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Sunlight, health and the skin cancer debate · Sunlight Matters

• 0:00
  Torkil Færø: There's no real research showing that sunscreen helps avoiding skin cancer of any of the three sorts.
• 0:06
  Torkil Færø: Most of the observational studies show no effect, and the effect would be in the direction of more cancer, more melanomas with more sunscreen used.
• 0:16
  Torkil Færø: And then they debate how come.
• 0:17
  Torkil Færø: This is a problem in research that when you find something that will increase the chances of having a diagnosed melanoma, it may have more to do with how motivated you are to approach the doctor than the actual disease.
• 0:33
  Torkil Færø: You have been taught from doctors, from dermatologists, particularly that the sunlight is dangerous, we should stay away from it as much as we can and take um D vitamins, which is what I myself has been saying to patients, you know, uh all the way up until like three years ago.
• 0:54
  Speaker: Welcome to Sunlight Matters, the podcast that reconnects us with the sun.
• 0:58
  Speaker: Join us as we explore the power and influence of our star, the force at the heart of everything.
• 1:04
  Speaker: Each episode, we speak with leading experts to uncover the ways sunlight shapes our world.
• 1:12
  Dave Wallace: Tolkien, welcome to the podcast.
• 1:15
  Dave Wallace: We're really delighted to have you.
• 1:17
  Dave Wallace: Uh I wonder, could you start by just giving us a brief introduction to yourself?
• 1:22
  Dave Wallace: Uh we've got Geog with us as well, so we've got some things that we want to talk about uh in terms of Geog specifically, but we'd love to just get a brief introduction to you and your background.
• 1:36
  Torkil Færø: Yes, I'm delighted to be on your podcast.
• 1:39
  Torkil Færø: So I've been listening to most of your uh episodes on Sunlight Matters.
• 1:43
  Torkil Færø: Um and uh actually a lot of the details in my book, The Sun Cure, comes from the inspiration of the people that you've had on your podcast.
• 1:52
  Torkil Færø: So I'm really honored to be here on the on the show.
• 1:56
  Torkil Færø: Uh I am um normal medical doctor in Norway, a general practitioner.
• 2:01
  Torkil Færø: I've been working all around the country.
• 2:03
  Torkil Færø: Uh I've had more than 100,000 consultations, which uh provides quite good insight into what makes us sick and what makes us uh healthy.
• 2:12
  Torkil Færø: Um and I'm also an author.
• 2:14
  Torkil Færø: So the last 10 years I've been writing five best-selling books in Norway about healthcare, about uh preventative health, um, including then The Pulse Cure, which is a book about how to use wearables like whoop and garming and aura rings to track the differences that you do in lifestyle and um to see the response in the heart rate uh variability.
• 2:39
  Torkil Færø: And my very latest book is The Sun Cure, um, in Norwegian, not yet translated unfortunately into English as yet.
• 2:48
  Torkil Færø: Um it's about uh how important all aspects of sunlight and circadian rhythm is to our health.
• 2:57
  Torkil Færø: So, which is of course what your listeners know very well.
• 3:01
  Torkil Færø: But I think that what we lack is the connection between the professors and researchers and to get it out to people in an understandable way.
• 3:11
  Torkil Færø: So that is kind of my my position.
• 3:14
  Torkil Færø: Um before like three years ago, I knew nothing about sunlight.
• 3:19
  Torkil Færø: When people when I first read that light and sunlight had any positive effect on our body and health, I I thought it was just uh you know, just crap.
• 3:28
  Torkil Færø: You know, how could that be?
• 3:30
  Torkil Færø: You know?
• 3:31
  Torkil Færø: So so is so I started a very interesting journey then three years ago when I started the book.
• 3:37
  Torkil Færø: Yeah.
• 3:38
  Dave Wallace: So so you I mean, one of the things that I think you you sort of noticed quite quickly was uh around heart rate variability and the the impact, positive impact that that the sun had on that.
• 3:51
  Dave Wallace: Um I think you you you mentioned that you know when uh Norwegians go on holiday to the canaries, they see sort of dramatic improvements in in heart rate variability.
• 4:04
  Dave Wallace: Um it's interesting because Georg's just done a uh an experiment over the summer where he's got up at sunrise and uh we've monitored various uh things like heart rate variability and sort of seen improvements.
• 4:20
  Dave Wallace: So I wonder, as we've got to kill here, why don't you um just tell him what you've been up to and then you know get his reaction to that?
• 4:30
  Georg Molzer: Yeah, totally.
• 4:31
  Georg Molzer: So um, as a quick summary, I committed to get up before sunrise and then use shadow map to find sunrise locations.
• 4:38
  Georg Molzer: So it was also like an idea to to use shadow map to show the capabilities of shadow map, um, finding those rare spots in the city where you can actually see the sun.
• 4:46
  Georg Molzer: So Vienna, you can imagine rather high buildings, narrow roads.
• 4:50
  Georg Molzer: I don't know, Torquin, have you ever been to Vienna?
• 4:52
  Georg Molzer: No, never.
• 4:53
  Georg Molzer: So I have to go.
• 4:54
  Georg Molzer: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:54
  Georg Molzer: So it's it's not the the best sunrise city, you could say.
• 4:58
  Georg Molzer: Um, and then I I took the the bike or motorbike and and went to these locations and actually watched the sunrise and then spent some sometimes many hours outdoors.
