a bit. And then you get into red and near infrared. the interesting thing about red and near infrared is that there's, I call them beneficial wavelengths of light. And they are quite special in the sense that there's something called the optical window.
And you can look this up on Wikipedia. It's called the near-infrared window in biological tissue. It's also called the optical window. And it's really this band of light where it's a long enough wavelength where it can penetrate into the body, but it's non-thermal. And essentially, it's not getting absorbed by water. There's minimal water absorption. So a lot of people, confuse infrared, like infrared in devices like ours, with an infrared sauna.
And again, infrared is near, mid, and far. Infrared sauna typically is using mid and far infrared. Those wavelengths of light.
are absorbed by water and they create heat. That's essentially, you go into a sauna, those longer far infrared wavelengths going into your body, exciting the water in your body and creating heat. But what's special about the wavelengths of light in our devices is that there is no water absorption. So there's very minimal thermal impact, but that allows those wavelengths of light to penetrate deep into the body and as you mentioned, act on the mitochondria in the tissues.
And what seems to be happening is that there's increasing ATP production when that's happening. So it's actually the mitochondria are essentially leveraging that energy to help make cellular energy or ATP. And that is meant to be or is thought to be the primary mechanism for the benefits that we see, the myriad of benefits that we see when people use red and near-front light. So that was kind of a long-winded explanation of kind of a, but I don't know, which we can take it any which way you want.
Josh Dech - CHN (13:29.507) Wow.
Josh Dech - CHN (13:36.322) All right, let's do that. Let's rapid fire here. We'll do a little ping pong. Rapid fire the benefits then of proper light. Now let's assume we're getting sunlight exposure because we'll talk about the different panels and stuff for sure, but proper sun exposure. So it's detoxing, it's cellular health, energy production, oxygenation, anti-inflammatory, anti-aging, vitamin D producing, frankly anti-cancer. What other benefits are we getting from light that we missed?
Scott Chaverri (14:03.141) That was actually a pretty good list you rattled off. So again, zooming back on the spectrum, UVB is super important for vitamin D. And so I do think moderate exposure midday on as much skin as you can is a great idea. And I'm lucky enough to live in Phoenix, and I can get out, the sun's out pretty much every day. And I can go out midday and I can get some vitamin D or some UVB, which I want my body to make its own vitamin D.
Josh Dech - CHN (14:05.37) shit, thank you.
Scott Chaverri (14:30.751) Now you've got blue light, which is important for circadian signaling. But also you want to get out, one of the things I like to do personally is get out and see the first light. And that's just part of, so right after sunset, right after sunrise, me, going out, saying hello to the sun, if you will, and just telling your body that it's morning and essentially rebooting your circadian rhythm. think good sleep starts with getting that early morning light.
and getting your circadian rhythm in tune. And then the other part of that is avoiding bright light after sunset. So you're not confusing the body. Because this artificial light, again, evolutionarily speaking, is very, very new. And so to have lights on after sunset would not be something our ancestors were exposed to other than fire, which, by the way, is typically red under your front light. And it's actually low to the ground, too.
That's another rabbit hole we could go down about. Even the photoreceptors that are responsible for the circadian signaling are actually in the bottom of our eyeballs. the light up top is more problematic than light down on the ground in terms of disrupting your circadian rhythm. the best way to have evening light in the home is red light, red or amber light, down toward the ground.
least likely to disrupt your circadian rhythm. Yeah, it's amazing when you really understand this just how amazing these vessels are that we travel in and how sensitive they are frankly to all of these cues. So
Josh Dech - CHN (15:50.094) Come on.
Josh Dech - CHN (16:00.556) Yeah. It's not just some dumb meat suit. Like it is really finely tuned. And you know what? I'm still hung up. You said earlier, 93 % of our lives are spent indoors. I'm having a bit of an existential crisis. I'm feeling a little depressed, because it's so true. I've got windows. I'm looking out them, but everything else is outside except for me. You know, I had somebody on many episodes ago, probably mid thirties, forties. She was a sleep expert.
And she said, we get about a hundred times too little light during the day because we're all indoors. We're under fluorescent lighting. We get about a hundred times too much light in the evening from our devices, our laptops, computer screens, watching TV, being on our cell phones, doom scrolling before bed. I got to ask why is our blue light devices, like why are these so problematic compared to a red light device at nighttime?
Scott Chaverri (16:33.587) Yes.
Scott Chaverri (17:00.105) Well, I think that's a great question. There's actually some debate in the space about that, whether it's really blue light that's the problem or just bright light in general. Now, generally speaking, blue light's been kind of smeared, if you will, in the sense that all of our devices, these energy efficient lighting from LEDs that are used for ambient lighting, they're essentially blue and...
Those lights are typically a blue LED and a blue LED with what's called the yellow phosphor. It's basically yellow coating. the blue light shines through that and creates green and just enough orange and red where you view all of that as white. Your brain perceives that as white. And it's super energy efficient, but it's super foreign to our biology because it's essentially blue light, no cyan, and then a smaller crest of green, no, hardly any red and hardly any, and no infrared.
