“Water is actually at the center of all biological activity. It’s not peripheral, it’s absolutely central.”

“If you have a minor lack of EZ water, you have dysfunction. If you have a major lack of EZ water, you have pathology. If you have a serious loss of EZ water, it’s cancer.” — Dr. Gerald Pollack

Most biology textbook assume that the water in our body serves a background function in health. Water is discussed as a solvent in which DNA, proteins, and other organelles float around.

But what if a large portion of the energy in our body is coming from the water in our cells? And what if a disturbance to the structure of this water in our body can cause cancer and other diseases?

Dr. Gerald Pollack is a Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington, and is one of the few brilliant minds studying the importance of water in our cells. He says that water is not the background. It is doing the work. Water is a battery that is providing us energy.

Dr. Pollack also rejects the idea that the water in our cells is the same liquid water we drink. He says the water inside of us is more like a gel, think jelly-like. Pollack calls this “EZ water” or “Exclusion-Zone water”. Some others call it Structured Water.

The most important point he makes is that all healthy cells have this EZ Water. A lack of EZ water is a hallmark of disease, including cancer. This is why cancer cells have a low electrical potential, it’s the lack of this negatively charged EZ water that causes it.

If he is right, the question to ask is, how do we maintain and build EZ Water in our cells? Dr. Pollack goes into many free tips on how to do so in the podcast. In particular, we discuss the impact of sunlight, grounding, magnets, sauna, deuterium-depleted water, and more on the EZ Water in our cells.

“If you can implement procedures that build EZ water, you ought to be able to reverse the cancer.” — Dr. Gerald Pollack

What we discuss in this episode:

1. How 99% of the molecules in our body are water molecules, and how water is not just a background solvent.

2. What EZ water is, and how it gives us energy.

3. The role of infrared light and sunlight on water in our cells.

4. Why every cancer cell is dehydrated.

5. What builds EZ water: sun, sauna, red light, grounding, juicing, deuterium depleted water, turmeric, holy basil and ghee.

6. The effect of Hyperbaric oxygen, PEMF and magnets on EZ water.

7. The link between dementia, other diseases, and EZ water.

Watch on YouTube, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.

If you wish to receive bonus takeaways from each podcast episode, and my detailed practical protocols, you can become a premium subscriber. Hope you enjoy the conversation!

Follow me on X @aasthajs and Instagram @aasthajs for more on longevity.

Check out my health stack of the exact non-toxic health products I use. For the full collection of 500+ health products curated by me, see Health Stacked.

All other platforms: here

Timestamps:

00:00 Water in our cells is central to every disease
00:38 Why almost nobody in biology studies water
01:18 99% of your molecules are water. So why is it treated as filler?
03:41 What water is actually doing inside a cell
07:44 Gilbert Ling, and the book that made his students say all of biology is wrong
11:25 The experiment that started structured water research
14:09 Why cellular water behaves more like a gel than a liquid
16:29 The moment they realized water is a battery
18:29 What charges the water battery, and it isn't food
19:43 Is all the water in your cells this kind of water?
23:46 Why he says we shouldn't even call it water
24:57 Does energy actually come from ATP?
27:23 If ATP isn't the fuel, what is it doing there?
30:38 What every cancer cell has in common
33:47 Free things that rebuild the structure of your cellular water
34:48 Turmeric, holy basil and ghee: what his lab found when they tested them
35:11 Morning sun, red light, saunas and grounding
36:22 Hyperbaric oxygen, and how he went looking for it
37:26 PEMF, FSM, and the magnet result that surprised him
41:42 Do WiFi routers shrink the water in your cells?
43:47 The dementia case & water connection
46:32 His answer to the strongest criticism of his work
51:13 Healers, water memory, and the paper he's about to publish
54:36 What anesthesia does to the water in your cells
55:07 What changes if he turns out to be right
57:30 One thing behind almost every disease?
59:07 Why he thinks water drives volcanoes and earthquakes

For premium subscribers, I will be releasing highlights and practical takeaways from this conversation with Dr. Gerald Pollack, so if you want those, please consider upgrading.

Bonus for Premium Subscribers: 3 conversations that didn't make the episode

These are the parts where Dr. Pollack takes on foundational assumptions in biology, and explains what he thinks is wrong with them. Each is a separate short video on the below that I’m releasing only for premium subscribers.

• Where Pollack agrees and disagrees with Gilbert Ling: Ling spent a lifetime proving water in cells is ordered, but Pollack says he missed the two things that matter most, and one of them his own lab found by accident.

• Why he doesn’t think the conventional view of membrane pumps and ion channels is correct.

• What he thinks is the real role of the cell membrane.

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This is Part 2 on my non-toxic bedroom environment where I discuss my lighting setup at night. In Part 1, I discussed how your mattress emits toxic fumes while you sleep, and why I only use natural organic non-toxic mattresses and bedding.

How I Switch my Lighting at Night to Mimic Nature:

In nature, it’s dark after sunset. Darkness is a signal to our bodies to start winding down and begin repair processes. Our modern lives with electricity and blue-rich LED bulbs make this impossible. Blue light at night is linked to cancer (especially breast2 and prostate3 cancer), diabetes4 and heart disease.5

Even during the day, LED bulbs keep us in perpetual stress mode. (See below post on how office workers can reduce stress by mitigating isolated blue light from LEDs and screens in a home or non-home office setting.)

Not to mention that LED lighting flickers constantly, giving you eye strain and headaches.

Blue-rich lights that stimulate you and inhibit repair processes by blocking melatonin6 are the exact opposite of what you want at night. Here is how I switch our home, bedroom, and device lighting as evening dawns and sunset begins:

Home Lighting:

• We use red incandescent bulbs at night. They emit zero-blue. I got some from Amazon but sadly they’re going out of stock since the fatal ban on incandescents.