• 5:08
  Georg Molzer: Like I brought my computer, I started working there, and I had an amazing time, like really amazing time.
• 5:14
  Georg Molzer: It was a bit of a transition in the beginning, you know, like switching from the typical European sleeping cycle into this getting up very early sleeping cycle.
• 5:24
  Georg Molzer: Um But I yeah, like by the end of the experiment, I I was honestly sad that it's over, you know.
• 5:30
  Georg Molzer: Um I mean, of course I could have just stuck to it and and keep going, but somehow I don't know.
• 5:36
  Georg Molzer: It was like I think the initial commitment of doing it three weeks, and then I also had to take a a break from it.
• 5:42
  Georg Molzer: Um but it was this experience that led me to be very motivated on finding some schedule that is more real-world aligned, you know, like not getting up so early, not needing to go to bed that early, because of course it um it kind of removed me from my really small social life even more.
• 6:02
  Georg Molzer: So that was the the disadvantage kind of.
• 6:05
  Georg Molzer: But also, like Todd Sand, some people joined me.
• 6:07
  Georg Molzer: Like I have some yogi friends, and we we met in the sunrise and we sang mantras.
• 6:11
  Georg Molzer: That was like really beautiful.
• 6:13
  Georg Molzer: Um, but also my my my body parameters improved.
• 6:17
  Georg Molzer: So I I had sensors on me, I had a a light measurement device that meant measured the whole um light spectrum throughout the day, every every 30 seconds, and tracking that.
• 6:27
  Georg Molzer: And I had a a whoop wristband and I had a glucose monitor, and we collected all that data 24-7.
• 6:33
  Georg Molzer: Um, and this is still being analyzed.
• 6:36
  Georg Molzer: We have uh our scientific advisor, Nick Witten, who is uh who went through all the data and and started to write a report on it, so that's also gonna be interesting.
• 6:45
  Georg Molzer: But just quickly, like some some parameters like my heart rate variability improved by 13%, my my resting heart rate dropped by 8%, and my voop recovery score improved by 25%.
• 6:55
  Georg Molzer: And these are only like a few metrics, but throughout the band, everything's just improved.
• 7:00
  Georg Molzer: Um, so that's awesome.
• 7:02
  Torkil Færø: Yeah, that's very interesting.
• 7:04
  Torkil Færø: So you you sound like me, you know.
• 7:06
  Torkil Færø: I've done this experience with so many different things, also, including food and other things.
• 7:11
  Torkil Færø: So uh it's interesting to you see these impressive results in such a short time.
• 7:18
  Torkil Færø: And um as you mentioned, Dave, that um this uh heart rate variability is such an important metric.
• 7:28
  Torkil Færø: I would call it, you know, the maybe the most important metric that you have for to explain to people what that is.
• 7:35
  Torkil Færø: When you breathe in and that you are in a relaxed state, then the heart rate will go up a little bit when you breathe in, as there are more oxygen in the lungs.
• 7:45
  Torkil Færø: And when you breathe out in a relaxed state, the heart rate will go down a little bit just to save some energy.
• 7:51
  Torkil Færø: So when you say that your heart rate improved heart rate variability improved with 13%, that means that you kind of have a more capacity.
• 7:59
  Torkil Færø: It means that your mitochondria works better, that your autonomic nervous system is in better balance.
• 8:05
  Torkil Færø: So that's an important thing to know.
• 8:07
  Torkil Færø: And it's in particularly impressive as you said that you had to get up very early in the morning, you had less sleep, maybe six hours or even less of sleep, and you had less social contact, which is also important, and so that you get these results uh in that situation is uh is very impressive.
• 8:28
  Torkil Færø: And it's interesting that you can you know you can use your heart rate variability as a uh kind of a speedometer for the load on your system.
• 8:37
  Torkil Færø: So um it gives you kind of a dashboard into what's going on under the hood in your body, uh, and it's uh something that you wouldn't normally see, and it's so good that you can have the measurements and not just the feeling of feeling better that you uh say you that you had, but you can also measure it with objective measurements with a heart rate variability.
• 9:03
  Torkil Færø: So um, so that's what I wrote about in in the pulse cure, and um there's few other things that can affect this as much as sunlight, as Dave uh alluded to, that when Norwegians go south in the winter that they they really feel the need to, um then you can see maybe a doubling.
• 9:24
  Torkil Færø: You saw a 13% change, but a Norwegian going from the north of Norway there where there's no sun in in the winter, they can have a doubling of the heart rate variability actually.
• 9:35
  Torkil Færø: So um so it's really interesting, yeah.
• 9:38
  Dave Wallace: I and I mean I I guess what was the reason I wanted to bring that up is because we it kind of makes us think what's going on.
• 9:45
  Dave Wallace: So, you know, Gerg and I I I think if you've listened to the podcast, you'd have heard that we've kind of arrived at a place where we we think sunlight matters, um, but we sort of start almost with intuition, and then you you know, we've been lucky enough to talk to people like Bob Fosbury and Glenn Jeffrey, who've kind of talked at a very high science level, um, and then you know, people like Ron Jacobson and others who you know give us a a kind of broader picture of what's going on.
• 10:17
  Dave Wallace: And I think you know, when you reached out to me and talked about your new book, I was like, this is a this is brilliant.
• 10:24
  Dave Wallace: This is almost the missing bit of the jigsaw puzzle for us because I think you go into a lot more depth kind of at a kind of medical, and you you sort of mentioned this earlier, but it it's still very accessible to people.
