Health Hazards of Fluorescent Lighting
Of the basic ingredients to good health -- nutritious food, clean water, proper exercise and adequate sunlight -- only sunlight has what I would call a "quick fix" that you will want to take advantage of ... right now.
And it really is as easy as screwing in a full spectrum light bulb, because that's exactly ALL you have to do ...
The problem is that getting adequate sunlight isn't easy these days. Most of us suffer from "sunlight starvation." We all need about one hour of unfiltered sunshine each day. Unfortunately, the majority of us don't even come close to receiving that amount.
In the first place, we spend too much of our days indoors, with poor incandescent or fluorescent lighting, sometimes even without windows. And windows themselves (even our eyeglasses) block some of the 1500 wavelengths present in sunshine from reaching our retinas and nourishing our brain and body.
Furthermore, our children and grandchildren spend their days in unhealthy, dully-lit classrooms.
Moreover, sunlight-blocking air pollution and haze permeate most metropolitan areas ... all year long.
And many of us live in climates with winter weather that robs us of essential sunlight. Gloomy days, clouds, rain and snow all obstruct the sun's healing rays and dampen our mood (exactly the time when full spectrum lighting is so essential).
And to add to all this, many of us have been brainwashed by prevailing medical "wisdom" into fearing (and avoiding) the sun. Slathering on toxic sunscreen. Wearing sunglasses whenever we're outside. Worrying about deadly melanomas, a skin cancer wrongly blamed on sun exposure.
There is a quick and easy solution to compensate for "sunlight starvation" -- full spectrum lighting for your home and workplace.
Known effects and their likely causes
The following is a list of symptoms and diseases known to be linked to exposure to fluorescent lighting:
- Headache, eyestrain, eye irritation, fatigue, difficulty in concentration, increased rate of ‘misjudgments’ and accidents, malaise and irritability can be caused by noise, glare and flicker from fluorescent lighting.
- Increased stress (which may in turn lead to heart disease) can arise from increasing the intensity of artificial light with fluorescent tubes. It has been shown that increased use of artificial light (rather than natural light) affects the levels of hormones in the body, particularly the hormones associated with stress, such as cortisol.
- Variation in brightness, as provided by daylight, is necessary for the normal functioning of the body’s rhythms. The monotonous illumination of fluorescent lighting may also add to the changes in hormone production.
- Allergic skin reactions and dermatitis can be caused by exposure to fluorescent lights. An unknown number of people suffer from ‘cutaneous light sensitivity’ due to fluorescent lights. This means that not only can they become allergic to fluorescent lighting but they can become more sensitive to ordinary sunlight.
- Certain long-term, mild skin diseases can become worse if the sufferer is exposed to fluorescent light. Some medical drugs (including some tranquilizers, antibiotics, heart drugs and diuretics) can make you particularly sensitive to UV radiation (photosensitivity). Skin eruptions then occur even with the small doses of UV (in the 300-320nm wavelength range) emitted by white fluorescent lights.
- Hyperactivity has been linked to the flickering produced by fluorescent lighting. Microwave emissions from fluorescent lighting are also suspected of contributing to these behavioral disorders. Other mild behavioral disorders in children may be made worse by working at school under fluorescent lighting.
Suspected effects
There is also some evidence that the following effects may be caused by exposure to fluorescent lights:
- Increased risk of seizure in epilepsy sufferers
- Higher incidence of miscarriage
- Speeding up the aging of the retina.