• I recommend circadian lighting from Healthy Home Shop. The same bulbs switch from full-spectrum during the day to zero blue at night. They mimic nature much better than any traditional LED. No WiFi needed to work them. (10% off with link)

• After sunset, I use blue-light blockers from VivaRays, (Code: LIVELONGERWORLD). VivaRays makes 3-in-1 blue light blockers to block different intensities of blue over the course of the day. Isolated blue light (without the infrared) from LEDs and screens during the day raises your cortisol. So, if you’re going to be working indoors in front of screens & LED bulbs, you want to wear their yellow blue-light blockers (stops some blue) during the day. And then you switch to the red ones at night, which block all blue.

• I absolutely hate the bright blue light in all refrigerators. Especially when you’re putting dinner away in the fridge, the last thing you want is being blasted by blue light before bed. There is also research that blue light at night can increase appetite and sugar cravings. So the last thing you want is being bombarded with blue light from the fridge and tempted to pull out that ice-cream! I finally found a way. It’s a neat set it and forget it $5 hack.

  My fridge hack tip is for premium subscribers. Upgrade to get full access.

Bedroom Lighting:

• I keep our bedroom as dark as possible. We can detect even small specks of light, which can disrupt sleep. I use SleepOut Non-toxic curtains for our blackout curtains. Most blackout curtains are made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or synthetic materials like polyester which release toxic fumes called volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and formaldehyde (a carcinogen!) over the life of the curtain. VOC releases get magnified when sunlight hits the curtains through the window. So, during the day, these VOCs keep infesting your bedroom and it’s what you breathe in while you sleep. Jeez! (Yes, these are the same VOCs we encountered in mattresses).

  • SleepOut uses only non-toxic materials and the best part is that they have a portable curtain too, so you can easily carry it with you when traveling.

• I use an organic cotton or silk sleep eye mask. Even low-level light can disrupt sleep.

Device lighting:

• For reading at night, I use my blue-light free Daylight computer (Code: LIVELONGERWORLD) which I love. It’s gentle on the eyes, has no blue light and is flicker-free.

• When using devices at night, turn them all on zero blue or red light mode. Apple’s Night shift mode is a lie. It does not cut out all blue light. To do so, here are the steps for Iphone, Android, and your computer.

• When working on your devices at night, if you don’t want them on full red mode, or if you’re working under lights that are not zero-blue, use blue-light blockers, like the ones I have from VivaRays. (Code: LIVELONGERWORLD)

We spend many hours of our life sleeping, and it’s also the time when the body is repairing. I sincerely believe that we should create an environment to allow for proper rest and restoration.

In the next post, I’ll cover how I change our house EMF exposure at night.

You can see all the sleep and health products we use at healthstacked.com/aasthajs

Follow me on X @aasthajs & Instagram @aasthajs. If my work is useful, become a premium subscriber.

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I did it for 10+ years. We assume we’re getting restorative sleep while never creating an environment designed to repair.

Much of sleep advice focuses on dinner timing, dinner composition, and activities to do before bed like a warm shower or cutting out social media. I used to practice some of these for years, with little improvement to my sleep, but nothing significant.

What drastically improved my sleep was making my bedroom environment less toxic, getting more sunlight during the day, and eating dinner by sunset.

Sleep is when our body is repairing and we must give it a proper chance to do so by mitigating the effects of toxins. Our sleep environment should be as pure as possible, and devoid of modern day toxins like blue lights, EMF, polyester bedding, noise, excess CO2, dirty air, and other such toxins.

Below I detail my exact non-toxic bedroom set-up in 3 parts.

Part 1: Mattress, Bedding, Pillow (this post)

Part 2: My Zero-Blue Lighting Set-up at night

Part 3: How I lower EMF in our house and bedroom at night

Part 4: Maintaining good Bedroom Air Quality while you sleep

Mattresses were designed to pass a fire test, not provide restorative sleep

Most mattresses are toxic. I had no idea about this till last year. Nothing in a mattress is chosen for how it interacts with a human body for 7+ hours a night. Every layer is chosen to pass a fire test, survive shipping compressed in a box, and hit a price point.

Mattresses are made of a material called polyurethane foam and adhesives (glue that holds every layer together). These emit Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are the chemical smell from a new mattress and are toxic fumes to inhale. VOCs can take a month or more to dissipate. At high levels they cause headaches, eye and throat irritation, and dizziness, and some of them, like formaldehyde and benzene, are carcinogens. The crazy part is that the VOC emissions test for every mattress is run cold. However, when you sleep on these mattresses, body heat multiplies the toxic effect and increases the emission rate by 2.5x or more!1

Then you have the bigger problem which is chemicals that don’t evaporate away so easily called semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs). In a mattress, these include phthalates, flame retardants, plasticizers and stain repellents. Phthalates are endocrine disruptors, meaning they interfere with hormone signaling, and are linked to reproductive and developmental effects. In some small studies, flame retardants have been associated with lower IQ in children. PFAS are “forever chemicals” that build up in the body and don't break down.

So, unlike VOCs, these SVOCs don't evaporate away. They keep migrating into dust that you breathe and onto your skin for the life of the mattress!

Foam mattresses also use knit polyester (plastic) on their covers. It gets worse where some waterproof mattresses covers and crib mattresses with vinyl have been tested for PFAS and phthalates, which as I said, are known endocrine disruptors.2

Fiberglass (spun glass) in mattresses also contributes to toxins. The fibers irritate skin, eyes and lungs. The bigger issue is when the cover gets unzipped or the fabric wears through, the fibers escape and spread through the whole house. There are households that have had to throw out clothing, furniture and carpet after this happened, and lawsuits to match. So much so that California has banned fiberglass in mattresses starting 2027.