• 10:38
  Dave Wallace: And I think the book that that that you've published in Norway and hopefully will be published outside of Norway soon, um, I think is really important because it starts to tell us what might be going on.
• 10:52
  Dave Wallace: Why would heart rate variability improve in sunlight?
• 10:55
  Dave Wallace: What are some of the mechanisms underneath it?
• 10:58
  Dave Wallace: But I I mean, just on the book itself, um, the forward's by Pelly Lingfist, who I think is you know, um his experiment on uh all cause mortality is is sort of one of the most quoted, I think, in in the world of sunlight.
• 11:15
  Dave Wallace: And it's amazing to see his forward.
• 11:17
  Dave Wallace: But but I wanted to just read this because I think it sort of sets the tone for for the book as well, um, and then you know, ask you a bit more about the book.
• 11:26
  Dave Wallace: But he he says between these extreme lines and that sort of lots of sunlight and no sunlight lies the balance in which human beings have lived throughout our evolutionary history.
• 11:38
  Dave Wallace: Today we regard insufficient sun exposure as the fourth major lifestyle risk factor alongside smoking, physical activity, and obesity, which I think you know speaks to all of this.
• 11:53
  Dave Wallace: Um, but you know, I it it's it's a very powerful statement, isn't it?
• 11:59
  Torkil Færø: Yeah, and it's um seems really true that it's um at that level, and that is also why it's so surprising that we as a medical community has have overlooked it.
• 12:11
  Torkil Færø: How is that really possible when you see, like I tell about in the book, all the different research on more or less all the different diseases that we are treating will be affected by sunlight and circadian rhythm?
• 12:25
  Torkil Færø: And we now know so much about the biological mechanisms behind it from all the different wavelengths of sunlight, from UV throughout visible light until infrared light that all your listeners know about already.
• 12:40
  Torkil Færø: So, how we could overlook this connection um is is really, really interesting.
• 12:46
  Torkil Færø: But we have earlier, we as a medical community, we have also overlooked um physical activity, sleep, nutrition.
• 12:55
  Torkil Færø: So all these things came after I would say I was a doctor, then some 28 years ago.
• 13:03
  Torkil Færø: So the focus on these areas uh are now at the forefront of um medical information, and um that sunlight takes its place on the same level of importance, uh, I think is new to most people because we have been taught from doctors, from dermatologists particularly, that the sunlight is dangerous, we should stay away from it um as much as we can and take um D vitamins, which is what I myself has been saying to patients, you know, uh all the way up until like three years ago.
• 13:39
  Torkil Færø: So um I pretty much um agree with that, with the with the importance of it.
• 13:44
  Torkil Færø: Yeah.
• 13:46
  Dave Wallace: So I I mean let's pick up on on that, because you know, I guess you talk about like in the book itself, you go through various parts of the body.
• 13:56
  Dave Wallace: The skin is sort of like an obvious place to start in terms of um, you know, and go go can share his experience himself because he had skin cancer, but the prevailing wisdom of the the the the I guess dermatology was and medical um science was stay out of the sun, avoid the sun, slather yourself in sun cream.
• 14:21
  Dave Wallace: Um but there is a graph in your book which shows that sort of mortality from melanoma's has remained pretty static, but you know, incidence of it has increased.
• 14:34
  Dave Wallace: So I I just wondered, you know, can you just talk about kind of from what you've seen and understood and researched the skin and you know what's going on from a from a um from a a sun perspective, and you know, the advice you would be giving your patients now if they came to see you?
• 14:56
  Torkil Færø: Yeah, that would be of course to be a lot more out in the sunlight and not to fear that much um melanoma, because much of the incidence rise in melanoma is due to overdiagnosing.
• 15:10
  Torkil Færø: Uh the limit from when we decide that something is melanoma has been lowered.
• 15:17
  Torkil Færø: So more of what we used to call atypical moles is now classified as melanomas.
• 15:24
  Torkil Færø: And it's also such that the more we look and we are encouraged to look for changes, you know, on our skin, and that is a sort of screening.
• 15:35
  Torkil Færø: Uh, and when we look more on our bodies uh and we go to the dermatologist, they will find more melanomas that are so-called thin melanomas or melanomas in situ that would never have resulted in death, which is why the curve, you know, uh in incidence, in contrast to mortality, is a steep curve of incidence, and the mortality rate is more or less flat.
• 16:03
  Torkil Færø: Just raised a little bit of this in Norway.
• 16:05
  Torkil Færø: Yeah.
• 16:07
  Torkil Færø: And Adam Adamson, which maybe you should also have on your podcast, has been checking out in Texas what would be the reason for this.
• 16:16
  Torkil Færø: And he would see that the easier access to healthcare and dermatologists, the steeper the rise.
• 16:23
  Torkil Færø: And it is no, it doesn't really have a strong connection to the UV intensity on the place, but the accessibility to healthcare.
• 16:31
  Torkil Færø: So the more we look, the more we find, and we find those that not necessarily would have developed into a cancer that would kill you, right?
• 16:41
  Torkil Færø: So it's important to see, and when you then find something, this is a problem in research, that when you find something that will increase the chances of having a diagnosed melanoma, it may have more to do with your how motivated you are to approach the doctor than the actual disease.
• 17:01
  Torkil Færø: That becomes a problem in the research.
• 17:03
  Torkil Færø: So, for example, if you do sunbeds or tanning or you have been sunburned, um then your kind of uh limit to go to your dermatologist is lower, and you will find more.
