Jonathan Jarecki (00:00.426)
Not at at Davidson undergrad studying bio biomajor, neuroscience minor, but not my my plan is to do a PhD down the road. That's that's the goal. Yeah. So so so you know, I'll be doing research with some of my professors next year and and just focusing on on the research route is sort of where I wanna take things.

Dominick (00:08.845)
Nice.

Dominick (00:18.114)
Fantastic. So does that mean that you live in Davidson?

Jonathan Jarecki (00:21.048)
So I born and raised in South Florida. that's where I am right now for the summer. I'm back back home. but but up in Davidson for for the rest of the rest of the year, besides summer and winter break.

Dominick (00:23.416)
Okay.

Yeah.

Dominick (00:31.192)
Great, so our father, as you know, Jessica and I, brother and sister, just bought a house in Cornelius. And part of his impetus is that our youngest brother and I both live in North Carolina. I actually live on a farm in Denver, North Carolina, so on the other side of the lake from you. But yeah, we go to Kindred, Pickled Peach over there. It's a great town. So that's fantastic. I love that kind of synchronicity there.

Jonathan Jarecki (00:38.006)
wow. Yeah.

Jessica (00:39.098)
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Jarecki (00:50.764)
Yeah. yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan Jarecki (00:59.8)
Yeah, that's so awesome. Such a small world. I love it. It's a it's a great it's a great area. I've I've really enjoyed I was you know, I was born and raised and literally have just stayed in South Florida for basically my entire life. Didn't really travel much like growing up. So you know, going to being like living in North Carolina for basically the majority of my time now, the past couple years, has been has been really cool. I I love it up there and Davidson's just great. I don't know, have you have you been like around campus? Have you been on campus at all? Okay.

Dominick (01:02.371)
Yep.

Dominick (01:27.342)
Yeah, I have. Just walking through, you know, there's like, I like is that as a town, there seems to be a lot of just public events, for lack of a better way to say it. Like during Christmas, they had all those different trees where like I took some acorns and like started some oak trees for the farm based on like what that sponsorship thing was. So it's really cool. And it's just beautiful architecture and very green, which is something I appreciate.

Jonathan Jarecki (01:43.128)
Yeah, David.

Jonathan Jarecki (01:49.348)
Yeah.

Jonathan Jarecki (01:54.936)
Yes, exactly. A lot of nature, which is yeah, it's lovely. It's it's really great there.

Dominick (01:59.277)
Yeah. So let's jump in formally. Jessica, do you want to do our intro and can kind tee up the combo?

Jessica (02:03.14)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica (02:06.638)
Sure.

Yeah, I kind of put a little intro together based on what I could find find out online. So hopefully it's not like totally inaccurate, but we'll we'll go from there. we can always edit. so yeah, thank you so much for being here today, Jonathan. today we have Jonathan Jerecki. Is that how you pronounce your name? Amazing. who is a twenty year old biology and neuroscience student at Davidson College. and I would say is someone who is

Jonathan Jarecki (02:11.619)
Cool. Yeah. I'm sure you're good. Yeah.

Jonathan Jarecki (02:26.519)
Yes. Yep.

Jessica (02:37.806)
a passionate advocate of evidence based wellness. you seem to be all in on the re the research and the science and we're super excited to dive in on that.

he he is also the host of the Signal podcast and is I think I would say just from from how I found you, like it just a really strong voice in this kind of sun positivity and sunlight as wellness movement or just world of people trying to understand that. So and you've been recognized by people like Andrew Huberman, which is really cool. And so just it's really impressive somebody, you know, your age making such an impact.

So we're really excited to have you here and here, you know, kind of I think one of my first questions is like how how did you get into this? Like where does this you seem very passionate about sunlight in particular, as and I'm sure other things as well, but especially that I I've we've honed in on and just curious like where that passion comes from for you.

Jonathan Jarecki (03:43.096)
Yeah, yeah. Well first off, Dominic and Jessica thank Jessica, thank you for having me on. I'm excited to have this conversation. but yeah, so you know, I was I was raised in a very holistic household, very alternative medicine. We had a big big, big focus on prevention. And so, you know, didn't really wasn't raised going to the doctor or anything like that. My mom had a bunch of, you know, you know, holistic remedies and and things that if we were to get sick, which was very far and few between, we would, you know, if

it would be a s it would be a sore throat or a fever and we would have different modalities to sort of alleviate those things. And so I was raised in that environment. I always tell people my infrared sauna is older than myself. We still have it in my garage downstairs. It's I think it's like 35 years old. so my my parents have have been on this wave for for a while. So I was super fortunate to sort of be in that environment growing up, understanding how lifestyle impacts our long term health. And so our big focus was really on diet.

Dominick (04:21.271)
Nice.