What I Use Now

This is why I only use 100% organic mattress from Naturepedic and Happsy. They don’t use any polyurethane foam, adhesives, flame retardants, and fiberglass mentioned above. They are made with certified organic cotton, wool, and are GOTS-certified. Given my family and I sleep on it everyday for years to come, I don’t want to compromise on our mattress.

Why is a Mattress designed this way?

Before the 1950s and 60s, mattresses used to be made of cotton, wool, horsehair, and kapok. Then began the petroleum era and the rise of cheaper cost goods. Polyurethane foam (emit VOCs) used in mattresses today is a petroleum product, and it won on cost. It's cheap, it's light, you can tune it to any firmness, and it compresses small enough to ship in a box, which is why every bed-in-a-box company sells foam.

But the issue is this foam is also fuel. It’s a petroleum product, after all! So, it created fire risk for mattresses. In 2007, a federal rule started requiring every mattress sold in the U.S. to pass an open flame test. Manufacturers again chose the cheap route. They met the test by adding flame retardant chemicals to the foam. The very flame retardants that seem to lower IQ and were banned by California in 2020.

So what did the industry do after the ban? They moved to another bad solution from a health standpoint - wrapping the foam in a fiberglass barrier instead. California is banning that too, starting 2027. Let it be known that a mattress can pass the same fire test with a barrier that isn’t fiberglass and no added chemicals at all, but they don’t do it for cost reasons.

Even when fiberglass is banned, mattresses still have cheap materials like polyester, plus phthalates, PFAS and other SVOCs, which keep shedding toxins into your home over the life of the mattress.

Your Bedding is shedding plastic that you breathe in

The sheets that are the most cost effective and found in hotels are made of polyester. Polyester is plastic. You end up sleeping on a bed of plastic which sheds microplastics that you ingest through skin contact and breathing.

Polyester also traps heat so you sleep hotter which disrupts quality sleep. Sleeping cooler helps one sleep better. Further, polyester disrupts hormone health and fertility, increases inflammation, and might be contributing to heart disease.

This is why we sleep on 100% organic cotton sheets and pillow covers. Pact is my go-to for sheets.

I’ve written more on the harmful impacts of polyester and safer clothing options here:

Pillows too shed microplastics

Pillows share some of the issues with mattresses. They are filled with polyester and in memory foam pillows, it’s polyurethane foam. This means microplastic shedding and VOC emission. I use the Organic adjustable pillows from Naturepedic. It’s great that you can adjust the filling inside to make it the height you’d like.

Blanket / Comforter:

Similar to bedding, we only use organic natural materials for our comforter. We use a wool one from Coyuchi.

We spend many hours of our life sleeping, and it’s also the time when the body is repairing. I sincerely believe that we should maintain a non-toxic bedroom environment to allow proper rest and restoration.

In the next post, I’ll cover how I change our house and bedroom lighting, and EMF exposure at night.

You can see all the sleep products we use at healthstacked.com/aasthajs3

Follow me on X @aasthajs & Instagram @aasthajs as I parse through the snake-oil in longevity. If my work is useful, become a premium subscriber.

Browse my health stack across 9 categories (sleep, fitness, non-toxic kitchen, skincare, diagnostics, lighting).

For the full collection of 300+ health products curated by me, see Health Stacked.

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For decades, biology thought that our genes would predict disease and health outcomes. And that the ability to alter our genes or create genetic-based medicine would be the end to all diseases. The Human Genome Project began in 1990 and was declared complete in 2003, with exactly this dream in mind. The idea was that if we are able to sequence the entire genome, we will be able to map genetic defects to diseases, and find the cure to all diseases. As Denis Noble puts it:

“The promise was that by 2010, ten years later, if you had a cancer, you would go to your GP, show him your DNA sequence, and he would prescribe you the right medication.”

This dream hasn’t held up.

Denis Noble, one of the foremost figures in systems biology, has been arguing that we have wasted the last 70 years in biology chasing this genetic dream. He says our health does not reside in our genes. He is the author of several popular science books including The Music of Life and Dance to the Tune of Life, that have altered the perspective of many in the field, including mine.

Denis says that instead of being myopically focused on genes, we should study functional networks in biology. If we have the wrong theories and conceptual frameworks around disease, developing treatments is going to always lead to dead-ends.

I recently released a podcast with Denis Noble, going in depth into all of this. This post is a companion to the episode, covering practical and bonus takeaways.

This was my 2nd time interviewing Denis Noble, and the first was in conjunction with Michael Levin.

In This Bonus Takeaways I Cover:

1. Why your genes are a CD and not the CD player

2. Why genes (polygenic risk scores) fail to predict who gets cancer, heart disease, or Alzheimer’s

3. Why gene therapy applies to roughly 4% of disease, and why it is not the solution for most chronic diseases

4. How your behavior and environment may be passed to your children without any change to your DNA

5. Why Denis Noble says your mother’s egg cell carries as much information as your entire genome

6. Why chasing a single optimal biomarker misunderstands how the body works

7. What our cells are doing to repair our DNA right now

8. Why a cancer behaves like an organism growing inside us

9. The heart drug that exists today because a team stopped looking for genes

These podcast conversations are dense with insight. In these bonus takeaways, I pull out the most important ideas from each episode, explain the science in plain language, and turn it into clear, practical steps you can use right away. 10 minutes with one of these will leave you smarter about how your body works, and with something you can change about your health starting today.

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Michael Levin is a researcher at Tufts University who has made massive contributions to the field of bioelectricity. He is one of the most fascinating thinkers working today, known for the radical idea that goal-seeking intelligence isn't unique to brains but operates at every level of biology, from cells to tissues to whole organisms. He draws on computer science, cybernetics, philosophy, and biology to see the body as a collective of problem-solving agents.