• 17:16
  Torkil Færø: And and this is the reason why you're diagnosed um more easily.
• 17:20
  Torkil Færø: So that could be a part of the reason.
• 17:23
  Georg Molzer: Super interesting.
• 17:24
  Georg Molzer: I mean, I I want to add that I also learned, and I was kind of astonished in the beginning, that all the UV skin cancer studies they always have been done in laboratory environments with only UV lamps, which are lacking the infrared part.
• 17:37
  Georg Molzer: And this is what I also learned in the last 18 months how extremely crucial infrared is.
• 17:42
  Georg Molzer: So this all adds to it, and it it's it's almost like a campaign to disconnect humans from the sun for whatever reason.
• 17:50
  Georg Molzer: Um earmongering around the sun.
• 17:53
  Georg Molzer: And I mean, I I made this journey myself.
• 17:55
  Georg Molzer: Like I got skin cancer diagnosis.
• 17:58
  Georg Molzer: There was a stage two one, it was like 13 years ago, and it was removed from my from my neck here.
• 18:04
  Georg Molzer: Um and then my doctors were like, Yeah, okay, I mean, you must never go into the sun again.
• 18:10
  Georg Molzer: It made me really sad.
• 18:11
  Georg Molzer: I the sun was one of the only things, few things that I really loved, and and I disconnected hardcore from the sun.
• 18:18
  Georg Molzer: So I was using sunblocker, wearing clothes all the time, and then it took me around a year or so of really feeling into myself, like also connecting to this cancer and understanding what really happened to me, and then intuitively feeling that that journey is not my journey, you know, and and really like slowly, you know, like exposing myself more to the sun and really feeling what I think the main causes, the main reasons I got this illness were not the sun, it was my lifestyle, it was my nutrition, it was drinking alcohol um almost every weekend.
• 18:54
  Georg Molzer: Um, my my really bad sleep, and there's also like now coming up a lot of studies about circadian rhythm and and cancer and like all that stuff was the problem.
• 19:05
  Georg Molzer: And the sun might have been like a tiny catalyst in this whole equation, but it was not the main driver, and this is something I'm really convinced of, and I think everybody needs to make their own experiences, but for me the situation is really clear.
• 19:17
  Georg Molzer: So I'm I'm now I'm not I mean I live in Austria, the sun is not extremely intense, but I don't use sunscreen for eight years.
• 19:24
  Georg Molzer: Um I'm in the sun uh a lot, like during noon in the summer, I don't get sunburns anymore.
• 19:31
  Georg Molzer: I even that's interesting actually, two weeks ago I was invited to participate in a skin study.
• 19:36
  Georg Molzer: Um, and they had like wild devices that were scanning my skin, like measuring UV damage, measuring skin age.
• 19:44
  Georg Molzer: And my skin age is significantly younger than I am, old, and also that I have no UV damage.
• 19:50
  Georg Molzer: Which is also interesting because I mean I'm not using sunscreen, I'm in the sun a lot.
• 19:55
  Georg Molzer: No UV damage.
• 19:56
  Georg Molzer: And what they said initially, I'm I'm still getting the detailed study report, but they said that my my skin adapted.
• 20:03
  Torkil Færø: So yeah, melanin is a lot better at uh dealing with UV arrays than our sunscreens.
• 20:10
  Torkil Færø: And that was one of the big surprises, uh, because I thought that it must be lots of research showing that sunscreen helps avoiding skin cancer.
• 20:21
  Torkil Færø: That has to be obvious, I thought, because of the intensity that the dermatologists recommended.
• 20:27
  Torkil Færø: But you know, there are almost no studies showing that.
• 20:30
  Torkil Færø: It's only one study from from Queensland, um, and it has a lot of faults with it.
• 20:37
  Torkil Færø: You know, it's it's it's uh sponsored in some way by L'Oreal, it's uh it has a lot of uh false faults with it.
• 20:45
  Torkil Færø: Big surprise.
• 20:45
  Torkil Færø: And and most of and most of the observational studies show show no effect, and in the effect would be in the direction of more cancer and more more melanomas with more sunscreen use.
• 20:58
  Torkil Færø: And then they debate how how come?
• 21:00
  Torkil Færø: Is it because when you use sunscreen, you will be more out in the sun and you have avoided the kind of the alarm signal of the of the redness and so on, or is it the sunscreen in itself?
• 21:10
  Torkil Færø: But there's no no real uh research showing that sunscreen helps avoiding skin cancer of any of the three sorts.
• 21:20
  Torkil Færø: Um both uh basal cell carcinoma, uh platelet, uh, or squamous cell carcinoma or melanoma.
• 21:27
  Torkil Færø: That is wild.
• 21:28
  Torkil Færø: I've never heard that.
• 21:29
  Torkil Færø: Yeah, yeah, that's that's really yeah, that's really wild.
• 21:32
  Torkil Færø: Um so but because melan because melanin is 500 million years old, is in use uh in many species, species, uh even in in uh in fungus and so on.
• 21:47
  Torkil Færø: So it has stood the test of time, evolutionary time, and it will convert the UV rays to heat a lot faster than the sunscreen will do.
• 21:58
  Torkil Færø: So uh and it will adapt.
• 21:59
  Torkil Færø: Adapt to the circumstances, you know, to your skin type, to the season, and so on.
• 22:06
  Torkil Færø: It's an adaptive system.