Jessica (04:23.025)
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Jarecki (04:38.863)
And you know, movement and detoxification protocols and and all those sorts of things. And, you know, definitely huge pillars of health, no doubt about it. And I sort of three years ago is when I started really diving deep into just the science and literature around everything in the health space and really just all the practices that I was really raised around. Because before, you know, it was just sort of my mom's belief that I had. And I was like, all right, if I have these these beliefs around these things and if I'm doing these things, I I want to know why, like, why am I doing them? Why am I going to infrared son? Why am doing?

all these specific things. And so I started reading books. I started listening to podcasts. And then I really started diving deep into the primary literature just around all health topics. And that's sort of where I came across sunlight. And I I think a lot of people in the space have maybe have heard this podcast, but listened to a podcast with Andrew Huberman and Jack Cruz and Rick Rubin. It was a seven-hour podcast, listened to that, was absolutely blown away, started

basically hearing different claims around things, started looking them up and found out to for them to be true. And there there was a ton of just science backing this stuff up. And I fell in love with it because I think it wa is a huge section of health that I think people aren't talking about a whole ton. And that's, you know, sunlight and just light environments in general. You know, especially in the health and wellness world. It's like it's like diet, exercise, once you got those two things, you're good. But I think there's so much more. I think one of those things is your light exposure and the light you're surrounded by. And it had I think it has a huge impact

on your health and it's so simple, right? I mean, obviously the the science can get very technical, but what I love about it is the practical takeaway is super simple, which is which is really great for people to just start implementing in their lives. And I think you there's no going back once you start implementing sort of, you know, circadian biology and and different and focusing on your light environment. There's there's really no going back. You know, I've gotten some of my friends into it back up in school and and for them I

I know it that they're there's no going back to them. They're wearing their blue blockers at night and and getting morning sunlight and all this stuff. So it's really, it's really awesome to sort of see that impact that it actually has on people's lives. And then obviously also we have tons of research backing it up, which is, yeah, like you said, something I love talking about because I think, you know, definitely in the sort of health and wellness world on social media, there can be a lot of claims out there that people at least very well be like the the claim could very well be true, but they don't back it up with.

Jonathan Jarecki (06:51.327)
any scientific source. And I I'm always like, I always want to see that scientific source. And at least so I can go look it up and and actually read the study. And so that's sort of where I wanted to fill in that gap on social media. And you know, I started posting basically just what I was reading. You know, I was reading these scientific papers for fun. And I was just wanting to share that with with other people. And that's basically, you know, my my passion there is I think if we can get the get this information in the hands of individuals, I think you know, they could there could there's a lot of power to that and people can start, you know, taking

health into their own into their own hands. because you know, we we're burdened with chronic disease, cardiovascular disease, cancer, you know, leading causes of death in the United States. The vast majority of it is absolutely preventable. And I think it's just, you know, people just don't know. One, they don't even know that it's preventable in the first place and they don't know how to prevent it. You know? So I think getting that information out there that one, it is preventable, two, the here are the ways that you you can

to prevent prevent these diseases. And I think that's really the the main thing that, you know, I I'm super passionate about. And I I you know, we need more people in the space talking about it. We need more podcasts like you. You guys are doing you guys are doing an awesome job. And it's like if we can just keep ha keep sharing this information, I think that's like the the biggest thing here. But yeah, that's sort of how I how I got to to this point here.

Jessica (08:02.436)
Awesome. At what point like so growing up it sounds like you were in a like a privileged like holistic wellness environment and then that was like all probably all you knew it for for a while. Like at what point did you realize like you guys were doing things a little bit differently?

Jonathan Jarecki (08:17.077)
Yeah. yeah. So, you know, I would you know, I wasn't like homeschooled or anything like that. Like I went to yeah, I went to I went to school, was around kids who were, you know, were living the standard American lifestyle. So I all I always obviously saw the other sort of side, but to me, you know, I don't know. It w it was sort of just yeah, it was just normal what what we did. I would I sort of saw what everyone else did as like the weird thing. whereas, you know, for them, they saw what I did was the was the weird thing. But yeah, for me it was like

Jessica (08:20.846)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica (08:37.272)
Right. Yeah.

Jonathan Jarecki (08:42.675)
our the the life we lived was sort of the norm. you know, I had three older siblings, so that was nice, you know, having them in my environment doing the same things as as me. So it wasn't like I was only the only kid doing it. you know, I had my siblings as well. But but yeah, you know, I think definitely definitely going to college and seeing, you know, 'cause one, you know, when you're in college, you're seeing your your friends the entire day and seeing how they spend their nights and seeing how they spend their weekends and things like that. Seeing that has was definitely a big wake up call for me of like, wow, like

My generation is really you know, not not focusing on their health. you know, that's the bare minimum of what I can say there. It's like there's there's a lot going on there. And that's sort of where I when I really saw and I was like, wow, you know, people don't live like me at all, you know. So so yeah, and and you know, that's not that's not me like ragging or anything. I I I think, you know, I want this you whenever I share my story, I want it to sort of be an encouragement for people. You know, like I I always say it's like growing up and my mom will like testify to this, like

Jessica (09:14.038)
Ha ha ha.

Jessica (09:27.961)
Yeah.

Jonathan Jarecki (09:41.058)
I was, you know, we were never really sick. And like I said, it's like sore throat, fever, tw 48 hours maximum. you know, never took and never taken any pharmaceutical drug in my in my entire life. And and there's I don't think there's a need if you if you understand the pillars of health and if you actually implement those pillars into your life, into your ch into your child's life. Obviously, if you're living the standard American lifestyle, I think you're gonna have to take the standard American medications and and do all those things. So that's sort of my my perspective there.

on that. But but yeah, go you know, going to going to your question. That's com coming to college was definitely a definitely a big wake-up call there and seeing seeing how kids actually live.