More recently, he has turned to the question of why we age. His theories bring a genuinely different perspective to the field, one that locates the cause of aging not in damage or genes, but in a loss of purpose at the cellular level. In this essay, I break down the theory he puts forth in a recent paper called Aging as a Loss of Goal-Directedness: An Evolutionary Simulation and Analysis Unifying Regeneration with Anatomical Rejuvenation.1

Development as a shared goal of the cellular collective

We all start life as a single cell. This single cell starts to rapidly divide. Groups of cells have to come together to produce organs, tissues, and body parts to give us the shape we eventually get. How do cells know how to construct a liver or a kidney or a heart? This question belongs to the area of morphology, meaning shape. In other words, how do cells know what shape to take on? We still don’t have good answers to this question.

What does seem clear is that morphology is a job that requires a group of cells or the “cellular collective” to work together. After all, for specific organs and body structures to take shape, it is a collective of cells that have to band together to do the work.

If you are in the camp that is comfortable with providing some agency to cells, you would say that cells possess the intelligence to come together and help in our development - to go from single cell to embryo to baby to toddler to teenager to adult. During this entire growth phase, the collective of cells come together to accomplish the common goal of development. In order to do so, they exchange information using biochemical, biophysical, bioelectrical and other signals. These signals are information exchanged between cells to collaborate smoothly in our development.

Let’s go with the analogy of a basketball team whose shared mission is to win the NBA. The players come together and exchange information through language, gestures, and other signals to move towards their goal of winning the NBA. Our cells too have languages they use to accomplish their shared goal of development.

What happens when cells have completed their goal of development, aka we are fully developed adults? What binds these cells together once the goal of the cellular collective is accomplished? Do cells now begin to disband? Is this where aging begins? Once the basketball team has won the NBA, do some players start to disband? Some consider leaving the team for a new one. Does this begin the degeneration process?

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Mike Levin’s radical new theory of aging

Michael Levin’s new theory proposes that aging begins once cells have achieved their common goal of development. Without this shared goal, they no longer have a higher guiding goal to band together. You start to see degeneration and loss of information sharing between cells, manifesting as aging.

After cells have completed development, there is “informational dead end of completing one’s mission and not having a new setpoint toward which to strive.”

“primary new proposal here is that complex goal-driven systems can experience a kind of intrinsic disorganization after they have met their goal. In the absence of strong effort toward targets in morphospace, the cellular collective begins to disband, giving way to systemic disease states such as degeneration and cancer the inevitable outcome of a body that increasingly becomes a group of individual cells, not a unified higher-order morphogenetic agent.”

The problem is that post development, the main job of cells is maintenance and repair. However, Levin says that evolution taught cells to develop, but didn’t teach cells to be good at maintenance.

“organisms learned during evolution with development as the primary goal; once they reached that goal, we observed that they don't regenerate by themselves and slowly show signs of morphological deterioration, e.g., aging. In this sense, aging can be seen primarily as a loss of goal-directedness, the goal of development being different from the goal of maintenance of the anatomy over timescales exceeding development.”

My question to Mike is: why would evolution not teach skills to be good at maintenance?

Levin’s theory explains why self-regenerating animals don’t age

This theory also explains why organisms like planaria that are constantly in growth or regeneration mode have very long lifespans. Because if you are constantly growing, cells always have a shared developmental goal to strive towards. The process of disbanding and going your own way (aging) doesn’t occur much.

“Our model predicts that indeterminate growth patterns (or regeneration) should correlate with minimal aging phenotypes, as persistent morphogenetic goals would prevent the loss of anatomical homeostasis goal that characterizes aging. This aligns with observations of negligible senescence and extreme longevity in species like lobsters, certain sharks, planaria for continuous regeneration, and some trees and fungi that maintain continuous growth throughout their lifespans.”

But don’t we have regeneration and repair as well?

Levin argues that post development, while we do have regeneration at the local tissue level, there is no higher order mission of developing the embryo that bands ALL the cells together. When we’re an embryo we strive towards the global goal of building the organism. Post development, the global goal is complete. Yes, cells still have local goals of tissue regeneration at the local level, but what is binding the entire organism together? What is the goal of ALL the cells that brings them together?

After development, there's a void at the top. No mission. No shared goal. Just cells doing their individual jobs, slowly drifting apart.

Multi-competency architecture: Your body solves problems at every scale

Understanding Mike Levin’s concept of “multi-competency architecture” will add to the explanation. Multi-competency architecture is Levin's term for the fact that your body solves problems at every scale. Molecules fix molecular problems. Cells fix cell problems. Tissues fix tissue problems. Organs fix organ problems. During development, all these scales are aligned toward one shared mission: build the body. After development, each scale keeps doing its local job, but there's no longer a mission uniting them all.

“Another important aspect of biology, so far neglected in the models of aging is multiscale competency. Biological systems implement an architecture in which context-sensitive problem-solving operates across various levels, from molecular networks to individual cells, tissues, organs, organisms, and even collective groups such as swarms. This structure allows biological entities to solve problems within specific domains and problem spaces relevant to each scale (metabolic, physiological, anatomical, and behavioral state spaces), contributing to the overall adaptability and resilience of life.^”

This theory argues that current aging theories neglect the idea of multi-scale architecture which is critical to understand cellular goals. Post development, while cells may maintain regenerative goals at the local level for a while, there is no shared mission that unites them across local scales at the organismal scale.

In-silico simulation

Mike Levin’s lab built a computer simulation to test this theory. They created virtual organisms made of cells on a grid. Each cell has a tiny neural network, think of it as the cell’s brain, that reads the states of its neighboring cells and decides what to do. Every cell shares the same “DNA” (the same neural network weights), just like every cell in your body shares the same genome. But each cell behaves differently because it’s reading different neighbors.