• 22:07
  Torkil Færø: It will protect the DNA.
• 22:10
  Torkil Færø: It's also an antioxidant and an immune regulator.
• 22:13
  Torkil Færø: It's quite an amazing molecule.
• 22:15
  Torkil Færø: And that we think, as human beings, that we have engineered a better solution than nature has done over 500 million years.
• 22:23
  Torkil Færø: It's just hubris.
• 22:25
  Dave Wallace: It's just uh you say L'Oreal couldn't come out with something better than nature.
• 22:31
  Torkil Færø: So yeah.
• 22:32
  Torkil Færø: Yeah.
• 22:33
  Torkil Færø: And that one single study from Australia, they would they would need to repeat it at least once, you know, and with all the money that the sunscreen industry has, you know, it should be no problem.
• 22:45
  Torkil Færø: Um but they don't seem very interested in finding out.
• 22:49
  Dave Wallace: So if you're enjoying Sunlight Matters, make sure to subscribe and leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.
• 22:57
  Dave Wallace: You can also search Sunlight Matters on Google to find more episodes, guest information, and further insights about sunlight analysis, solar exposure, and the way light shapes our spaces.
• 23:14
  Georg Molzer: We got approached by uh like indirectly by a sunscreen brand who wanted to do a campaign with us um for a big sports event, uh, you know, like about finding the the shady sports where you can safely um uh experience the event.
• 23:31
  Georg Molzer: And I mean I'm I'm totally for you know, like you you should always be able to find some shade if you have too much sun, but we couldn't do it, like we couldn't do that job.
• 23:39
  Georg Molzer: We we we can't like we we have interest conflicts here.
• 23:44
  Torkil Færø: So and and of course you can yeah, and of course it helps uh against getting sunburned in sure exactly yeah so if I was to go at a sports event and I would be there in the sun and I would know that I would have to sit there for like three hours to to watch a game or whatever, then I would put on sunscreen because who wants to get sunburned, right?
• 24:05
  Torkil Færø: But it doesn't help against um against cancer.
• 24:08
  Torkil Færø: And wearing a hat, wearing clothes, going into the shade and um you know adapting to the circumstances and knowing your body is a lot more is a lot better than just as this and the dermatologists recommend to put on the sunscreen before you go outside and put it on every second hour, uh, and even on your kids from their small children, you know, and these the the in the chemical sunscreens you will see and find residues of the different chemicals in urine, in breast milk, and in blood.
• 24:42
  Torkil Færø: And we don't really know that they are not on the FDA list of um of safe and effective um you know medicines or whatever you would call it.
• 24:52
  Torkil Færø: Um so and they have asked the the producers to prove that it's safe, and they haven't really done that or shown interest in doing that.
• 25:01
  Torkil Færø: So so I think nature nature wins.
• 25:05
  Torkil Færø: Uh biology, if we work against our biology, we lose, right?
• 25:10
  Torkil Færø: So um it's about being outside, being in the sunlight, and not overdo it, you know, like Pelolinquist is uh talking about to the to exaggerate your sun, either by being being sunburned or using sunscreen to stay out longer in the sun, uh it's not a good uh idea.
• 25:33
  Torkil Færø: And when it comes to melanoma, his study shows that although more time in the sun will increase the chances of you getting diagnosed with a melanoma, the more you are in the sun, the less chance of dying.
• 25:46
  Torkil Færø: And it's three times less chance of dying.
• 25:50
  Torkil Færø: So it's quite a significant change, uh, which means that your advice from your dermatologist doesn't seem to be right.
• 25:57
  Torkil Færø: Um it's so interesting.
• 25:59
  Torkil Færø: Yeah.
• 26:00
  Torkil Færø: And it's also a question: what should we do here in the north?
• 26:03
  Torkil Færø: You know, like in the British Isles and in Norway, uh where there's hardly any sign from now on and until April, you know, there's no real UV doses, we have too much clothes on, we stay more inside.
• 26:16
  Torkil Færø: What should we do?
• 26:18
  Torkil Færø: Because the mortality rates and uh will will increase quite steeply throughout the winter.
• 26:24
  Torkil Færø: In in Scotland, the mortality is like and and Norway is like 25% higher in the midwinter than than late summer.
• 26:32
  Torkil Færø: Um, and particularly it seems like heart disease is what will be the problem.
• 26:38
  Torkil Færø: So when we go more out in the sunlight, what is really changing is the risk of getting heart disease, and that is a big killer, of course.
• 26:48
  Torkil Færø: And in Australia, compared to the UK, the the it's um like three years almost difference in expected lifetime, life expectancy.
• 27:00
  Torkil Færø: And a lot of that seems to be due to larger degree of heart disease in the UK, for example, which is uh what Richard Weller talks about a lot.
• 27:10
  Torkil Færø: When and when he compares in his last study, that you of course may be aware of, is that if everybody in the UK would get as little sun as in the you know, in in um the low sun, that would save one life of melanoma, but it would cost 75 lives of heart disease and cancer of other causes.
• 27:33
  Torkil Færø: So um yeah, it's in preprint at the moment, but um it it shows the orders of magnitude in this I mean again it goes goes back to the perilinquist thing.
• 27:46
  Dave Wallace: This is the fourth major lifestyle risk.
• 27:48
  Dave Wallace: And yet that that's pushing against perceived wisdom in in the medical establishment.