Dominick (10:16.524)
Yeah, I'm going add to that because I'm really curious your perspective, Jonathan, on this. Like, so I'm turning 30 in July, so like very soon. And one thing I'm like realizing is like, happy, when's your birthday? There's a lot of synchronicity, right? Like with the location. Yeah.

Jonathan Jarecki (10:28.675)
Turning twenty one in July. I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. July twenty second.

Jessica (10:30.808)
Ha ha

Dominick (10:37.174)
Nice. So my wife, hers is July 23rd, mine's the 14th, lots of July babies, especially in Jessica and I's family. Our brother Michael, he's the 16th as well, so that's great. But...

Jonathan Jarecki (10:48.3)
Nice. Cool.

Dominick (10:52.606)
So like I remember like advocating for more biofilia and like the restorative power of nature and being outside in college, especially for college students, because one thing that's absolutely true is for the most part study like really hard. You're spending a lot of time inside, it's the classroom or the extracurriculars, you kind of like choose to do with your friends. And that's one of the stats that always really shook me to the size of the problem. And I can't remember specifically

specifically, but it was like most people spend the majority of their lives inside right and away from the Sun and the reason I bring up my age is because It seems like since that point since I was in college with just getting into Corporate America and like my experience with it That Really starts to set in right because everything's very tied to devices So I know you mentioned blue light glasses as or like blue light blockers as a way to to protect

against that but I'm I wonder if we just like chat about this for a second get some perspective on people how they can like counteract that and just like their day-to-day

Jonathan Jarecki (12:01.185)
Yeah, yeah, it's a great question. You know, I definitely, you know, being in school, I have to focus on my light environment more than when I'm when I'm at home. You know, at home I I can control all my lighting at home and things like that. But obviously when I'm at school, when I'm in the classroom, obviously I can't control the lighting there. When I'm you know, our our like you said, our club meetings are always very late into the night because that's when everyone's free. So, you know, what I would like in that in that scenario, basically, you know, when I when I go when I step in step in to a to a club meeting late at night, you know, I'll have my amber tinted

Blue blockers, I'll have a hat as well, because we want to limit light coming in from the top of the and top of the eye down into the retina. I'll have as much skin covered up as possible because our skin cells also have melanopsin, which is a photopigment that absorbs blue light and sort of ha has a role in the peripheral clocks, peripheral circadian clocks on our skin. Our skin has a s as a circadian system as well. Every single organ has its own circadian clock as well as a central timekeeper. so

Dominick (12:48.845)
Wow.

Jonathan Jarecki (12:59.713)
Yeah, that's sort of that's sort of how, you know, I I always take I take the the furthest approach to sort of mitigate against let's say artificial light at night. to to the best that I can, you know, I look weird, but like I don't care. It's for my health. So you know Yeah, yeah, yeah. that's a that's a better way to better way to put it. And you know, I I think, you know, also it's like I I prioritize when I'm at school, I prioritize getting if I can sunrise every single morning.

Dominick (13:14.338)
It looks mysterious.

Jessica (13:16.76)
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Jarecki (13:28.405)
If I'm if it's not sunrise, I second I wake up, I go right outside, get bright morning light in into the eyes. But you know, I think it's I think it's you know, those and those are like for me, it's like that's a simple thing, like getting outside when you wake up. You know, a lot of kids, you know, my age, they'll be they'll wake up and they'll start scrolling on their phone, in bed, stay in bed for however long they stay in bed for and they're scrolling on their phone, that's the first light they're exposed to, you know, which is a huge problem. because we need that bright morning, morning light to set that circadian timekeeper. And yeah, so I think, you know.

That that's definitely that's definitely some, you know, some practical things that that I implement in my life. And whenever I have a time to get outside, I'm out there. So before a class, I'll be like in at a bench, even if it's just five minutes basking in like the midday sun before I enter into class. And and so it's just things like that. Whenever I have a little break, lunch, I'm always outside for lunch. even on even on cold days in North Carolina, I'll be the all my friends will see me outside.

eat eating lunch and I've gotten some some of them to to come out with me, which is which is fun. but yeah, you know, it's it's always trying to trying to do your best. Obviously, you know, it is not it's never gonna be perfect, especially when it relates to light environment. you know, I talk about like food as well. You know, I eat in the cafeteria. So, you know, try try my best to 'cause you can definitely eat very, very unhealthy in a school cafeteria, but you can also eat pretty, pretty healthy in a school cafeteria as well. You know, you just need to you know, sort of, you know, play with it and and and and maybe, you know, it takes a little bit more effort, but

It can definitely be done and and that's sort of where where I've been. It's like, you know, yeah, it takes a little bit more effort, but can definitely can definitely be done in living a healthy lifestyle that way.

Dominick (15:04.448)
Awesome.