They used an evolutionary algorithm to train these virtual organisms to grow a smiley face pattern from scratch, purely through local cell-to-cell communication. No central controller. No master blueprint. Cells just talk to their neighbors and self-assemble the pattern. Think of it as a simulation of embryonic development.

Once the smiley face was fully built, they let the simulation keep running. The cells kept doing their thing, reading neighbors, updating states, but there was no longer a goal to work toward. Development was complete.

The smiley face slowly fell apart. Eyes blurred. The mouth distorted. Features disappeared. And this happened with zero damage introduced. No genetic mutations. No cellular noise. No external stress. The morphological decline was purely a consequence of the system running past its developmental goal. Aging emerged on its own.

They then tested whether adding damage, things like communication errors between cells, genetic corruption, or reduced cellular competency, would accelerate the decline. It did. All of these made aging worse. But none of them caused it. Even with perfectly functioning cells, aging still happened. In their model, the damage we associate with aging were accelerants, not the root cause.

In my mind, this is the most surprising implication. Most of us tend to think of aging as damage accumulation. But in Mike’s model, aging happens whether there is a damage or not. The damage merely accelerates aging.

Do we all have dormant regenerative potential?

Maybe the most surprising finding from the simulation: even after an organ completely disappeared from the virtual organism, the surrounding tissue still carried a memory of where that organ used to be. The spatial information persisted, like a ghost of the lost structure encoded in the neighboring cells.

This means the blueprint doesn’t vanish when the structure degrades. It goes dormant.

And in biology, we see hints of this. Salamanders regrow entire limbs. Planaria regenerate whole bodies from tiny fragments. The information to rebuild is clearly stored somewhere in the tissue. Levin’s model suggests that humans might retain similar latent information. We just lack the signals to reactivate it.

The cells already have the construction manual. They ran it once during embryonic development. The program is still in the DNA. What’s missing isn’t the instructions. It’s the trigger to re-execute them. My question to Mike: Why don’t we have this trigger?

Going back to the basketball analogy. The players who won the championship are still elite athletes. They still know how to play. They’re just sitting at home without a game to play.

What does this mean for regenerative therapies?

The simulation also tested different strategies for restoring lost organs. The most effective approach wasn’t telling individual cells what to become. It was providing contextual information, the correct relationship between a cell and its neighbors.

This makes sense when you think about how development works. A cell doesn’t know it should be a liver cell in isolation. It knows it should be a certain type given what its neighbors are doing. Development is a relational program. So regeneration needs tissue-level and relational signals.2

In the simulation, resetting damaged cells to an early developmental state and letting them re-read their neighbors was far more effective than forcing cells into a specific identity. You’re not rebuilding the organ. You’re recreating the conditions under which the organ originally built itself.

This is exactly what Levin’s experimental bioelectricity work is exploring outside of this simulation. Cells communicate through voltage gradients, electrical signals that encode tissue-level patterns. His lab has already shown that manipulating these bioelectric patterns in frogs can induce eye formation in places eyes don’t normally grow. The cells had the program to build an eye all along. They just needed the right contextual signal.

The implication for anti-aging: instead of chasing individual types of molecular damage, senescent cells, oxidative stress, telomere shortening, the deeper lever might be restoring the tissue-level signaling patterns that give cells a shared goal. Not fixing the parts, but restoring the mission.

One way to put it is that aging begins once cells complete their mission of development. So what if we could reverse aging by restoring a common mission?

Regenerative medicine is about getting the band back together and giving them a new season.

Follow me on X @aasthajs & Instagram @aasthajs as I parse through the snake-oil in longevity. If my work is useful, become a premium subscriber.

Browse my health stack across 12+ categories (sleep, fitness, non-toxic kitchen, clean water, skincare, diagnostics, lighting).

For the full collection of 500+ health products curated by me, see Health Stacked.

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“The Selfish Gene is written brilliantly. It just happens to be basically incorrect.”

“It’s not the DNA that determines what is passed on to the next generation. It is the living cell.”

“Your genes are like a CD. Studying the CD itself will tell you nothing about the music.”

— Dr. Denis Noble

For 70 years we have been told a single story about biology: that our genes are a blueprint, a program running our lives from the inside, and that if we could just read the code we would cure disease. Denis Noble, the Oxford physiologist who built the first working mathematical model of the heart, has spent decades arguing that this story is wrong. Not that genes do not matter, but that they are not the thing in charge.

Dr. Noble’s point is that genes are a database the living cell draws on, not the program running the show. The proteins our DNA codes for do not decide what we do with them, any more than the pipes of an organ decide what the organist plays. The causation happens at the level of the network, the whole living system, not the gene.

He argues this is why the Human Genome Project never delivered the cures we were promised in 1999, and why the polygenic scores meant to predict who gets cancer or heart disease do not actually work when put to the test. He explains how a living cell corrects its own DNA errors with an accuracy no chemical process can match, how traits can be inherited without any change to the DNA at all, and why the mother’s egg cell may carry as much information about who we are as our entire genome.

Dr. Noble is one of the founding figures of systems biology, the man Nature asked to review the book declaring the genome is not the blueprint for life. He has debated Richard Dawkins directly, and as he puts it, if he is right, the selfish gene has had evolution backwards for over fifty years.

What we discuss in this episode:

1. Why the Human Genome Project never delivered the cures we were promised in 1999.

2. Why polygenic scores fail to predict who gets cancer, heart disease, or Alzheimer’s.

3. Dr. Noble’s long-running clash with Richard Dawkins and the selfish gene.

4. Why he says evolution itself works nothing like we were taught.

5. Why purpose and intelligence run all the way down, from the immune system to a predator chasing its prey.

Watch on YouTube, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.

Bonus practical takeaways from this conversation on How to Think About Health Beyond Your Genes here.

