Chicken light vs reptile light
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@Lukey Ray mentioned his personal use of Mercury Vapor lamps in an interview. Ray also mentioned in an interview his approval and recommendation of 250-watt heat lamps. "Even two or three of those this time of year, right up until almost bedtime is good to have. 3 or 500 watts shining pretty much at you." They have fairly similar pros and cons. A major pro to heat lamps is the price, as well as the heat they give off which is nice. I assume mercury vapor lamps give off heat radiation as well though.
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@chudlord UVA and UVB are the same kind of light the sun produces. I understand the powerful mitochondrial effects of highly specified red light spectrums. But I feel like having a light that mimics the sun could be more broadly beneficial.
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@Michigga thanks for the response. The reason I started looking into reptile lights was due to the fact that Ray used a mercury vapor lamp for vitamin D. Since I am on the low end of vitamin D levels I think using this in the winter could be useful for vitamin D and also regulating my sleep patterns.
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@NangaParbat wouldn’t the light of a reptile light be almost analogous to that of the sun? I haven’t really heard much about UV light being harmful, besides of course from mainstream science that claims it is cancerous. I know UVA can cause you to age but I think UVB is quite safe? I know it is radiation, but is low dose and non-ionizing.
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Just a matter of finding the right intensity and exposure. You probably don't want to be basking under a mercury vapor light for extended periods any more than you want to be spending all day without clothes in direct south Texas sun. With UV, some is good, overdoing it likely not. But you could hypothetically spend all day under infrared lamps and it would only be beneficial.
UV-B and UV-C are the more dangerous types of UV light--they are lower wavelength, higher energy/intensity. UV is non-ionizing, but still very high energy photons that can cause a lot of photochemical reactions.
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@bunchwidth Infrared is shown to have a U-shaped relationship with cellular health, so spending all day in infrared or even red light is likely unwise. Especially considering the heating effects of infrared on the cell.
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@Lukey I read another one of your comments where you said that you’re planning to use it for increasing vit D. In that case it would certainly be useful!
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@Lukey No doubt. Both are great options.
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@bunchwidth I heard UVA and UVC were the ones that can be damaging never heard about UVB, but I think it would be nice to get a suntan in the winter. This light doesn’t elicit UVC
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@Lukey Yes it is analogous to the sun, and uv oxidizes pufa and is generally speaking estrogenic.
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@NangaParbat luckily I don’t have much pufa
could your direct me to where you ascertained that it is estrogen since I have heard the opposite that it has a/i effects -
@Lukey
"It turns out that the meaning of "excess estrogen" has to be interpreted in relation to the balance of estrogen (and the multitude of factors which mimic estrogen's effects) with all of the antiestrogen factors. I have concentrated on thyroid, progesterone, and red light as the most important factors that protect against estrogen, and these all turn out to be protective against stress, shock, ionizing radiation, free radicals, lipid peroxidation, thymic atrophy, osteoporosis, arthritis, scleroderma, apoptotic cell death, and other problems that are involved in tissue degeneration or aging.."
https://raypeat.com/articles/hormones/h1.shtmlIn regular sunlight the beneficial wavelengths hugely mitigate the effects of the harmful ones. The idea of red light therapy is predicated on this idea, namely on the blue end of the spectrum being harmful. Since shorter wavelenghts carry more energy and don't penetrate very far, they cause a lot of problems at the skin-level. Any benefit from them is therefore also limited to the skin, viz. to the production of vit D in this case. NB. that light from mercury vapor lamps is colder (bluer) than sunlight, and that the proportion of harmful light is therefore higher.
Longer wavelenghts penetrate much further, which is why your hand looks red over a flashlight. It has been noted by Peat and others that the switch to mercury vapor lamps in hospitals and schools coincided with an increase of mortality. Furthermore, and in part because of this, mercury vapor lamps meant for people and not lizards are coated with phosphor to mitigate the harmful frequencies (and also to reduce ozone synthesis).
Another issue with mercury vapor is the tendency towards low energy nuclear reactions. Old mercury vapor lamps have been found to contain gold not found in the source mercury. This indicates that some truly harmful radiation resulting from some anomalous nuclear reaction may occur (possibly so-called exotic vacuum objects, but this is of course a controversial topic).
In my view, while I like mercury vapor lamps for other reasons, they operate completely contrary to the point of light therapy. They have large drawbacks, and no obvious benefits apart from vitamin D.
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@NangaParbat also
"Irradiation by ultraviolet, gamma, or x-rays, and even by blue light, is damaging to mitochondrial respiration. All of the ionizing radiations produce immediate and lingering edema, which continues to damage metabolism in a more or less permanent way, apart from any detectable mutagenic actions. The amount of water taken up following irradiation can be 20% to 30% of the normal weight, which is similar to the amount of swelling that intense work produces in a muscle, and to the weight increase under hormonal imbalances. The energy changes produced by irradiation in, for example, the heart, appear to accelerate the changes produced by aging. Since unsaturated fats accumulate in the respiratory system with aging, and are targets for radiation damage, the involvement of these fats in all sorts of antirespiratory degenerative processes deserves more attention. Darkness, like irradiation, excess lactate, and unsaturated fats, has the diabetes-like effect of greatly reducing the ability of muscle to absorb sugar, while light stimulates respiration"
Altitude and mortality
