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Is LED Lighting Unhealthy?
LED lighting saves energy, but is it hazardous to your health?
Dr. Alexander Wunsch is a world class expert on photobiology. Dr. Wunsch warns of the hidden dangers of light-emitting diode (LED) lighting that most people are completely unaware of.
When is "new and improved", only new, but not improved? One answer seems to be LED lighting.
"Go Green" is the battle cry of many people who care about the earth. But if saving energy jeopardizes your health and the health of your family, is it is really worth it?
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LED lighting is becoming increasingly more popular due to its energy efficiency. LED lighting can reduce energy consumption by as much as 95%, but at what cost?
Incandescent light bulbs, generate infrared light, which uses more electricity. Infrared light is actually beneficial to your health. Infra red light accelerates the body's healing processes, including retinal repair.
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According to Dr. Wunsch, certain LED lighting can lead to very serious long-term ramifications, such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which is the leading cause of blindness. LED lighting can also increase oxidative stress and produces free radicals, which accelerates the aging process.
Other health problems can be caused by mitochondrial dysfunction. The mitochondria burn fuel and produce energy for every one of our cells.
There are Healthier LEDs:
Dr. Wunsch advises that when buying LEDs, one way to get a healthier LED light is to look on the package for the CRI, which means color rendering index. Sunlight is the gold standard that this scale is based upon. Sunlight therefore has a CRI of 100, as do incandescent light bulbs and candles.
What you're looking for is a light that has an "R9" on the package, which means the bulbs produce the full red spectrum. That type of LED has a CRI of about 97, which isn't 100, but is the closest you can currently get to a natural light with an LED, but that still isn't as healthy as sunlight an incandescent light.
There are other factors to look for that are also explained in much more detail in the attached link.