Follow me on X @aasthajs and Instagram @aasthajs for more on longevity.

Check out my health stack of the exact non-toxic health products I use. For the full collection of 500+ health products curated by me, see Health Stacked.

I am Aastha from Live Longer World and this episode was co-hosted with Cameron Borg of Ricci Flow Nutrition.

All other platforms: here

Bonus practical takeaways from this conversation:

Timestamps:

00:00 The Selfish Gene Is Just Not Correct
00:21 What Are Functional Networks, Really?
02:09 Genes Build the Muscles, But Don't Move Them
09:42 Your Genes Are a CD, Not the CD Player
12:11 Can Your DNA Predict Your Disease?
14:23 If Not Genes, How Do We Find Cures?
18:18 Then Does Gene Therapy Even Work?
21:32 Why Scientists Can't Let the Paradigm Go
24:08 What Darwin and Lamarck Actually Said
31:42 Do Animals Choose? Darwin Thought So
38:07 The Finite Monkeys Problem With Evolution
45:15 Inheritance Without Changing Your DNA
49:31 How Do You Actually Reproduce Denis Noble?
50:49 Is the Selfish Gene Right From Evolution's View?
54:45 Answering Jerry Coyne: Isn't DNA the Recipe?
59:51 Who Wrote the Genetic Code?
1:08:22 The Problem of Form: You Can't Get It From Genes
1:12:01 The Mitochondria Accident That Made Complex Life
1:13:05 Why Big Life Needs a Heart
1:17:54 Why Mars Is a Pipe Dream
1:18:45 Mike Levin and the Alignment of the Body
1:21:29 What Does Denis Disagree With Mike Levin On?
1:24:59 The Biggest Taboo: Purpose in Biology
1:27:35 Is Consciousness Just Expensive Energy?
1:28:55 What Your Immune System Knows
1:42:01 How Birds at Altitude Prove the Point
1:44:29 Final Thoughts: Life Is More Interesting Than You Think

Previous Episode with Denis Noble & Michael Levin:

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Glen Jeffery is a leading mitochondria and light scientist at UCL and he explains that blue light raises cortisol and keeps us stimulated.

“It’s stimulating. It produces a bit more cortisol. You’re a bit more stressed. It’s very clear.”

So, the blue light from computer screens ensures we don’t fall asleep at our desks.

(To watch the full 22 second clip, see X or Insta.)

While this blue from screens may keep us from falling asleep, it comes with significant health costs, not just at night.

The misleading half truth that blue light during the day is good for you

Blue light during the day stimulates you. It keeps you alert, and it spikes your cortisol so you can remain focused. This has led many health influencers to conclude that “At night blue light is bad for you, but blue light during the day is not bad and that you actually need blue light during the day to be alert. Hence the blue in screens and LED lighting during the day is good for you.”

This is a very misleading half-truth.

It is true that you want blue light during the day. But you do not want the blue light that you get from computer screens, LEDs, or indoor lighting in our homes and offices. The blue light that comes from devices and bulbs (both LED lighting) is very different from the blue light you get in nature.

In nature you do not get blue light in isolation. In LED screens, you do. The blue in sunlight is at its peak during the day, but even then it makes up 25% of sunlight. 50% or greater is red and near infrared.

Your biology evolved under blue light from the sun, not from LED lighting. LED lighting is the tobacco of today’s world. We’re going to soon wake up to the health damage being done by them in the name of energy efficiency.

Blue Light from LEDs vs. Sunlight

The image above shows how the light spectrum differs between LED lighting and sunlight.

Some key differences before I discuss the health implications:

1. LED bulbs spike in 450nm blue, a particular blue wavelength. The sun’s spectrum has no spikes. It is smooth and continuous, across the whole range of blue wavelengths. In sunlight, blue is also surrounded by other wavelengths, UV and predominantly red, infrared, and near-infrared.

2. LED bulbs don’t even have the right blue we need to stimulate our circadian clock! They have a gap in 480nm blue which is what is the most potent stimulator of melanopsin, the photopigment in your eyes1 that reads light levels and tells your brain’s master clock what time of day it is. Melanopsin peaks around 480nm, and that signal drives alertness, melatonin timing, and cortisol.

3. LED bulbs are dominant in blue with some green, and yellow wavelengths (400nm to 700nm), all in the visible spectral range. They have little to no red and infrared. Sunlight on the other hand is rich in wavelengths all the way from UV to near infrared. In fact, sunlight’s spectrum is ~50% red and infrared at any point in the day. This difference is not minor, it has significant health consequences.

4. Sunlight’s brightness is 100,000 lux. Contrast this with a typical office lit by LED bulbs which is only 300-500 lux. Even if you stack several bulbs, you cannot replicate the brightness of sunlight. This brightness is key for proper stimulation of circadian rhythm.

Summary: Under LED lighting you only get blue light, particularly in the 450nm range. Under the sun, you get blue light with plenty of infrared and near-infrared. And the blue in the sun does not only spike at one wavelength. It is continuous, providing energy from all wavelengths our body needs.

These differences are not trivial. They have massively different implications for our health and energy.

The blue in LEDs and computer screens keeps you constantly agitated:

During the day, blue light stimulates you to go work. It does raise cortisol. In sunlight, the cortisol spiking effects of blue are counterbalanced by the calming effects of red and infrared2. This way you’re not under perpetual stress mode. You get the alertness and the calmness together in sunlight.

This is in stark contrast to the lighting environment of a typical office worker. We sit under blue-rich LED lights staring at blue computer screens. Our windows block most red, infrared and UV. They predominantly allow blue light to come in. As a result, the office is only surrounded by blue light. There is no infrared. Merely 100-150 years ago when most of us were farmers, we spent almost all our waking hours outdoors. Being in isolated artificial blue lighting is a modern day problem.