Jessica (15:06.596)
so okay, I have a question. You always people always talk about like morning light and you mentioned it, like get out in the morning, it's all about that morning light to to set your circadian w rhythm. But can you speak to the differences between other times of daylight and even like what morning versus evening light? Like what are what are the things we're going for? Like what should we know about that?

Jonathan Jarecki (15:08.86)
okay, I have a question. People always talk about like

Jonathan Jarecki (15:29.827)
Sure, yeah. So, you know, morning morning light has sort of two two effects. So especially I'll I'll start at like sunrise, right? So when the sun first comes above the horizon, you're getting sort of two two stimuli. So one you're getting a circadian stimulus. So not only is the brightness of the light setting your circadian rhythm in the morning, but also the contrast. So during sunrise, you have that orange, red, at the horizon, and it's blue right above the sun. And that contrast, that yellow, blue, orange, blue contrast in the sky.

Basically tells our cells, our cones in our eyes, relays the signal to these special cells called intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells. And these ganglion cells are non-visual forming. So they they don't help with our visual system. They simply tell our supercosmatic nucleus, which is our central timekeeper, our circadian clock in our brain, what time of day it is. And so that sunrise, that contrast in the sky is helping with that stimulus. So it's

It's telling your body that it's sunrise, it's time to do these things, it's regulating different hormones. The two main ones people probably are very familiar with is cortisol and melatonin. So in the morning, we actually want high cortisol levels. So cortisol is not necessarily this this bad hormone. So cortisol is essentially a glucocorticoid. What that means is that cortisol

Dominick (16:45.164)
Yeah, cause when I think cortisol, just think to like basic neurobiology or whatever, I think it's like stress hormone. I know that's like way oversimplification from what it sounds like.

Jonathan Jarecki (16:50.732)
Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, most people think of cortisol as like the stress and it's a bad hormone. That's what most people think about. And it's not necessarily bad, right? So cortisol, glucocorticoid, and what that means is it helps shuttle glucose throughout the body and helps utilize glucose. So think about, you know, in our primordial existence when we're living outside and maybe a a tiger is chasing us or whatever, we're in a stressful event.

Dominick (16:59.19)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan Jarecki (17:17.239)
During those stressful events, we would typically need glucose for our muscles. Cause typically we would need, let's say, if we're running away from something or whatever it may be, we would need glucose. So cortisol in that re in that event spikes and then it allows glucose to go into the muscles. Now we all we have what's called this cortisol awakening response curve. So in the morning, cortisol is super high and then it goes much, it goes lower and lower throughout the day.

And then at the end of the day, cortisol should be very low if we have a proper cortisol awakening response curve, if we're getting bright morning light into the eyes. And melatonin will then go high at night if we have a lack of light. So if we if we have artificial light at night, then melatonin is not going to be able to be produced. Melatonin is going to suppressed. But going back to this this morning light, so right, we're getting that that circadian stimulus, cortisol is going to be really high if we get more morning light and and we want that. That's that's very healthy. And that will also help, yeah.

Jessica (18:08.566)
same toke on the same token as you were saying about like nighttime, do you want like more of your skin exposed during those times as well? Or like is that c it's kinda like opposite of the nighttime routine? Okay.

Jonathan Jarecki (18:19.201)
Yeah, so so yeah, so that sort of gets to this second point. So like I said, there's there's two sort of things with the with the morning light. One, you're getting that circadian stimulus, but then also, especially during sunrise and throughout the day, but it's very it's highly concentrated at sunrise, you're getting tons of red and near infrared light. And these red and near infrared light wavelengths have a they they affect our mitochondria. So our mitochondria, these little organelles inside of every single one of our cells. We have thousands of mitochondria inside of one cell, we have trillions of cells of tons of mitochondria. And

Red and infrared light is able to so one of the the the key things that you need to understand here is that red and infrared light can penetrate through the entire body. So if you can you can shine red light on or near infrared light on the chest and it will penetrate all the way through the back. But not a lot of it comes out the back. So most of it actually gets absorbed and it gets it's getting absorbed by the mitochondria. Essentially supercharging your mitochondria like batteries. That's what mitochondria are. They're basically these little tiny batteries. There's a proton gradient, and when red and infrared light get absorbed.

Dominick (19:17.368)
The powerhouse of the cell, right? Hashtag.

Jonathan Jarecki (19:18.881)
The powerhouse of the cell. There you go. Yep. yeah, you know, that's that's sort of like the simplified way of what and that's what we learn in like all entry level bio classes is they're the powerhouse of the cell, but there's so much more than that. And it's really fascinating diving into you know mitochondrial research. There's there's great people doing some awesome research out of University of Columbia and Martin Picard and his wife Narosha Marugan. They're doing some really fantastic research around mitochondria. But anyways, getting to, you know, so this morning light, you're getting the red and infrared light at a high concentration.

Supercharging your mitochondria essentially. And that is that in that sort of gets to your question of how should we have more skin exposed? My suggestion is, especially if you're going out there during sunrise, have as much skin exposed as possible. you know, appropriately, wherever you wherever you may be. and so getting that skin exposed. Yeah, there you go.

Dominick (20:01.294)
Hmm.

Jessica (20:03.406)
Yeah.

Dominick (20:03.95)
I'll just go in the middle of like a field on the farm and just, you

Jessica (20:10.756)
Do it, just go all out. Yeah.