And that's just not something that you would see in nature. Anytime the sun is above the horizon, you're getting infrared. So that's very foreign to our biology. And so I think blue light's been smeared because that's essentially what's coming off of our screens is largely blue. And we know that this light after sunset is disrupting our circadian biology. Now,
Is it the blue light specifically or is it just light after sunset in general? There's actually debate. At the end of the day, when you filter the blue light, you're going to be lowering the intensity of the light that's reaching your body. So it's still a good idea to filter the blue light out, whether it's through blue blocking glasses.
or iris on your computer screen or f dot lux. But I would also say just dim the damn lights, right? Like, so don't overly obsess about the wavelengths, but let's just lower the intensity of light that you're exposed to after sunset. I do think, I mean, personally, we have red lights in our home and again, even loaded the ground. You know, when I have these battery powered motion lights that are on the ground so that if I get up in the middle of the night, they turn on and I don't trip and fall.
Josh Dech - CHN (18:42.755) Yeah.
Scott Chaverri (19:06.335) But you know that's and those are those are amber and red lights that I have around my home
Josh Dech - CHN (19:11.246) That's fascinating. So I want to ask you then, and I love this light conversation. My wife made me stop carrying it around because I don't like the blue lights turning on a cell phone or something to walk around at night. Or we got a new puppy. So she gets up to pee. I try not to turn on the lights. I'll bring if I have to, I'll bring my blue light, blocking glasses. But I used to walk around like Ebenezer Scrooge and like a bathrobe with a candle around my house. And like we're here in 2025. She's like, you're going to start a fire. So I had to put that away. But the infrared is fascinating to me.
But here's a question for you. There's been a lot of talk, depends on whether or not you wear a tinfoil hat. I absolutely do. It's why my hairline is as far back as it is. So the conversation then around incandescent bulbs versus LED bulbs, the incandescents have recently been banned, allegedly in the U.S. that might be coming back. But we've seen a huge shift in the headlights on cars from what looks to be incandescents producing infrared to these bright halogens, which frankly burn my retinas out of my face and
I wear glasses when I'm driving. I wear blue light glasses at nighttime. We've seen street lights change. We've seen car headlights change. We've seen lights change in our cell phones. Everything, all these LED. I've seen visible drawings of these wavelengths as representation and it seemed to be a lot shorter, a lot sharper. And allegedly they're damaging our eyes, which would lead me to believe they might be damaging us on a cellular level.
Scott Chaverri (20:28.073) Yes.
Josh Dech - CHN (20:38.242) What are your thoughts on the potential negative health effects of these new lights, these white lights, these halogen lights, these LEDs that are everywhere, and the ban of incandescent bulbs that are infrared?
Scott Chaverri (20:51.207) Yes, I agree with you. I think I wear a similar shape tinfoil hat when it comes to this. I do think they're a problem. again, the problem is not... We get this a lot because our devices use LEDs. The problem is not LEDs. The problem is the composition of wavelengths emanating from the LEDs. So the LEDs that you're describing are predominantly what I described earlier, blue.
and green. Very little red. First of all, it's also important to note, no cyan, right? So there's this, if you look at a spectrograph, they peek at blue. There's no cyan, which is the color between blue and green. And then there's this smaller hail of green and just a tiny bit of orange and red.
And that our brain perceives that as white, it's we also, at least I do, I perceive that as a strange white and it feels artificial. Doesn't feel like really pure white light to me. But, you know, more or less our brains perceive it as white and it's super energy efficient. Right. And that's that's why they've been designed that way, like because we can create white light.
And it's incredibly energy efficient. But it's super foreign to our biology. And I do agree that it's problematic. Incandescents, in contrast, create light through black body radiation, the same as the sun. And it's full spectrum. There's no heaps and valleys. You have all of the visible range and infrared.
And this is actually one of the problems. And one of the reasons why I think our business has been so successful these past six years is that it's not just that we've moved indoors. That's that's like a big part of the problem. But then we've then we've gone ahead and we've banned incandescence. And so that was at least some source of red and near and fair light that we were getting when we were indoors that now we're no longer getting. So now that this deficiency of red and near and fair light that I'm arguing is a problem has become that much more.
Scott Chaverri (22:55.795) that much worse because now we don't even have incandescent indoors lighting our indoor environment. it's gotten worse and worse. And so I do think that that's part of reason why people that use devices like ours tell us that they feel better, they sleep better, it's improving their quality of life because it's correcting that deficiency. Having said that, one of the projects that I'm working on
Josh Dech - CHN (23:01.123) Hmm.
Scott Chaverri (23:17.943) is to see what we can, because my perspective on this is that the problem of LEDs can be solved with more LEDs, right? So the problem with LEDs as we think of them now is that again, they're primarily blue and green light. If we can use other LEDs and fill in the gaps, fill in the cyan, add more red.
add more yellow and add infrared even. Now we're getting what we were getting from an incandescent but still doing it in an energy efficient way. That would be the best of both worlds in my opinion and frankly it doesn't exist. I've looked doesn't exist which is why I'm working on creating it.
Josh Dech - CHN (23:57.166) So kind of be like the physical equivalent of driving on a road with potholes and those patches of the light that we're missing, but it's a much smoother ride on a cellular level, a biological level, by filling in these potholes with other LEDs to fill in those wavelengths.
Scott Chaverri (24:12.415) That's a good analogy. And frankly, it's super intuitive. I can tell the story with two pictures, just showing a special graph of sunlight and then showing these horrible LEDs. And you just compare the two and you're like, OK, so that's billions of years and that's 20 years. And also, just our Vistula experience, like any time you go into a big box store,
Josh Dech - CHN (24:24.472) Yeah.
