The Light Revolution

Paperback: 156 pages
Publisher: Findhorn Press Ltd. (1 Nov 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1844090876
ISBN-13: 978-1844090877

Article reproduced from www.relax-well.co.uk

"An excellent title for an excellent book - showing the way forward for public health and wellbeing"

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

This book is just what we need to start putting right our nation’s health - safely and free of charge, meanwhile providing a few home truths for the UK’s outdated and misguided health service. Here we have a highly readable, well-researched account of the value of sunlight to human beings throughout the ages right up to the very latest research evidence that may have missed the headlines. In the nicest possible way, ‘The Light Revolution’ serves as a warning to us all – keep out of the sun at your peril.

In this new book Richard Hobday, also author of ‘The Healing Sun’, admirably introduces us to his expert knowledge of how ancient Egyptians and Roman city planners made full use of their understanding of sunlight to promote good public health and specifically to prevent ill-health. He takes us step by step, in layman’s language but with thoroughness and a gentle sense of humour, through the more recent historical evidence from the nineteenth century. At that time amidst the new industrial squalor and polluted Victorian cities, scientists, writers, nurses, doctors, philanthropists, architects and all were announcing to the world that sunlight is vital as a disinfectant, restoring very sick patients to good health as well as strengthening the immune system and significantly controlling our physical and emotional wellbeing. It was common knowledge that sunlight is the best disinfectant. In those days the great public health challenges for which sunlight provided a ready answer were infected wounds, pain management and melancholia. Rickets and TB were soon to be identified as preventable and treatable with solar therapy. In 1903, a Nobel Prize for Physiology was awarded to Niels Finsen in recognition for his success in treating TB with ultraviolet light. How is it that nowadays sunlight doesn’t even get a mention in the official TB information for the British public?

The real punch to this book is what has gone badly wrong in the last hundred years or so. Whilst building technology and modern medicine have advanced immeasurably, the necessary skills and art of harnessing the sun’s power for health have been overlooked. Much of the painstaking research and pioneering achievements have been “airbrushed out” of the medical books and courses in architecture - all but forgotten. The human basic biological need for sunlight is not only being ignored and neglected. We can ask ourselves – is it even being denied – cavalier-style - by the government agencies and medical experts whose job it is to protect the nation’s health?

Hobday reminds us of those well-intentioned public health campaigns advocating sun avoidance. They could actually be having a harmful effect because sunscreens cut out our ability to make Vitamin D by 90%. Meanwhile, we have known for half a century that exposure to UV light reduces cholesterol levels by 13%, and also lowers blood pressure! Has this artificially created fear of sunlight actually caused thousands of people to die prematurely – many, many more than have died from skin cancer?

Conversely, the author advises us that there is now enough evidence of a link between vitamin D deficiency and the modern ills of cancer, coronary heart disease, diabetes, obesity, depression and numerous others. He calls for health campaigns to actively promote sunbathing, and inform the public of the best ways of doing this safely.

Here is the historical evidence for sunlight therapy in terms of curing rickets and TB during the pre-antibiotic era, along with plenty more evidence about sunlight’s other general antimicrobial properties. It was reported to the Royal Society back in 1877 that sunlight kills bacteria. More recently, scientists have concluded that infection with the influenza virus depends on variations in natural sunlight – how could that knowledge be applied to 21st century flu infections such as SARS and bird flu perhaps? It is emphasised, loud and clear, that a consequence of 20th century antibiotics has been a complacent, over-relaxed attitude to infections. The dangers nowadays are that multi-resistant superbugs cling on to the indoor airborne dust that is basically microscopic skin cells but not noticed because of the lack of strong beams of sunlight in our modern buildings! Thankfully, we are given a simple example of some research dating back to 1944 when the dust in dark hospital corners consistently contained bacteria - whereas dust on or near the windows was consistently germ-free. Yes, in sunlight, the bacteria are destroyed and the principle is simple enough for a child to understand.

Now at last we are provided with a wake-up call to fresh air, sunlight and cleanliness, because the same bactericidal principle would apply whether the germs have developed antibiotic-resistance or not. Whether the ‘contact’ theory of germ transmission, or the ‘droplet’ theory or the ‘dust’ theory is now accepted, (or even all three), the fact remains that multi-drug resistant infections are here to stay and we could learn a lot from our forebears who had other methods of keeping people healthy.

Hobday suggests that perhaps a business case could be put forward – where healthy lighting has a value placed on it in terms of hospital running costs, including staff illness and patient outcomes. He also offers some research topics for the future, such as what is the healthier option – sunbeds or vitamin D supplements. After reading this book, the public would want to know, one way or the other. He points out the dangers of shift work and 24 hour lighting in hospitals, linked with medication errors by staff and poor quality of sleep for patients, so there are major opportunities for developing lighting technologies that promote safety and health. We are provided with practical suggestions for doing a light audit, and by applying the basic principles of building orientation, how we can work out for ourselves from maps of our homes, workplaces and hospitals whether we are likely to be receiving enough sunlight.

In terms of town planning and architectural design, we are treated to some superb explanatory diagrams of how buildings should be oriented for maximum benefit inside and outside buildings – and as an interesting contrast to the rest of the book, there are some descriptions and drawings showing the creativity and idealism of 20th century architects who themselves were great sun-worshippers of the day, as examples of Modernism and the new International Style. The author includes some choice quotations that are still worth contemplating today: for example, the great Le Corbusier from 1953:

“Doling out cosmic energy, the sun’s effects are both physical and moral, and they have been too much neglected in recent times. The results of that need can be seen in cemetery and sanatorium.”

How ungrateful we are, by staying in the shadows and depriving ourselves of sunlight. We may not in this country have a legal right to sunlight, but this book, the sequel to ‘The Healing Sun’ by the same author, is about revolution. No doubt there will soon be more to tell, when this sorry situation is looked at in a different light. Now we can, if we choose, take some responsibility for our own health and act on the information we have been given in this salutary book. Also we can calmly request that our public buildings are free of harmful pathogens for our health and safety. The onus is on the hospital trusts and employers. Are you still sitting comfortably? Now let’s begin the new year afresh, and let some sunlight in. It sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?

An excellent book for the new year.

Grace Filby BA (Hons.) Cert.Ed.
Reigate, Surrey
5.12.06

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