Jonathan Jarecki (20:12.323)
you know, getting getting those wavelengths on the entire or you know, the the as much of the skin as possible, that's going to have interactions with the skin. And what that actually helps with later in the day is you're gonna have a better resilience for midday sun exposure. So we have beautiful papers showing that infrared and red light, when we shine that on skin prior to UV exposure, it actually helps mitigate the potential harms of too much.

ultraviolet exposure in the middle of the day. So getting that sort of preconditioning of the skin with the red and infrared light in the morning is going to help you you know tolerate more midday sun throughout throughout the day and when the UV is is higher. So those are the two main you know things that I focus on when I'm when I'm thinking about morning morning sunlight. and and you know again you know for timing here because I think that's really important. So

I would on a let's say it's a clear day, no clouds, anything like that. Minimum of 15 minutes. Minimum. Now, you know, if you can do more, that's always better. So if you can get 30, you can get an hour, that's amazing. If you don't have time for that, if you only have time for 15 minutes, that's still great. You're still gonna get that circadian stimulus. Now, on an overcast day, I would lean towards that more 30 minute to an hour mark. just because it is gonna be less dim, you're gonna have less of a circadian stimulus, you're also gonna have

less infrared light coming through the atmosphere because the clouds will absorb some of the infrared light. You're still getting tons more infrared light than you will be in an indoor environment. Indoor environments are completely void of infrared light. So being outdoors, no matter if it's cloudy or if it's clear, is gonna have you're gonna get those benefits e either way. So that's sort of the the morning morning sunlight. I don't know if you had any other parts of that the question that I missed there. Yes. Okay.

Jessica (22:01.538)
No, just only like what about evening sunlight? 'Cause that's obviously different than midday, so what's yeah.

Jonathan Jarecki (22:06.913)
Yep, exactly. Yeah. So

Dominick (22:07.278)
All right, and I'm gonna throw something into this too when you make your answer, Jonathan. Talk to me about the data you're seeing on this and whether that's stuff or studies that you've run yourself or just things that you've corroborated. Because I find the timing interesting, like 15 minutes for the day, an hour for overcast.

Jonathan Jarecki (22:10.477)
Sure. Yeah.

Dominick (22:33.518)
from an intuitive point of view, like it definitely makes sense. And I'm just like, I'd be fascinated to see if there's any studies on that as well.

Jonathan Jarecki (22:40.641)
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I'll hit on that point first and then get to get to midday sun exposure. in terms of you know the like the 15, 30 minute mark there. So that is so I so when we look, I'll take both of those sort of perspectives of the circadian and the mitochondrial stimulation. So from the circadian perspective, the research is pretty clear that around 15 minutes is when that system is gonna register the light. So we want that 15-minute minimum, right?

Dominick (22:56.333)
Yeah.

Dominick (23:07.266)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Jarecki (23:07.951)
and then overcast day, the only reason it's a little bit more is because it's more dim. So when the circadian system gets stimulated by a few things. One, the contrast during sunrise. But then even let's say after the sunrise, as the sun is rising higher and higher, the contrast is going away. And then what's happening is the the you're gonna be getting more blue light. So the it's you're gonna get more blue light. It's also gonna become more brighter, and then the angle is gonna be coming up. So what sets the circadian system is not only the contrast, but also the blueness of the light.

Dominick (23:29.944)
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Jarecki (23:36.962)
the brightness of the light and then the angle of the light. So really the longer you stay out there, if it's overcast or clear no matter what, the longer you stay out there, you're just going to continue sort of sending that signal to these intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells in your eyes to then the supercosmetic nucleus in the brain. So you're just gonna have a further stimulation of that, which is then going to entrain that clock even further. And really what you're doing is you're anchoring the system. You can think about it like that. So in the morning, the more light you can get into the eyes in the morning,

You're gonna have a a stronger anchor on that circadian clock. and this circadian clock governs every single cell, every single organ of our body. And it's essentially just, you know, these fluctuations in hormones, the fluctuation in in proteins that are that are being produced, the fluctuations in in DNA repair, it's so it's it's really everything. you know, and so that's sort of the the timing frame there. Now, from a wavelength mitochondrial perspective, when we're looking at at the red and infrared wavelengths, the same sort of time frame also also applies. So

I'll I'll reference Glenn Jeffrey. He's out of University College London. He's one of the pioneer researchers on how light interacts, especially long wavelength light, interacts with the mitochondria. And he's seeing that we really want that that minimum of that 15 minutes of red and infrared light is what is gonna sort of, you know, get that get the mitochondrial sort of function to get to this get to its peak. And then really it sort of plateaus. But, you know, so there's a let me let me reference one paper here because I think this will help

better explain this. So Glenn Jeffrey, you know, he he did this amazing paper where he experiment where he shined red light on participants' back, a very small area of their back. And he did what's called the oral glucose tolerance test. So he made the participants drink a ton of glucose, he shined the red light, then he monitored their glucose every 15 minutes for the next two hours. And he he looked at what would happen if the from

Yeah, groups, right? The control group that didn't get the red light shine, and then the experimental group that got the red light shine on their back. And what he saw when comparing the groups is that the group that got the red red light shine on their back had a reduction in blood glucose. The reason for that, and he had a couple other experiments in this study that that pointed to this explanation, is that the mitochondria essentially were running faster, they were running harder because they're getting the red light shine on them. And since they're running harder, they need more glucose, which is their you know their fuel source, they need more fuel.