Scott Chaverri (24:39.135) That's you you know put in fluorescents or LEDs and you just don't want to spend a lot of time in there because you start to get a headache or you start to not not feel your best and And and it's it's the lighting
Josh Dech - CHN (24:52.494) So outside of just issues with circadian rhythms or sleep-wake cycle issues with getting vitamin D. What about our eyes physically? Is there a risk of damage to our eyes or even early blindness, eye diseases, cataracts, something like this by being surrounded like me standing in front of my computer screen 10 hours a day. Am I at risk of having eye damage?
Scott Chaverri (25:16.351) There yeah, so there is there is some data on again the high-energy blue light I mean we're talking about hours and hours a day Over many decades and not the best idea so I I personally would recommend wearing and actually I have a pair here These these these blue filtering glasses, and I remember I had a co-worker So those would be after sunset I'd wear those dark ones, but during the day you do want some blue light
But again, if you're in front of a computer screen, I recommend filtering it a bit. Just you'll notice, at least I notice, an immediate decrease in eye strain. And I had a friend who had headaches for ages, I worked with him.
You know he wore glasses and you know I he would come into my office and I'd have these strange lighting setups You know in corporate people thought I was very weird and I guess because I am but You know so I had I've been into this for a long time and so I would have like the incandescent bulbs and I would shut off the fluorescence in my office and people were like that guy's that guy's weird but my so I he came in and I would try to explain to him you know and So anyways, he told you it's like a very simple thing. He went to the optometrist and he just had some blue filtering
Josh Dech - CHN (26:05.454) You
Scott Chaverri (26:27.017) glaze put on his prescription and his headaches went away. And you know, he was very thankful to me because I kind of brought it to his attention. But yes, so I do think there's a problem for daily use many hours over extended period of time damaging the eyes. But also one of the other things we should just be mindful of is that we
We have not evolved to stare at a fixed point 18 inches from our face for hours and hours a day. Like we're actually designed to be going out and looking way out on the horizon and focusing on different points, know, very, you know, very far away and very close and constantly focusing and really curving the lens in your eye back and forth to be able to focus light and focus on things at many, different distances and not
Josh Dech - CHN (26:55.01) Mm-hmm.
Scott Chaverri (27:16.029) be fixed at this point and essentially the lens just hardens and loses the ability to
curvature because it's just atrophying from just being fixed at 18 inches from your face for hours and hours. So I would recommend taking a break from the screens, going outside, and making it a point to look at on the horizon and to spend some time focusing and just thinking. You're exercising the lens in your eye. That's all you're doing. just focus at different points and different distances. Just break up your day and do that. And it's also just good to get outside and get some sun in the process.
Josh Dech - CHN (27:43.672) Yeah.
Josh Dech - CHN (27:51.374) It is. You know, it's interesting. I read something about that, that over the course of a year or two of daily exercises, those wearing glasses, prescriptions minus three, four or five, that would be considered like you cannot drive safely without your glasses on. And within a year or two, they're like 20, 20 vision again, because they started re-exercising their eye because it is malleable tissue, which is a whole conversation for another time. But I got to ask outside of getting something, you know,
film over your glasses, someone's, I don't actually wear glasses. Do you make or is there something available that you can put? You know, I got a screen protector on my phone. Is there a screen protector I can get that filters out some of this white light or something I can put on my laptop that filters the screen so my eyes aren't as strange during the day?
Scott Chaverri (28:36.671) So I use a program called Iris, which you can download. I think it's like $15 for a lifetime license or something. Maybe it's $50 for a lifetime, $15 for a year. But either way, every computer in our office here, so we've got 15 employees, 15 computers, I install Iris for them. And that allows them to essentially change the composition of the color of the light.
And I like to do it where, again, in the morning it's more reddish, midday it's pretty bright and contains a lot of blue, and then toward the end of the day it starts to get more of a yellow, amber, reddish hue. So it's more in line with our circadian signaling, but also just filtering out some of that blue just reduces the eye strain. But even on top of that, on top of using Iris, I do like using blue light filtering glasses, because it just...
For me it just takes the tension. The tension in your eyes just melts right away from doing that.
Josh Dech - CHN (29:33.006) Of course. I'm gonna hard left turn one more question for you. I do want to get into lights and what you're doing. So I think what you guys are doing with light in your company here through Mito Red Light, I think it's amazing. But I gotta ask now because there's so much going through my brain million miles an hour. Someone comes in, they say, hey, you know what, Scott, I love what you're saying. I'm in my office, but I actually sit near a bunch of windows. Is that good? I've heard that windows actually block out some UVA or UVB might actually change the light you're receiving.
Is there any benefit to being inside on the other side of a window or do we need that direct unfiltered through anything sunlight?
Scott Chaverri (30:11.625) So I actually, I do think there's benefit to having natural light pouring in, but not being directly in the sunlight behind the window. Because that's actually the worst of both worlds. Because what happens is the shorter wavelength UVB will get filtered out by the window pane.
But some longer wavelength UVA will make it through. And so you're not getting the vitamin D benefit from the UVB, but you do get the photo aging downside of the UVA. that's the problem with driving or something like a truck driver. I actually saw a picture just yesterday of a truck driver, 32 years.
Josh Dech - CHN (30:52.905) Mm-hmm.
Scott Chaverri (30:53.427) he was driving a truck, the left side of his face looked like he was 120 years old and the right side of his face looked like he was 60 years old. And that was just decades of just that UVA just photo aging his skin. So I think you want natural light to pour in, but you just don't want to be directly in, have the sunlight directly on you filtered by the window because it's kind of the worst of both worlds.