• 27:56
  Dave Wallace: Like like you talk about heart heart disease there, there are very few doctors out there at the moment, you know, going one of the things you need to do is to get outside a lot more in the sunlight.
• 28:12
  Dave Wallace: How how I mean I I think your book is part of an answer to that, but how else can these things change?
• 28:19
  Dave Wallace: Because if you think about lifestyle risk factors, you've got smoking which has been addressed at a kind of policy level activity, which again has been addressed, um, and obesity, which you know, these are all things that we know about.
• 28:32
  Dave Wallace: We know about the campaigns around them.
• 28:35
  Dave Wallace: How do we get sunlight to be sort of in there as part of the mix?
• 28:41
  Torkil Færø: So you know, it's and that's interesting, I think, because uh the sunlight is of course free and it's easy accessible, you just have to be outside.
• 28:52
  Torkil Færø: Where the other things that you mentioned there would it would mean some effort, you know, to lose weight, to go out being more physically active, to set aside time for better sleep um and so on.
• 29:04
  Torkil Færø: Um but when it comes to sunlight, you just have to go outside and you will get this the rays from the sun like for free.
• 29:14
  Torkil Færø: And paradoxically, I think what will change this is not sunlight itself, but it's the products that will be a substitute for sunlight in the winter.
• 29:27
  Torkil Færø: Because when you think about the different panels nowadays, the different ways to give you the same photons from the sun, which is not particularly expensive or hard to do, and to get that inside.
• 29:41
  Torkil Færø: I think the these products will give the attention to the lack of sunlight and will help the focus on the sunlight in the summer.
• 29:52
  Torkil Færø: So I think maybe it will go through that direction because it's it's follow the money.
• 29:58
  Torkil Færø: Um it's uh we live in a kind of a commercial uh world, you know.
• 30:03
  Torkil Færø: So when all the money is to be made on sunscreen, um it directs the attention towards that, towards campaigns and so on.
• 30:13
  Torkil Færø: So there's no campaign for the sun.
• 30:16
  Torkil Færø: It's not possible to monetize on that unless you're a travel agent or or so.
• 30:22
  Georg Molzer: So we are running a campaign for the sun, definitely.
• 30:27
  Georg Molzer: Um yeah, but I I also want to quit quickly add that I think it's really, really super fascinating how like science works, you know, like you are you're quoting insights from the same data that is you know just collected throughout different studies, and and just uh like what you say is in in direct contrast to what many others many other scientists say or dermatologists say.
• 30:54
  Georg Molzer: And I'm always like as a child already, I was I was um wondering how can it even be that from the same data you have completely different opinions?
• 31:02
  Georg Molzer: Like, how is it possible?
• 31:04
  Georg Molzer: There must be one truth in these regards, and it it it intuitively shows me that there is there must be some agenda, and and I wonder why, you know, like is it is it only the money?
• 31:15
  Torkil Færø: No, I don't think it's only the money.
• 31:18
  Torkil Færø: I think it's just um and they're not look the doctors, the dermatologists, they're not really looking at the results.
• 31:27
  Torkil Færø: They're not really looking at the research.
• 31:29
  Torkil Færø: They're just looking at old dogmas that they just repeat, and since all the dermatologists repeat the same thing.
• 31:36
  Torkil Færø: They feel safe that somebody did the work years ago, right?
• 31:42
  Torkil Færø: Like, for example, it's probably in the UK as well as in Norway, they say that nine out of ten melanomas are because of UV race.
• 31:51
  Torkil Færø: I'm not sure if you if you hear that also in the UK, but I'm I'm pretty sure.
• 31:57
  Torkil Færø: But that is not real research.
• 31:59
  Torkil Færø: They have just compared the number of melanoma diagnoses, not deaths, in 2010.
• 32:07
  Torkil Færø: And then they have decided that the generation born in 1903 in London had the least UV exposure for some reason.
• 32:16
  Torkil Færø: And then they say that, okay, now there's 10 times more melanomas, and the difference is UV.
• 32:24
  Torkil Færø: Um, they haven't really explored it or or tested out if there's some other things, but they have decided that okay, since there are now almost 10 times as much, then 9 out of 10 melanomas are caused by UV.
• 32:38
  Torkil Færø: And in the first place to compare it, to compare it with a 1903 generation, that if they had to meet people, they would go outside.
• 32:48
  Torkil Færø: Most of the jobs would be outside, they don't work in offices, uh, and so on.
• 32:53
  Torkil Færø: So so the basic of this is not you can't really call it a study, it's called something a population attributable factor, uh, where they have just assumed that that is a difference.
• 33:05
  Torkil Færø: And these authorities, both in Norway, the Cancer Association and the dermatologist and and all the major authorities, would would point to this so-called research and say to people that nine out of ten melanomas are caused by UV race.
• 33:22
  Torkil Færø: And of course, that will scare people away from the UV race, of course.
• 33:27
  Torkil Færø: And I'm uh and you would assume that this is heavily researched number, but it but it's not, which is how I think it's possible that scientists don't don't raise their voices and say this is this is nonsense.
• 33:38
  Georg Molzer: I mean, how can this nonsense uh reach such popularity and acceptance rates and be re-quoted?
• 33:44
  Georg Molzer: Why is nobody saying your methodology is is bullshit and and yeah, yeah.
• 33:48
  Georg Molzer: Why is it not happening?
• 33:51
  Torkil Færø: I don't know.