Jonathan Jarecki (25:56.814)
So they're gonna take that glucose from the bloodstream, and in turn, you're gonna have a lower blood glucose levels. So, but really what so what we're seeing there so is is essentially just showing that we are sort of deprived of this red and infrared light. And really what we're seeing is just we're getting back to baseline. So, really the baseline level of where our blood glucose is is when the red light is being shined, because when we look at this evolutionarily, we would have been bathed in the red and infrared light throughout the day. So

The I'm I'm getting I'm I'm I bring this up really to to point to the fact that this fifteen minutes of the red and infrared light exposure is really getting us to that sort of baseline and getting us to that plateau. So there's really there's sort of a level a threshold of of benefit. Once you get more than fifteen minutes, you're not gonna have an increased benefit, but you're gonna still stay at that sort of you know homeostatic response of where your body should be. So

Ideally, you continue to get more because your body wants more of it, but it's not, you're not gonna have a continued continuous sort of benefit, if that makes sense. so that's sort of that 15 minute you know minimum that that you want there for both of those mechanisms. and then yeah, so going going to the middle of the day, you know, as the as the as the day continues after sun, sunrise, you're gonna have, you know, obviously it's gonna be getting brighter.

And then in the middle of the day, you're gonna have more of those shorter wavelengths of light. You're still gonna have tons of infrared. So if we look at midday sun and what that spectrum actually looks like, 50% of the solar spectrum is infrared light. Around 45-ish is you know, give or take these numbers, are it is visible light. So that's the rainbow, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, violet. and then just beyond violet is is UV, ultraviolet. And ultraviolet is consists of around.

nine less than 10% of the solar spectrum. The majority of ultraviolet is UVA, because even UV can be split up UVA and then UVB. UVB is what produces vitamin D. UVA does not produce vitamin D. Only 0.13% of the solar spectrum is UVB. So the vast majority of UV is UVA. So that's sort of the the solar spectrum and that's midday. So in the middle of the day, right, we're going to be exposed to the shorter wavelengths of light.

Jonathan Jarecki (28:12.811)
And they're obviously having a lot, a ton of biological relevancies there. You know, UVB, as I mentioned, produces vitamin D. But we also know that UV A mobilizes nitric oxide. So we have nitric oxide stores in our dermis of our skin. So our skin stores nitric oxide, this small, super, super small molecule that has really profound effects on our cardiovascular system. So nitric oxide, when it goes into our blood vessels, it vasodilates our blood vessels, basically opening the blood vessels up.

Allowing more blood flow, reducing blood pressure, and then we can improve cardiovascular outcomes. And so what we see is when we shine UVA light on participants, on humans, we have increased amounts of nitric oxide in the blood. We see blood pressure drop. And then when we look at epidemiological studies, which are just these big cohort observational studies of participants and seeing how much sun exposure they get, we see that people who get more sun exposure.

Have a reduction in cardiovascular disease to a great magnitude, which then sort of, you know, the mechanism there is that nitric oxide, the wheat we think, you know. So, so that's sort of you know, what you're getting with with midday sun. At the same time, you don't want to burn. So we, you know, most people, I think when they when they think about sun, sun exposure, they think, you know, I'm gonna burn and that's not good. And burning is not good, right? We don't want to burn. So we want to get sensible sun exposure, we want to get smart sun exposure, we want to gradually build up a tan.

and we want to gradually build that that sun exposure. You want to get sun exposure regularly. it's that chronic regular sun exposure that's what's really beneficial. whereas intermittent sun exposure, when, you know, let's say you're indoors for a whole week and then on the weekend you go to the beach and you fry and you know, that that's not good. We don't want that. So we want sort of that regular sun exposure and and getting that that's that safe, safe sun exposure. So that's sort of the middle of the day of what what you're getting there.

Dominick (30:04.994)
What was it about evening? Did you say that?

Jonathan Jarecki (30:07.767)
Yeah, okay. Yeah. So so evening. you really really same thing. So with the evening, similar to sunrise, you're gonna sort of again anchor that circadian system for nighttime. And at at in the evening, we want once the sun sets, we want as little light into our eyes and onto our skin, but mainly focusing on the on the eyes. We want little amount of light into the eyes as possible. and y you think about this, you know, from a primordial perspective, you know, we would have never been exposed.

Dominick (30:09.868)
Yeah.

Dominick (30:18.829)
Okay.

Jonathan Jarecki (30:37.655)
to shorter wavelengths of blue light, let's say, after the sun sets. You know, if the first artificial light that humans created was was fire, right? But our biology is pretty adapted to firelight. So for for a few for a few reasons. One, when you know, when I said at the beginning of this, what stimulates the circadian system is the blueness, the brightness, and the angle. Now with with firelight, we have low blue, we have very little brightness, so it's very dim, and the angles below us.