What happens when you get blue in isolation? You’re constantly agitated and stimulated. You’re under a constant low-level stress. This is not how it’s meant to be. We’re meant to get the calm effects of red and infrared to balance this cortisol spike.

In a recent study3, office workers were subjected to daylight vs. artificial LED light. They controlled the brightness to be the same. Under daylight, the workers had better cognition and low stress. Under blue-dominant artificial light, they had higher sympathetic arousal (nervous system preparing for action, stress or danger). This implies that it’s not the brightness, but the fact that the red and infrared in sunlight counterbalances the stress. In contrast, under LED lighting and screens, your nervous system is in constant arousal mode, and cognition is worse.

This is one reason why office environments can be so stress inducing. It’s not only your boss ;)

This is why when I work in front of my computer screen indoors, I use my daytime blue-blocker from VivaRays (code LIVELONGERWORLD for 10% off) to partially block some of the blue. I do not want isolated blue light from computer screens stressing me out.

LED lighting flickers and causes eye strain:

The blue light isolation is not the only reason LED lighting is stressful. LED bulbs and computer screens when dimmed also flicker constantly. Screens will fake low brightness by rapidly pulsing on and off 100 to 120 times a second. Even though our naked eye cannot detect it, the flicker makes our pupils constantly dilate and constrict. It can be detected by our brain and visual system leading to eye strain and headaches.

There are easy fixes to remove this flicker from your computer and phone screens. See:

When you get no infrared from the sun, energy production and metabolism falters

The big problem with blue-rich LED lighting is that they strip out all the red and infrared. In sunlight, you ALWAYS have 50-55% infrared at any time of the day. Our mitochondria and metabolism evolved to absorb infrared and near-infrared light4 and use it to produce energy. When we avoid the sun, live under LED lighting and blue screens, we starve the mitochondria of an essential nutrient, resulting in altered energy production which can manifest as disease. Mitochondrial dysfunction is linked to practically every chronic disease. Needless to say, the health of our mitochondria is key.

So what’s the solution to mitigating isolated blue light?

I’ll discuss how to set up your office environment, home environment, and your screens to mitigate this effect. I’ll include tips for people who work in an office where they cannot control their lighting. There are still some easy steps you can take. Many of these include tips for everyone for general circadian health to mitigate the effects of isolated blue light.

Office environment where you can control your lighting:

1. Set up an outside desk if you can: No indoor lighting beats sunlight. You can utilize the shade, you do not have to get fried. You still get plenty more infrared in the shade than you would sitting indoors. I have an outdoor shaded desk setup and spend 6-8 hours in the sun everyday. When it’s too hot, I come inside.

2. Circadian lighting: Circadian lights are closer to full-spectrum including infrared during the day and zero-blue at night. I like the ones from Healthy Home Shop (code LIVELONGERWORLD for 10% off). This way you’re not getting isolated blue light during the day. And the same bulbs turn to zero blue at night.

3. Open your windows and let sunlight come in. Window glasses naturally block UV and infrared, so you’re only getting blue light, which adds to the isolated blue light problem. Even if you’re not sitting directly in front of the window, sunlight photons are streaming in and benefiting you.

4. Add a circadian and red lamp to your desk. Circadian lighting is good for lighting the whole room. However, it’s often not a powerful enough light stimuli to most potently activate your circadian clocks. They lack the brightness you need unless you stack them up. Chroma makes circadian lighting and red light lamps especially for the office worker (code LIVELONGERWORLD for 10% off). You can use both on your desk to get the circadian and infrared boost. If you work indoors, this is one of the best substitutes you have for sunlight.

5. VivaRays Blue light blocking glasses: It’s a myth that you only need blue-blockers at night. If you are working indoors under LED lighting in front of a blue computer screen, you want to block some of this blue to not damage your eyes. I love the 4-in-1 from VivaRays (code LIVELONGERWORLD for 10% off), and use their daytime blue-blockers when working in front of my screen indoors, every day! Their 4-in-1 lets you block out partial blue during the day, and full blue at night. They are also the only ones that make prescription glasses that allow UV to come in. UV to the eyes is key for regulation of dopamine, mood etc. When outside, use their UV glasses (if you have prescription) and when indoors use their blue-blockers.

6. Use a zero-blue tablet for reading and other tasks. I love my Daylight Computer - zero-blue and zero flicker screens! (Use my link for $25 off)

7. Step outside for plenty of sun snacks. You want to get sunlight throughout the day to let your body and circadian clocks know what time of day it is. Merely morning sunlight does not do it. Our clocks don’t just start in the morning and run by themselves, they need light signals throughout the day to maintain proper circadian functioning. Step outside and view the sun (without sunglasses, prescription glasses, or sunscreen) during your bathroom, water, and lunch breaks. Even 1-2 minutes of sun snacks throughout the day helps.

Office environment where you cannot control the main lighting:

Even if you can’t control the main lighting, the last 4 points above can be utilized effectively to mitigate isolated blue light.

1. Add a circadian and red lamp to your desk like the ones from Chroma

2. VivaRays Blue light blocking glasses

3. Zero-blue tablet like Daylight Computer

4. Get plenty of Sun snacks

Strip out blue light from Screens:

I always keep my devices on partial red mode, even during the day. I do not want isolated blue light stressing me out. At night, my devices are on pure red, zero blue light mode. Blue light at night particularly disrupts melatonin and repair processes in the body. Wear blue light blockers if you don’t turn your screens red during the day.

It takes 5 minutes to set your devices to red mode:

And again, this is how you mitigate flicker:

Home environment:

1. Be outside as much as you can: If you spend most of your time home, be outside as much as you can. Again, utilize the shade when you need to.