Josh Dech - CHN (31:20.45) Fascinating. Okay. So I think my curiosity has been itched for right now I want to circle back to what you're doing here because as we had this conversation I've also gone through your website. I found some things very interesting So just as a quick recap for our listeners, you say we spend about 93 % of our lives indoors We get from the Sun we get UV light so a B and C that's about 9 % of the Sun We get the visible light. That's the Roy G Biv that we get we can see through the spectrum about
39 % than the infrared light the stuff we want more of or your infrared and near infrared or I believe you said mid infrared was 54 % of the Sun's light The energy so we this is what we want. We want more natural Sun for those of us now who are stuck indoors You've got some interesting stuff. We're talking about red light and blue light once in a while You've mentioned green light. You actually have this Mito green on your website as well
Scott Chaverri (31:59.656) Energy.
Josh Dech - CHN (32:17.676) Why on earth of all this infrared, all this blue, all this near infrared, why on earth would I want green light?
Scott Chaverri (32:24.575) Yeah, that's a great question. it's actually pretty fascinating. And it's just amazing because it's an interesting time to be alive in the sense that the pace of human knowledge is really accelerating. And so this is, I'll get into the green light, but just as one fact that I love to throw out is when I started this business in 2019, there's this database of all these studies in photo biomodulation. It's an amazing database. And actually, we have it on our site.
Josh Dech - CHN (32:52.472) just to find that word really quick for the audience.
Scott Chaverri (32:54.879) Oh, photo biomodulation is basically just how light affects biology. And so in the literature, it's, know, or PBM for short, it's PBM studies, PBM literature, photo biomodulation. So there were 4500 studies roughly when I first started this business in 2019. And now there are close to 8000. So it's an only six years, right? So in decades, we took us in many decades, it took 45 took to have 4500 scientific studies.
Now we're already up to 8,000. And a few of those studies are on green light from LEDs. It's really fascinating. There was a study done at Harvard and a study done at right here at University of Arizona where they looked at different narrowband LED light with people that had migraines. And pretty much every part of the light spectrum
Makes a headache worse like that energy if you have a migraine and anybody that's had a migraine You know, they kind of get this typically if you somebody that struggles with migraines They go run into a dark room and they just try to wait it out, you know And they might take something for the pain, but generally they're avoiding any sort of light But there's something fascinating about narrow band green light And again narrow band in this can only be created by an LED
and narrow band light so doesn't exist in nature anywhere right and anywhere in nature you get you get a full spectrum of light but for some reason this narrow band green light when shined into the eyes of someone that's struggling with a migraine has shown that it can help reduce the severity and the duration of migraines
Josh Dech - CHN (34:16.012) Really?
Scott Chaverri (34:37.725) And it's really fascinating. And what's really interesting is they looked at it and it works in both an acute as an acute intervention, but also as just a chronic way in the sense that if you have a migraine and you shine this narrow band light through your eyes, it seems to do something with the pain signaling to kind of to reduce it. But also if you just have an ambient light in your green narrow band green light in your environment for two or more hours a day,
it reduces the frequency and severity of the migraines that you do get. So it's pretty amazing, right? And so, and again, is what's really kind of fascinating and trippy to me is that it doesn't exist in nature, right? It's really, you can only create these bands of light through LEDs. And again, they looked at it and they tried every color in invisible spectrum and they all made the headaches worse except for the green.
So anyways, that's why we came out with that product. So that product actually is one of a kind in that it's a fully functional red and near infrared light device. And you can use it for the benefits that red and near infrared light confer to you. But if you do happen to get a migraine, there is a green mode where you can get this narrowband green light and hopefully use it to help with the migraine.
Josh Dech - CHN (35:55.928) So I did look up actually the green light out of curiosity. allegedly green light activates fewer pain pathways. The thalamus is a pain processing center in the brain and the narrow band green light activates these pathways much less in the blue or the red. There's also reduced retinal and cortical stimulation. So those with migraines, like you said, have light sensitivity. Green light's been shown.
to generate significantly less retinal and cortical activity in migraine prone individuals. They also say it's a better contrast and reduced flicker sensitivity. Whereas LEDs can flicker quite a lot, which I've actually seen my camera, for example, where I'll turn on my webcam. I have two sets of lights. I have studio lights, I have overhead lights. The overhead's an LED. If I turn it on, I can see these waves coming across like an old TV screen.
And that's, guess, the the flicker that's being picked up. Increase in Dorphin and serotonin activity. There's all kinds of cool stuff, allegedly, from this green light. That's fascinating.
Scott Chaverri (37:01.001) Yeah, well, one thing on the flicker, that's another reason why LEDs get a bad rap, and rightfully so, is the issue of flicker. So flicker is really an artifact of the alternating current in the electricity. And so essentially, those LEDs are turning on and off 120 times a second, which is just above what we can perceive. That's 120 hertz. The alternating current is 60 hertz, which means that it's crossing zero.
twice, hence 120 hertz is the flicker rate. And generally our brains can't perceive anything above 100 hertz. it's this, but those LEDs are turning on and off 120 times a second. And that's just the nature for how LEDs work. By the way, it's another reason why incandescents are superior because incandescents don't have any flicker. And the reason incandescents don't have any flicker is because they're heating up a filament. And yes, their alternating current is turning on and off.
at 60 hertz, but the time that effect is muted by the time it takes to heat the filament. So incandescents don't flicker, but LEDs that are used in ambient lighting do flicker, and the thought is, especially for the eyes, is that it's a very, very subtle and constant stressor.