Dominick (30:58.701)
Is it?

Jonathan Jarecki (31:06.519)
Right? We the sun is never below us, the sun's always above us, and that's why the sun stimulates the circadian system. So when we have firelight, fire light we're very much adapted to because it's not, it doesn't have very much blue, it is very dim, and the angles below us. So that does not stimulate that circadian system. And then it allows melatonin to be produced at night, which is what we want. This sleep molecule that's also a very potent antioxidant. and so we, you know, at at night, you know, you want to have the have those dim lights, have the

lights not have tons of short wavelength blue in them. and keeping that really dark environment again gonna anchor that circadian system for nighttime. and then, you know, sort of just revolve and and do the whole whole thing again. Get bright morning light in in into the eyes in in the morning and then anchor that s circadian system for for morning light as well.

Jessica (31:55.717)
So like in terms of what you were commenting on before about just the typical kind of like American lifestyle diet, all those things and all the chronic diseases and and those things that are happening, how important in your opinion, is that integration of sunlight into like all of those health factors for people? Like is it at a level where like people might not realize how important it really is? Or I'm just curious.

Jonathan Jarecki (32:20.865)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so I would point to some of the, you know, observational studies we have. I I like to I really like to point to to three here, three main ones. So the first one was a epidemiological, you know, observational study out of Sweden. So they what these researchers did was they basically took they took 30,000 Swedish women. they surveyed them to basically gauge their average amount of sun exposure. So this is via survey, so obviously there's some limitations there. but I'll get to some other studies that that don't have those limitations. but you know, sticking with this one.

they surveyed them to gauge the average amount of sun exposure, and then they categorized them into three groups: the the low UV, medium UV, and high UV. And essentially what they saw, they tracked these women for 20 years to see their health outcome. So seeing if they were dying, seeing if they're what they were dying from for those for those 20 years. And what they what they saw was that the woman who got the the least amount of sun exposure had the greatest mortality rate. So compared to the woman who got the most amount of sun exposure. So if you got

More the more sun you got, the lower your mortality from all cause. So all cause mortality meaning mortality from cardiovascular, mortality for for deadly cancers like breast cancer and prostate cancer and whatever, you know, all there's tons of cancers that they they were that they were looking at here. and you had a reduction in the mortality just from getting more sun exposure. Now this

paper was then sort of replicated on a much larger scale. So these researchers out of the UK utilized what's called the UK Biobank, which is essentially this really, really awesome data set of of of people in in the UK and they have tons of data on on these individuals. They took 400,000 of these individuals. they again they they surveyed them to gauge their average amount of sun exposure. But what they also did in this study was they also tested their vitamin D levels. And we know vitamin D is a great

Great proxy for how much sun exposure someone gets. So if people who people who get more sun exposure have greater vitamin D levels. And then they also looked at satellite images of how much sun exposure a particular area that these individuals were living in had and got throughout the year. They took all that, and again, they what they saw was the exact same thing, but they were actually looking at specific outcomes. So they were looking at all-cause mortality, and they were also looking at cardiovascular mortality, and then also non-skin cancer cancer mortality.

Jonathan Jarecki (34:35.859)
And what they saw, same exact thing. The more sun exposure somebody got, and this was dose dependent. So as you increase the amount of sun exposure, you increase the reduction in cardiovascular death and non-skin cancer cancer deaths. So what we're seeing there is as people get more sun exposure, they're one increasing their lifespan, but they're also you know, they have a reduction in these, these very deadly diseases and these chronic diseases. Now, I think I think it's important to touch on this one.

last paper here, which is a is in it's in preprint right now. So preprint essentially, you know, these researchers can publish a paper who which is not yet published, hasn't gone through peer review. They can put it on a preprint server for people to see. So that's that's where this paper is at right now. It's not under peer reviewed. It's not published yet. But but need needless to say, it's it's an amazing study and I think it's important to talk about it. And when it gets published, it's gonna be even better and people will start sharing it more. But essentially what they did, again, they took a cohort of around 400,000 participants.

They created what's called a sun beam score, basically categorizing these participants again in how much sun exposure they got, low UV, medium UV, high UV, saw the same exact outcomes. Now, what's really interesting with this study is they were also looking at skin cancers, you know, basal cell carcinoma, squama cell carcinoma, and and melanoma. They were looking at those skin cancers as well. And they were the the main sort of outcome that they were looking at in this study was the risk-benefit ratio of sun exposure, because we do know that there are potential risks as

We see in the epidemiological evidence as you get more sun exposure, you do increase your risk of basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas, which these are skin cancers that, you know, obviously I don't want anyone to get any type of skin cancer, but they're not sort of no one's dying from these sort of skin cancer. You know, most people are dying, if they are dying from skin cancers, they're dying from melanoma. because you know, basal cell and squamous cell, they're very easily treated as long as they're detected. You know, you can you go to the the doctor and they they take it right off and it's not a not a huge deal.

so you we do see that increase. So there is a potential risk there, but obviously, like I've mentioned in these past studies, there's there's also potential benefit with a reduction in cardiovascular disease and non-skin cancer cancers. So when they took all the data that they had and and they they basically took the numbers down into one small little ratio, you know, that they did some data analysis looking at the risk benefit ratio here. And when they put it down into one ratio, if they put every single person in the