• 33:51
  Torkil Færø: And uh when it comes to the to the articles that comes every spring in Norway, then the the journalists would never ask them, where can you can you show me the research?
• 34:02
  Torkil Færø: Can you show me explain to me uh the numbers behind this?
• 34:06
  Torkil Færø: Um they never asked that.
• 34:08
  Torkil Færø: So um I don't know why.
• 34:10
  Torkil Færø: And and of course, as pelelinquists and Richard Weller will probably agree with that if you stick your head out in this in this subject, you will they will try to knock you down uh quite hard, uh which I have experienced that most people uh in this field uh talking about a different approach uh will be handled that way.
• 34:34
  Torkil Færø: Um but it and this is why when it comes to heart rate variability, this is why I say that it it's because of the commercially produced substitutes that probably will make the difference.
• 34:47
  Torkil Færø: Because heart rate variability before Whoop, before Garmin and Aura would not be so interesting, right?
• 34:54
  Torkil Færø: Or it wouldn't be known to everybody.
• 34:57
  Torkil Færø: But because of the commercial aspect that they can sell you a device that gives you control in some degree over your heart rate variability, that is what creates the focus from all sides.
• 35:09
  Torkil Færø: When I wrote the Pulse Cure, it was a hardly known concept.
• 35:13
  Torkil Færø: Now, more or less like everybody in Norway, it's been this wild bestseller.
• 35:17
  Torkil Færø: And so now everybody in Norway, at least with some degree of interest in health, would know that you can use these devices to keep track of your your health.
• 35:27
  Torkil Færø: And I think it would be the same uh way when it comes to sunlight, actually.
• 35:32
  Dave Wallace: I I I find it it is really fascinating.
• 35:35
  Dave Wallace: I mean, just on the the on research, and I mean I I was lucky I did a degree in psychology, and the final course I did in the degree was about the philosophy of psychology.
• 35:47
  Dave Wallace: And one of the questions it asked is what's the research like, which we're basing all our theories on.
• 35:53
  Dave Wallace: And fairly quickly I was like, these are all just rubbish, basically.
• 35:59
  Dave Wallace: There's a lot of people making assumptions out of um not a lot of data, but but those those studies have then kind of um endured and they form the basis to this day of of modern psychology, and I think the same is true of medicine as we've as we've been discussing, and uh, you know, it's not always the case, but but sometimes.
• 36:23
  Dave Wallace: Um and you know what what I find interesting i in this regard though is we have been scared as a sort of population into behaviour.
• 36:38
  Dave Wallace: So if you go and see a doctor and the doctor says, look, forget what you've read about from sunscreen, just get outside in the sun a lot more.
• 36:47
  Dave Wallace: Um, you know, obviously be careful, get into the shade in midday.
• 36:52
  Dave Wallace: So I think a lot of people would just not be able to kind of take that seriously.
• 36:57
  Dave Wallace: And I think, you know, again, this is part of why we need books like yours because it helps to undo that damage.
• 37:05
  Dave Wallace: And I mean, what one fascinating thing is, and you know, this is completely by chance, is my wife sent me uh a TikTok, which was all about Pilly Linqvist's study over over the weekend, and she said, Have you seen this?
• 37:18
  Dave Wallace: And I was like, Yeah, I have seen it, I've read all about it, but I'm also going to be uh interviewing someone who who who's got the forward of his book is by Pellilingquist as well.
• 37:30
  Dave Wallace: So it's kind of hitting the mainstream now, isn't it?
• 37:33
  Dave Wallace: But like that that fear is a real thing, isn't it?
• 37:39
  Torkil Færø: Yeah, and of course it's something that is uh called anchoring bias.
• 37:45
  Torkil Færø: That if you think when you have learned something and you have learned it for many, many years, and then somebody comes and says it's the other way around, it will take a lot of effort to change your mind.
• 38:00
  Torkil Færø: Because the first thing that you learn is so heavily ingrained in your in your thinking that it will take some time to change that.
• 38:09
  Torkil Færø: But here we have of course biology on our side, because this without sunlight there would be no biomass on earth, there would be no plants, you know.
• 38:21
  Torkil Færø: Sunlight shines on CO2 and plants or in plants, you know, with the photosynthesis, they use CO2 with sunlight and water and creates biomass and create oxygen that we breathe.
• 38:38
  Torkil Færø: And all biomass on earth comes it directly or indirectly from from the sun.
• 38:46
  Torkil Færø: And to think that we as humans would be that would be irrelevant for us that we as organisms have not used the energy from the sun in a productive way.
• 38:57
  Torkil Færø: How could that be?
• 38:59
  Torkil Færø: So now we know more of the mechanisms from vitamin D to POM C and endorphins, we know that it creates serotonin uh and dopamine.
• 39:12
  Torkil Færø: Uh we know that uh the circadian rhythm is so important to regulate the processes in our body that is supposed to be, you know, on the regulated from the daylight.
• 39:26
  Torkil Færø: Um we need the processes that activates us, and in the nighttime, the repair system, uh, which is governed by blue light, um, of course.
• 39:37
  Torkil Færø: And then also the infrared light that goes into the mitochondria and improve the power supply of our bodies, which is so important.
• 39:47
  Torkil Færø: And 75% of the photons from the sun are in the infrared spectrum.
• 39:53
  Torkil Færø: And of course, we are using that for to our benefit.
• 39:58
  Torkil Færø: Um, and to think that it would be irrelevant for us, whether we are inside or outside, whether it's winter or summer, which is what we have been thinking as doctors and uh in the medical community, is it's kind of absurd when you think about it.
