Ideally our LEDs should emit a safe dose of UV-B and infrared too, because they are vital for vit D and melatonin production, both of which are extremely important for general health. As more and more of us become basement dwellers and winter depression enjoyers, this would help out a lot with public health.
a safe dose of UV-B
- The safe dose is zero and you can take a pill for vit d
That’s not true. We’ve evolved while being irradiated by the sun for literally billions of years. Your body has mechanisms to repair damaged DNA and kill+replace cells that are too damaged. Issues arise when the damage grows fast enough for your body to keep up repairs. E.g. you get a sun burn because you don’t have an adequate tan or you hug a reactor meltdown.
Supplements are an inadequate solution for many reasons.
- Vit D supplements barely get absorbed by the stommach. The only way to get adequate vitamin D levels with supplements is to take huge doses for like a month while testing your blood to see if levels are adequate.
- Most available Vit D supplements take a week to be metabolized into the active form.
- Vit D supplements can give you an overdose of Vitamin D and have severe negative health consequences.
Meanwhile half an hour of sunlight gives you healthy levels of Vit D without risk of overdose.
I’m not advocating for 1000W/m^2 UVB radiation blasting you 24/7, I’m talking about levels that are low enough that you can constantly be exposed to without a increase in risk.
And btw a lack of vitamin D causes severely bad health outcomes, even if it would cause a minor increase in skin cancer (which it doesn’t), the benefits of adequate vitamin D levels would vastly outweigh that risk.
Same with melatonin, supplements can’t replace the effect of exposure to infrared light. But at least with infrared people won’t spread misinformation about how there’s no safe levels.
We’ve evolved while being irradiated by the sun for literally billions of years. Your body has mechanisms to repair damaged DNA and kill+replace cells that are too damaged
We evolved for lots of things that are harmful overall. Unless there is evidence that sun exposure gives some non vitamin d advantage the fact it literally causes cancer means you should avoid it in general.
I like how your rebuttals both say that supplements are both not able to give you vitamin D but also simultaneously a risk of overdose.
Avoid the cancer causing radiation. Just take a pill every day and get your blood work done to see how much you should take.
But at least with infrared people won’t spread misinformation about how there’s no safe levels.
That’s because infrared light doesn’t cause cancer. Although your support for infrared light exposure does identify you as a bit of a quack.
I like how your rebuttals both say that supplements are both not able to give you vitamin D but also simultaneously a risk of overdose.
You do realize that you can be both chronically deficient of something while also acutely overdosing on it, right?
Yeah, if you take like 15 pills on one day or something stupid like that.
But unlike the risk of taking 15 vitamin d pills, literally all the potential of giving you skin cancer.
This doesn’t mean you have to be stupid and never go outside at all because “oh my goodness it’s going to give me cancer”. It just means that installing UVB emitters in our fucking light bulbs is a bad idea, and if you have vitamin d deficiency you can take a pill every day.
A pill is not a desirable solution for every and anything.
And if zero was the safe dose, no one would walk outside; we’d be cave dwellers.
It’s an interesting idea, but it’s also solved by being added to many foods or 2 cents a day of supplements.
It’s a funny thought. Would that fall under an FDA regulation or department of energy?
Cue breakfast cereal style commercial advertising light bulbs giving 100% of your daily vitamin D
the CDC would have to slap the FDA and DoE until they comply I guess
You can make specific lamps for specific uses. Putting it in all lamps would just make it very difficult to regulate exposure.
that’s why you’d make the level of UVB radiation low enough that people could safely spend 24/7 under it, but high enough that it provides a health benefit
You might not get 100% of your vit D levels this way, but perhaps just a fraction of it. Depends on how the risk benefit calculation works out.
and of course infrared is generally harmless as long as it’s not strong enough to cook you.
winter depression enjoyers
That’s a new one.
Hi, I’m a winter depression enjoyer and I’m fucking miserable
The thing I like most about LEDs isn’t the reduced energy usage or longer life, though those are super nice. My favorite part is now that they’re running cool enough we can add some brains to the light bulbs. Motion sensors, timers, color changing add a lot of convenience and you get it in the same form factor you’re used to.
I really enjoy having my lights color temperature change with the time of day. Makes working in the basement a tad more enjoyable.
My favorite part is just space. I put strips up in the corners to light the living room with no extra tables or standing lights, no need for sky lights. Less crap in the way
That’s yet another thing I love about them. I decorated my kids’ rooms with just some LEDs on tape and it looks awesome, and they can change the colors, and it was super cheap and easy.
Sadly, most of those features are bound to some shit app which tracks you and gets hacked every 2 years or so and your personal data stolen. You have to actually search to find non-smart lamps with motion sensor or color changing feature (5 of them to choose from).
Pessimists know the “rebound effect”: improvement in efficiency leads us to do more of the thing. More illumination for example. This (partially) counteracts the good effects.
That’s totally true, though, in this case with LEDs I feel like the rebound effect is less of a problem here. The LEDs are not only using less electricity, but they’re far brighter with addition to using less electricity for that brightness. It means that even if somebody decides to fill their room with 5 LED lamps with 806 lumens instead of 1 incandescent bulb, they’ll still waste less energy - in addition with 5 LED lamps of 806lm making your room look like the sun is shining inside.
Removed by mod
Yeah, because everyone loves brighter and cheaper bulbs that still have reasonable lifespan. And 5-10 years is quite a generous estimate for incandescent light bulb… That’s 50-100 hours a year. LEDs are rated for some 15-50x longer lifespan and you can easily shop lamps for longer lifespan or brightness or price
Obviously, you don’t remember having to change out incandescent bulbs…
It’s a capitalistic race to the bottom.
Big Clive did a video on “Dubai” lamps that run cooler to last longer.
What do you mean? Incandescent bulbs burned out over a period of months not years