Jonathan Jarecki (36:58.903)
From the high UV category and they put them in the low UV category. So let's say you know you were taking we're telling all these people who are getting a ton of sun, telling them go indoors, don't get sun. What they saw was that they would save one life from a skin cancer death. However, you would lose 75 lives from all other causes. So that's cardiovascular and non-skin cancer cancers. So that was the risk-benefit ratio that they saw. And then obviously vice versa, if we put everyone in the high UV category, so we took all the people who were not getting a lot of sun.

put them in the high UV category, they got more sun, we saw that we would then we would lose one life from skin cancer because more people would be getting sun exposure, but we would gain those 75 other lives back from cardiovascular and non-skin cancer cancers. So, you know, clearly without a doubt, looking at the literature, there is a greater benefit than there is a risk to sun exposure. And then, you know, I'll also just put the caveat on the increase in squamous cell and basal cell carcinomas for more sun exposure. You know, there's obviously a lot

Other things that go into that. You know, when we're looking at those populations, they they are what's considered in in the in the scientific field as a healthy population. But we we know very well that, you know, even these people aren't what I would at least consider a healthy population. You know, what they mean by healthy population is that they don't have cardiovascular disease yet, they don't have diabetes yet.

you know, so that's what they consider a healthy population. But you know, these people are their circadian rhythm is completely you know, out of line just because that's what every single person in the entire world is. basically, you know, there's some beautiful papers on this and and some researchers have have published and basically saying that like pretty much everyone in our modern society is a shift worker because they are being exposed to artificial light at night. And that in we know that increases your risk of of of skin cancers. So, you know, even with that increased risk of the basal cell and squamous cell, what we're seeing observationally.

with more sun exposure, there is obviously nuance to that as well. So I think there's and there I think there's ways to get plenty and plenty of sun exposure without even increasing your risk of that. I think, you know, we don't have the greatest evidence there, just again, because we're not looking at a population that is, you know, where what I would consider a healthy population. So that's sort of the the midday sun exposure there and sort of the the the risks and and the benefits that that we're seeing.

Jessica (39:13.092)
It's pretty compelling to get sunlight then according to that. Yeah.

Jonathan Jarecki (39:15.75)
yeah. I agree.

Dominick (39:18.646)
Yeah, it's fascinating, especially the, what was it, the nitrogen oxide or something like that.

Jonathan Jarecki (39:24.643)
Yep, nitric oxide.

Dominick (39:26.062)
I had no idea. And I think the more people kind of learn about this, it'd make better decisions. So I really appreciate your expertise. It's such a fascinating space and I'm so glad that the conversation's really grown and people are starting to understand the power of sunlight in their lives and how to do it in a responsible way, right? But a way that's, you know, to save 70 lives for, right? Just

Jonathan Jarecki (39:54.904)
Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. I I I'll I'll give people one one good resource on this. If they want to dive really deep into this is there's a brand new book that just came out like I think yeah, earlier last week. it's called In Defense of Sunlight. I don't know if you guys saw this, but yeah. Yeah. So I I yeah, I don't know I don't even know the the author of it. I mean I've I've

Dominick (39:55.978)
with the right type of habit.

Dominick (40:02.327)
Yeah.

Jessica (40:13.42)
I just bought it. I have it. Yeah.

Jonathan Jarecki (40:19.991)
I'm gonna get him on my podcast to to have a discussion about it. But you know, I've never met him. I have no, you know, affiliation with with the book at all. But I started listening to it. I just got on audiobook. I'm on like chapter six right now. It's absolutely amazing. He talks about the nitric oxide, he talks about these, you know, observational studies that aren't really talked about a whole ton. So it's a it's a great re it's I think it's a amazing starting place for people to really dive deeper into it. so far from from what I've listened to it so far, it's it's been a really, really great book. and

Dominick (40:23.052)
Yeah.

Jonathan Jarecki (40:46.407)
his name is Rowan Jacobson, has done a fantastic job, I think. but but yeah, that's just a good resource, I think, for people to sort of get started there.

Jessica (40:55.412)
Great, great recommendation. Thank you. This is like so so informative and I'm sure we both have like a million more questions, but so really appreciate your time coming on and sharing. and I know it'll be definitely helpful and beneficial to a lot of people who will hear hear what you had to say about the tips and and how to how to, you know, maximize your sun exposure in the most healthy ways. I think that's very important.

Jonathan Jarecki (41:20.417)
Yeah, no, thank you guys for having me. This is a fun conversation. Gotta gotta keep spreading the message. So I appreciate you guys having me on to to do that.

Jessica (41:25.078)
Yeah. Amazing.

Dominick (41:27.619)
Yeah, let's go get some sunlight and thank you, Jonathan, for being on our show. Please follow him on Instagram. Learn all of the fascinating insights into the research and the science behind why sunlight is so powerful for you and the Signal podcast. And until next time, Jonathan, let's make sure we get some sunlight. You're always welcome out on the farm. So we can go out on a hike or something. Thanks.

Jonathan Jarecki (41:50.67)
yeah. Let's go. I love it.