• 40:15
  Torkil Færø: So it's when you first become aware of it, you you you kind of can't unsee it.
• 40:20
  Torkil Færø: You see it everywhere.
• 40:21
  Torkil Færø: And I can see it on my patients as well, now that I'm in particular about mental mental diseases and symptoms that when I ask people now and they come with some depression or some brain fog or whatever, and I ask them how much are you outside?
• 40:40
  Torkil Færø: You know, the tendency to be inside all the time is is quite strong.
• 40:45
  Torkil Færø: Um so but I think this is changing very, very fast, I think.
• 40:50
  Torkil Færø: At least among at least among the health conscious people, they will get these messages, whether it's from TikTok or Instagram or or whatever, and they will get it before the doctors, before my colleagues, unfortunately.
• 41:02
  Torkil Færø: Or Sunlight Matters.
• 41:04
  Torkil Færø: Yeah, or Sunlight Matters, yeah.
• 41:06
  Dave Wallace: Yeah, no, I mean look, and I I I I think it's w what is interesting is and I've talked a bit a bit about this, is actually we probably all know the answer to this inside of us.
• 41:19
  Dave Wallace: It's just you know, modern life's got in the way.
• 41:23
  Dave Wallace: But we all know if we sit in the sun, we feel better.
• 41:26
  Dave Wallace: You know, that's and now you know it turns out that when you sit in the sun, you'll your your skin releases endorphin.
• 41:33
  Dave Wallace: So that that there must be a reason why you feel better when you sit in the sun.
• 41:39
  Dave Wallace: And but it but I think it's sort of like a getting that point of a subconscious to the conscious level.
• 41:48
  Dave Wallace: And again, what one of the things I love about the book that you've written is you you ask people questions, you know, sort of the start of chapters and things.
• 41:56
  Dave Wallace: There's there's things for people to think about, and I think that's so important that this is part of an intellectual kind of process that we all kind of go through.
• 42:07
  Dave Wallace: So, you know, and I the way of the world is like people will see a 10-second thing on social media, then they'll go, Well, where can I go to find out more detail about this?
• 42:18
  Dave Wallace: And again, that's why having content like Sunlight Maths or your book, I think is so important because it starts filling in the gaps.
• 42:27
  Georg Molzer: I think it's fascinating what you said, Talky.
• 42:29
  Georg Molzer: Like there were so many things I have never heard in that clarity, like honestly, and we are in the field a lot, and um brilliant insights.
• 42:37
  Georg Molzer: So I'm I'm also keen to read your book now.
• 42:40
  Torkil Færø: Yeah, yeah.
• 42:41
  Torkil Færø: I didn't and and the one of the interesting things is that before I started writing the book, I knew about vitamin D.
• 42:48
  Torkil Færø: Well, that was more or less the only process in the body that I knew about.
• 42:53
  Torkil Færø: And in the beginning, as Dave says, I asked a question, how many processes do you think?
• 42:58
  Torkil Færø: And just to reveal the the end of it, uh, is that it seems hard to find a process in the body that is not uh in uh in uh how to say uh by the sun, indirect or via say circadian rhythm.
• 43:15
  Torkil Færø: So we are solar creatures, we are sun, we are solar, yeah, and and our our whole skin that has been of course in direct communication with the sunlight has been developed almost like a multifactorial solar panel, it all will always also the T cells, the regulatory T cells in our body will also respond to the sunlight and and um improve their job to avoid autoimmune diseases that are so common in in the world where we live inside now more than 90% of the time.
• 43:56
  Torkil Færø: So um it's been really interesting learning about these things, and I have changed what I do.
• 44:03
  Torkil Færø: Of course, so in the winter time, I will spend more time in the closer to the sun in Spain or in other places, and I will use different devices to substitute the the rays from the sun, um like panels, red light panels, UV light panels, and so on.
• 44:25
  Torkil Færø: So um I think the whole field is super interesting, and uh I think it's it will be one of the fields in medical research that will be you know uh at the forefront in the coming years.
• 44:37
  Torkil Færø: So it will be interesting.
• 44:40
  Dave Wallace: Amazing.
• 44:40
  Dave Wallace: Amazing.
• 44:41
  Dave Wallace: Well listen we're very, very delighted to have had you on.
• 44:46
  Dave Wallace: Thank you so much for your time.
• 44:48
  Dave Wallace: Um we need the book published, so um, you know, fingers crossed that you you find somebody who can do that.
• 44:55
  Dave Wallace: And um you you know, it's been a fantastic conversation, so thank you.
• 45:00
  Torkil Færø: Yeah, thank you so much for letting me talk about my passion.
• 45:03
  Torkil Færø: Thank you.
• 45:04
  Dave Wallace: Thanks for listening to Sunlight Matters, brought to you by Shadow Man, where we explore how sunlight influences the way we build, design, and live each day.
• 45:13
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• 45:20
  Dave Wallace: You can also search Sunlight Matters on Google to find all our episodes, guest information, and resources about sunlight analysis, solar exposure, and the best home orientation for natural mind.
• 45:32
  Dave Wallace: You can also head over to ShadowMap.org, where you can download our iOS or Android app for free today to visualize how the sun is currently impacting you.
• 45:42
  Dave Wallace: We appreciate you being part of the conversation, and we'll see you next time where you can keep exploring the world through the lens of light.