Right? Because again, very unnatural. The sun does not flicker. And so this is constant. They're turning on and off imperceptibly, but it's subtly stressing the eyes. Many, many hours a day, all day. So our devices, we use special drives to take out the flicker. And anything that's battery powered won't flicker because that's direct current. So like the Mito Green, for instance, that's a battery powered unit. No flicker. It's just built into the design. But even our...
Josh Dech - CHN (38:16.131) Wow.
Scott Chaverri (38:45.705) The units that we sell which are plug-in, we use special drives to essentially neutralize the effect of alternating current so that the light does not flicker at all.
Josh Dech - CHN (38:53.774) Because your battery is the DC current, the plug in the wall is the AC current because it's literally alternating current that produces a surge then of power which produces a flicker.
Scott Chaverri (39:04.595) Well, it's literally turning on and off. It's actually, you and it goes, I think it goes back to, you know, the days of Edison and Tesla and that they had to decide back then, you know, how are we going to build out a power grid? How are we going to do it, DC or AC? And the argument is that DC is better for our biology, but AC is better for transmitting electrical power over long distances. And so, like if you're building out a power grid, AC is superior.
Josh Dech - CHN (39:06.574) Right.
Scott Chaverri (39:32.575) But the problem is that now in the modern age we have LEDs and we flickering light which is not conducive to our biology. So we just need to be mindful of that. But there's obviously we are aware of it now. So if companies know what they're doing, they should be able to neutralize it.
Josh Dech - CHN (39:52.046) So I want to go down a little bit of a rabbit hole with you here, Scott. My wife and I are to be building a house in the coming years. We're working to save up. We want to buy an acreage, have a farm, all the works. I want to be outside and not be the 93 % indoors like I've been for the last 32 years of my life. I do feel like the man under the tree. And so walk me through. Here's a new business idea for you. Working with contractors and construction for people who value their health and changing the lighting in their home, right from the ground up from the...
the lights they have in the ceilings, to what turns on at nighttime, to timers, to floor lighting, all that would be amazing. So walk me through, let's explore this new business here. If I'm building a house or better yet, let's get more practical, my current home, same with our listeners right now in their current home. If you were to walk into our homes and say, here's all the things that are compromising your health, the integrity of your eyes, whatever it is, and here's what we're gonna do instead, whether it's new bulbs, whether it's plugging in some panels,
What would you change in the average person's home? We've already talked about blue light glasses for blocking out the LEDs on your screen. So let's skip that one. What would you do in the average home to change the quality of light for better biology?
Scott Chaverri (41:05.033) Well, I guess starting backwards from the evening, would, you know, we, yeah, well, that's part of it is.
Josh Dech - CHN (41:11.402) Sell me your panels during this conversation as well. That's great.
Scott Chaverri (41:17.457) I would suggest I would just recommend pretty much every modern human to consider supplementing with red and your infrared light. And I do like panels for that purpose for a few reasons. One is, you know, we can build these panels and they deliver a very high amount of red and your infrared light in a reasonable amount of time. You don't have to spend three hours standing in front of the thing. We recommend, you know, 10 minutes or so, four to six times a week. And you're getting a good dose of red and your for lighting to the body. And the panels are super durable. So those LEDs, as long as you don't
put them in a sauna or in a steam room so basically heat and humidity are enemies of electronics but if you keep it in a cool dry place those LEDs should last pretty much forever frankly so that would be step one and obviously we have a whole build a business built around that
And I would say get the largest panel you can for your budget and shine it on as much surface area of your body as you can. And again, we're just trying to correct the deficiency. I would say also try to spend more time outside if you can. And there's certain things that you could do around that. Like just build it into your routine. Figure it out.
you know, we do, I, it's funny. We, I have a desk lamp, a bedtime desk lamp that we sell. I mean, it's 50 bucks. It's nothing super spectacular or fancy, but I literally, created it because I was solving my own problem. Because even in my own, as somebody that's very aware of this stuff, I had terrible nighttime lighting in my house and I had no, I literally had no, no lamp on my.
on my bedside night table and I just had a lamp there, it was a decoration, didn't even have a bulb in it. And I said, you know, this is ridiculous, you I'm in the lighting business and I don't even have a good, you know, so now we have a, it's a battery powered red LED lamp with three brightness settings. so it's just super relaxing, you know, again, you want dim light at night, I do think you want to avoid the high energy blue light.
Scott Chaverri (43:17.724) Because again, you wouldn't be exposed to that after sunset and so I would recommend getting something like what we have for the bedrooms
As well as getting again what we have in our home is our emotion detectors these they're amber lights Low to the ground. So if you do have to go to the bathroom, you don't trip and hurt yourself But you know where it's only turning on and again the lights low to the ground and it's it's very low intensity Just enough so that you can see where you're
And then I do think natural light's important. So here's one on the building biology front. This is another instance where in the name of energy efficiency, we've just, in my opinion, just gone way off the reservation. And the windows in your home. So many of the windows now in the name of energy efficiency are using something called low E class. And you can tell what that is if it has a green tint. Why?
This is why I have green behind me. Green is interesting in the sense that greenery reflects infrared light. So if you want to keep infrared light out of your home, you use low-E windows with a green tint. So the infrared hits the window and bounces off. Now that's great for energy efficiency. If you live in a warm,
like I do in Phoenix, use the low-e grass and you're keeping the infrared out of the home and you know, it's gonna lower your air conditioning bills. But it's super far into our biology because again, you're just adding to the infrared deficiency that we've talked about for the past 45 minutes. And now you're blocking out, like the sun wants to give you a little bit of infrared and you're indoors, but maybe you'll get some through the glass. But then you're using this low-e glass and you're saying, no, I don't want any of that. So personally,
Josh Dech - CHN (44:58.094) Prezoo.
Scott Chaverri (45:11.197) When we put in a patio door, we opted out of the low E glass, although that was kind of the standard. And I said, no, I actually want some infrared to come into my home. But that's actually an interesting hack on the green front. Because some people are, and rightfully so, as we mentioned, UV can photoage the skin.
Josh Dech - CHN (45:20.888) Wow.
Scott Chaverri (45:34.823) And so you may not want to spend a lot of time outside in direct sunlight if you don't want premature photoaging of the skin. So one hack is to sit in the shade, but to do so in a green space. And the reason, I do this all the time. I sit out in, I usually get my midday sun, but then if I'm like, all right, I got my 10 minutes, I'm good, I don't wanna burn or anything.
Josh Dech - CHN (45:50.264) Hmm.
Scott Chaverri (45:59.069) So I will go sit in the patio, and I'm not in direct sun, but have the grass is right next to where I'm sitting. And I can take an infrared meter and point it down at the green grass and measure the infrared light that's bouncing off of that green grass and coming up into the body. Because infrared bounces off of green.
And you can see this with infrared cameras too. If you ever like, can Google like infrared camera, like a great one is like infrared camera Manhattan. And you know, anywhere in the concrete jungle, you see an infrared camera. It's barren. But if you go to Central Park, it's lit up like a Christmas tree. And that's because that infrared light is bouncing off of all the greenery at Central Park. So that's a hack. If you want to get more infrared, but you don't want the photo aging, just sit in a green space in the shade.
Josh Dech - CHN (46:48.172) You know what fascinates me about this conversation? Every conversation I've had, and I mean, we've gone through everything again. Episode 155, we talked early in this episode, beginning with Jon Stewart Reed about sound. We talked in 153 with Michael Rubino. We talked about mold in homes. 151, we talked to Jerry Curatola about our oral microbiome. All these conversations we've had, right down to fungus, to nutrition, every conversation, Scott, comes back.
to living more in tune with nature. We would put you out of business if we just cut the roofs off our houses. That's it.
Scott Chaverri (47:26.815) I totally agree. say this all the time. If everybody lived like the HUDSA tribe, I don't really know that there would be much need for our products, Except for maybe an injury. If you twisted your ankle, you have an acute issue, do think that Renin Neuro-Infrared, there's potential for it to help with wound healing. My stepfather, I mean, I actually have this very close to home. My stepfather had stomach surgery.
mean, he's in his 70s and the wound was not yet a hole in his abdomen and it was not closing up. And I was on the phone with my mother and I'm from New York, so I get on the phone with my mother and it's like, Ma, know, go get a drink of water. But you know, so she's telling me about this New York accent's coming out and I'm like, Ma, what are you talking about? Like, go get the light that I sent you two years ago and shine it on his abdomen. And I kid you not.
After two weeks of that hole knot sealing up, within a few days my step-fowler had healed. So I do think, yes, if everyone was living like the Hudson tribe, there wouldn't be as much of a need or much need at all for products like ours, except for perhaps acute interventions, like injuries and things like that.
Josh Dech - CHN (48:39.822) That's amazing. You know, I find this whole aspect of biology and things natural to be fascinating. Back when I was in, jeez, maybe the fifth grade, maybe, my buddy Matt and I, we went out, we did a science project. And the curiosity was, will magnets help plants grow faster? And it turns out, I mean, I was nine, 10, but I've always been fascinated by this biology stuff. just, you know, when you have your zone of genius, you just get it.
I was like that kid, I just kind of got it. You know, flew through my bio classes with a 99 % average, because it was like a second language to me. And so I started getting curious, I was like, well, do magnets help heal broken bones? Can they heal them faster? Do magnets help with wound healing? Does light help with so-and-so? What does sound mean? I mean, Nikolai Tesla, Matt Reif, not the comedian, but Matthew Reif, the scientist, invented the Reif machine showing sound affects healing, kills...
cancer cells like the fat lady at the opera using her voice to break a glass. How light penetrates our cells. It's such a fascinating topic but you know what the kicker is Scott? None of this can be patented. None of it. Because it's bloody freaking natural. And so if it can't be patented, it can't be sold, therefore we'll give you the other option. We'll create a disease and sell you the cure. We'll put you indoors and
Scott Chaverri (49:49.555) Yep, I know.
Josh Dech - CHN (50:01.678) Again, tinfoil hat, it will put you indoors, it will put green on the windows, will recirculate your air, which is a top five pollutant for humans, according to the EPA. We're gonna do all these things, we're gonna take away the only other source of infrared you got, which is incandescents, and give you LEDs instead. And we're like, geez, I wonder why we're all sick. But it's unbelievable that the closer we get to nature, the further we get from disease, minus Lyme disease, which again, that's a whole conversation about being manmade as well. There's leaked CIA documents about that.
My tinfoil hat is showing, but the point being, the closer we get to the original design, I believe we were put here and we were designed to be in accordance with nature. I don't think our bodies were ever designed to make mistakes. I believe in intelligent creator. I believe that God made humans and that everything he put in our world was designed to work seamlessly. Every episode, 155 episodes we published now at the time of recording this one have only gone to prove that the closer we get to nature,
the further we get from disease. It's fascinating.
Scott Chaverri (51:02.919) I totally agree with you. Nature doesn't make mistakes. And really, whether it's you believe in intelligent design or evolution or some combination, the bottom line is that we have been honed by our environment. But we are incredibly well-conditioned for an environment which we no longer live. And so when you understand that,
then yes, then the logical conclusion is, how do I, what can I do to kind of get back to that environment? Or how can I change my environment so that it's more in tune with the environment we evolved in? And, you know, and frankly, it's not that complicated. I really don't think, and I think, you know, unfortunately, there are always economic interests that will seek to complicate things, but I don't think there's anything too complicated about.
Spend a little bit more time in indoor outside. Avoid bright light in the evening. Drink clean water. Try to breathe clean air. Eat real food. These are all very foundational and don't have to be overly complicated. But obviously building the habits around to make those things happen is where things can get complicated because we all have very busy lives and demands and bills to pay.
Josh Dech - CHN (52:12.739) Hmm.
Josh Dech - CHN (52:24.11) Wow. Here's what I want you to do right now, Scott. I want you to sell me three products off your website because my home is not conducive to biology. Even my windows. It's a new build. I'm looking out now. mean, it could be the electrical box that's kind of green reflecting up, but maybe there's a green hue. I don't know. We got LEDs in the home. I don't have as much access working the hours I work, even with my windows, to all the light I would like. What are the top three products?
for someone working indoors, working from home, working from an office in my situation that you would recommend from your website that I pick up right now to help my body's biology improve, my circadian rhythm, my cellular health, mitochondria, all of it.
Scott Chaverri (53:08.287) So again, I really love the panels and the X-Series is kind of our flagship panel series. We've got a bunch of options and part of that is I just want to give people choices and different price points. I mean, we have panels that are as low as 250 bucks up to I think $6,000, which is for the giant ones and everything in between. So I really like the Pro 300X for a tabletop panel.
that it's just easy to use. It's gonna last forever. I mean, it's built like a tank. You could put it on your desktop. You could take a break from work and do 10 minutes on your face and neck or put it under your desk, use it on your legs if you have any sort of aches and pains down there. Use it all around the body. So I like that for its versatility. Now, if you're willing to invest, which I would suggest, 10 minutes, take a break from the desk.
I would suggest getting something larger like the 1500X which is a 43 inch panel. You can hang that on the back of a bedroom door and take the 10 minutes and shine it on, you know, as much surface area of the body as you can from about a 12 inch distance and really get a lot of red and near-fraight light into the body. Now those two I would recommend again for the easy views to power on the durability. What I do do sometimes is I do use personally the Mitle Pod.
And that I have, I only use that in the evening. If I haven't had a chance to use a paddle during the day, the day gets away from me. I don't get to it. I can lay in that and it's super relaxing. And none of the bright light really goes into the face at all. You just lay in it and it's a pod. And you surround yourself with the red and near for LEDs and it's super relaxing. And it's a good way to get some extra red and near for it into the body while laying down. and you know, 10 or 15 minutes. And that's, that's a good night.
routine. So I have one of those under my bed. And then a portable device. I would say get a Mito Pro Mobile, which I think is the best portable device on the market. I'm super proud of that product. It's very powerful. mean, it's handheld. But just the convenience of if you travel or if you go to the gym and you play racquetball and your arm's a little sore, you can use it right then and there on your elbow.
Scott Chaverri (55:24.881) And also, sometimes, again, so I'm all about just practical solutions. I have two young kids. I to spend a lot of time being a dad is super important to me. And so sometimes the day gets away from me from running the business and I don't do any red light, but I want to spend time with my kids. So I'll be in the living room and I'll just have the portable device and I'll just put it on my body. I'll put it on my head, put it on my leg. And I'm just getting red in here for a light into my body.
while I'm spending time with my kids, so I'm not like sequestered in the bedroom laying on the floor or in the closet doing a full body session. I'm just using the portable light around my body, but also being present with the kids. But also it's just great if you travel.
Josh Dech - CHN (56:06.51) Hmm. I love that. think it's fascinating. Do you guys make light bulbs at all? So I could like put one in my night side. my wife, she's got really nice taste, expensive taste, but she has good taste. So she has these two really nice lamps on either side of the bed. And I want to say that they're incandescent bulbs because they're a little yellowy, but I don't think they are. I think they might be LED. But long and short, I'd love a nice infrared or near infrared bulb.
that I can turn those on in the evening and not be stimulated. Did you guys make light bulbs for that?
Scott Chaverri (56:38.609) No, and I don't think that they exist. Well, you can get incandescence, but LEDs that emit infrared, I'm not aware that they exist. And so there's something that I'm working on. actually have a prototype of a desk lamp here. again, trying to solve for this issue of light that's in tune with our biology, but also energy efficient doesn't exist. And I haven't been able to find it. So we have the desk lamp, the bedside lamp, which is just red LEDs. They don't flicker.
It's good for, again, relaxing at night. But for an actual screw-in bulb, there aren't really many good options out there, unfortunately. So it is an opportunity. there's interesting, even the LEDs themselves don't exist. So I have to, I'm still in the research phase trying to figure out how to solve this problem. But I think the market, it's literally a trillion dollar problem. And if we can solve it,
And actually it needs to be solved and it will be solved eventually because more and more people are really coming, are really understanding that the current situation is not good for our biology. So, you know, how do we solve for energy efficiency and biology at the same time? That's what I'm working on, but I don't have a product for you yet.
Josh Dech - CHN (57:44.067) Yeah.
Josh Dech - CHN (57:52.012) Well, if you do a 1 % finders fee off that trillion dollars would be fine for me. I'll be happy with that And last question for you as well if we're getting some of these infrareds, obviously there's product recommendations But can I get too much infrared from these LED panels? Can I be it have a lamp on all day and it actually be a problem for me?
Scott Chaverri (58:12.691) Well, so like an incandescent lamp, which I actually have one up here and I use it because I want some extra infrared in my day, like a low, very low level of that all day is not a problem. Now our lights are quite strong because what we're trying to do is get a high amount of infrared in a reasonable amount of time. So you wouldn't want to spend all day in front of a light like ours. know, they're just apples and oranges in terms of the intensity and the amount of light, red and near-fair light that's coming out.
And yes, you can get too much. mean, the best analogy is exercise, because it is a stressor. And we really didn't talk too much about this, but it's a hormetic stressor. It increases ATP. But there's no such thing as a free lunch in biological systems. So there is an increase in oxidative stress. Now, in the right.
dose and in the right amounts, that's a net benefit because you get this transient increase in oxidative stress and you get this retrograde signaling from the mitochondria to the nucleus of the cell to increase the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant pathways that you know endogenous to the body. And so you get an increase in melatonin and these other things which are a net benefit. But if you just continually stress the system eventually the net benefit turns into a net negative.
Right, so it's just like exercise. 20 minute walk every day is probably a great idea for 99.999 % of population. But running a marathon every day is probably a good idea for 0 % of population. And so, you know, it's just about the dose and trying to optimize and find the Goldilocks.
Josh Dech - CHN (59:48.876) Wow, I love it. Well, I want to the ball back to your court here because we've covered so much ground here. Biologically fascinating. My mind is a little bit blown and frankly, I know I'm going to go back and listen to this episode. I'm going have a bunch of questions. My dad's going to listen to this episode. He's going be like, you should ask this one. 100%. I've got questions, but I want to throw the ball back to you then. Is there anything that we haven't talked about or any?
big highlights, key bits of information or famous last words you'd like to leave listeners with before we wrap this up.
Scott Chaverri (01:00:22.055) Yeah, I would just say that one of the things I'm trying to do and why I do these podcasts is I'm really trying to drive the discussion about light and the importance about light and health and really think about it holistically. We tend to kind of categorize things or have tunnel vision about things. And I've been in the wellness space for a while. most of the discussion about light and health tends to be focused on circadian rhythm and vitamin D.
And it's actually much more than that. And that's why I always like to try to mention that 54 % of the light from the sun is infrared. And if you're sunlight deficient, you're infrared deficient. And think about that you evolved, and more than half of that energy is infrared. if you're, just think about it. So I would say that that is, we're designed, and that's arguably the most important part.
of the solar spectrum, but yet we never talk about it. We're talking about vitamin D and UVB, and we're talking about blue light and circadian rhythm, which isn't to say that those aren't important, but the infrared story very rarely gets talked about. And arguably, that's the most important story. When the sun is above the horizon, you are getting exposed to infrared. You're not getting UV, and you're not getting much blue.
So any time that the sun is up, you would be getting infrared if you're outside. So now when you're inside, you're deficient. So I would say that that would be kind of my take-home point that I really would want to hammer home. then when you understand how infrared affects the body and that it helps the mitochondria and all of these benefits that it has, when you understand that story, then it just kind of makes sense to change, to maybe think about making some change in your life to get more infrared in your life.
Josh Dech - CHN (01:02:08.92) Wow, I love it. I think that's an excellent way to wrap things up. Now, final piece, because if everyone listening is as inquisitive as I am, they're gonna wanna know, I need to get a panel, I wanna get a lamp, I wanna get some stuff from you. Where can I get some of these things? Where can I buy these? Where can I find you on social media?
Scott Chaverri (01:02:28.061) Yes, I would say go to the site Mito, which is short for mitochondria Mito red light comm and you know We're on Instagram if you're an Instagram person at Mito red light official if you want to check us out on Instagram You can go to the site if you want to learn more. We we have a great learn section where we kind of Distilled down a lot of things we talked about and then a really good blog repository of articles We've written over the past six years and again that the science is coming out so fast. That's very it's actually very difficult to stay on
of. But there is a treasure trove of information on our blog. We have a link to the database I mentioned earlier for the real science nerds if they want to go in and look at specific studies. All of that's there. And then obviously you can send us an email if you have questions info at mitorethlight.com
Josh Dech - CHN (01:03:16.16) I love it. Thank you so much Scott and I'll put all those links down below. I'll put the Instagram link. I'll put the Mito Red Light website down below. I'll put in as well for Iris. I'll put a link down there if you guys want that for your computers. Everything's gonna be down below. Scott man, thank you so much for being here. This episode has absolutely blown my mind. Very excited to share this one. It's just one of those topics that I've been curious about for a long time and a lot of the questions I had. I'm glad I got them answered by somebody I trust, not just some guy on Instagram.
who's talking about something he doesn't have an expertise in. So thank you for being here. Your time, attention, and expertise is greatly appreciated.
Scott Chaverri (01:03:52.243) Thanks, man. I enjoyed it.