2. Leave doors and windows open to allow sunlight and fresh air to come in.

3. Replace your lights with circadian lighting: LED bulbs are the tobacco of today’s world. Switching to circadian lighting is one of the easiest, set-it-and-forget-it, and low-cost health interventions you can make. Again, Healthy Home Shop and Chroma are my go-tos.

4. No need to use LED bulbs during the day (and especially not at night), they’re not benefiting you. Let natural light come in or use circadian lighting or incandescent bulbs.

5. Have red lights only after dark: Use zero blue lights after dark. We use red incandescent bulbs only. If you get the circadian lighting from Healthy Home Shop, the same bulb goes from full-spectrum during the day to zero-blue at night, which many people find convenient. Blue at night is particularly harmful. It suppresses melatonin which is not a sleep hormone, but one of the most powerful antioxidants your body has. Suppress melatonin with blue light, and you suppress repair processes while you sleep.

Summary of Products I use to cut out isolated blue light:

• VivaRays 4 in 1 Blue Blockers and UV transmitters: VivaRays makes 3 in 1 blue blockers that you can easily switch from day to evening to night.

  • Use my link https://vivarays.com/livelongerworld or discount code LIVELONGERWORLD for 10% off.

• Healthy Home Shop Circadian Bulbs: The Circadian bulbs have 3 light settings that easily switch spectrum from daylight (full-spectrum) to evening to night (blue-light free). This is exactly what you want for mimicking the sun’s wavelengths indoors. And no WiFi required.

  • Use my link https://thehealthyhome.shop/livelongerworld for 10% off.

• Daylight Computer No-blue screen: I love reading on my Daylight! They have zero blue light and are flicker-free. It’s such a peaceful reading experience, without causing you any eye strain.

  • Use my link https://buy.daylightcomputer.com/livelongerworld for $25 off.

• Chroma Circadian-Aligned Desk Lamp: The Sky portal desk lamp is a great circadian lamp for your workspace. It delivers bright light during the day, and red light as evening sets in.

  • Use my link https://getchroma.co/photonsfromaastha and code LIVELONGERWORLD for 10% off.

• Iris Software: It removes blue light and flicker from computer screens. This is what I use to keep my screens on partial red mode even during the day.

  • Use my link https://iristech.co/?ap_id=livelongerworld for 1 month free.

For all the Lighting & EMF products I use, see my health stack

For the full collection of Lighting & EMF products I’ve curated, see Health Stacked

Follow me on X @aasthajs & Instagram @aasthajs as I parse through the snake-oil in longevity. If my work is useful, become a premium subscriber and purchase through my affiliate links of products I use and love.

Browse my health stack across 12+ categories (sleep, fitness, non-toxic kitchen, clean water, skincare, diagnostics, lighting).

For the full collection of 500+ health products curated by me, see Health Stacked.

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The levels that are considered safe differ by benchmark. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC)1 would say even 715mW/m² (the level without the foil) is safe. However, some of the more health precautionary benchmarks like the Building Biology Institute would say its 700x the extreme concern limit! This brings me to the debate on whether WiFi signals and phone radiation have a health impact.

Do WiFi signals and EMF from phones have a health impact?

RFK Jr., the Health and Human Services Secretary of the U.S. has come out and said that cell phone use is connected to cancer and neurological damage in kids. A lot of people will say that this is “batshit crazy.”2

However, it is not as crazy as mainstream would like us to think. There are many studies linking EMFs to cancer, heart disease, neurological disorders etc. For the past 30 years, Dr. Henry Lai has documented studies on the harmful impacts of EMFs like the RF radiation from WiFi and phones, and low frequency radiation we are flooded with in today’s electrical and technological society. In 2018, the US government's own $25 million study3 found evidence that cell phone radiation caused tumors in male rats.

Yet, the mainstream continues to say that the science is settled and EMFs have no impact on health because it does not cause DNA damage. However, biology extends beyond the gene, and there is evidence that EMFs can impact electrical and ion channel signaling, and cause oxidative stress.4

One of the most telling arguments against the mainstream is that the DC court ruled against the FCC in 2021, and found the agency’s decision to keep its 1996 radiation limits “arbitrary and capricious.” The FCC was ordered to explain how its radiation limits protect against long-term exposure. 5 years later, the FCC has not responded.

Practical tips to mitigate EMF exposure from your cell phone

I’m of the camp that these days we are flooded with constant EMF radiation from phones, WiFi, cell phone towers, microwaves etc. Our biology did not evolve with these. They are a foreign toxin, especially the constant doses we are subject to these days.

I also recognize how inconvenient it is to live without these wonderful inventions. So, I take a practical approach and mitigate their impact on my family’s health as much as feasibly possible, without causing inconvenience.

Whether you merely want to take precaution or if you think EMFs are having an impact on your health, here are some practical tips to mitigate EMF exposure from your cell phones. They’re free, low-cost, convenient, and extend beyond just “put your phone on airplane mode at night.”

Learning these tips took me months of research, testing with my EMF meter, and understanding how EMF from devices works. Below are 16 practical tips on how to reduce EMF exposure from your phone when sleeping, walking, driving, and using or not using your phone.

1. Cover your WiFi router in aluminum foil. As I showed above, it makes a huge difference to the EMF emission. And it did not seem to affect my WiFi signal or make it spotty.

2. Do not put your phone in your pocket, especially for men. Multiple meta-analyses point to how it reduces sperm count, changes sperm quality, and dampens male fertility. It’s also associated with higher risk of colon cancer5. You can use a phone pouch on your arm like this one. For women, do not put your phone near your breasts.

   The other 13 practical tips are for premium subscribers. Subscribe & reduce your EMF exposure EMF from your phone. I practice each of these every day & take my limitation of EMF exposure seriously. I think EMF is a big contributor to health decline.

   16. Blue light from phones and flicker is also an EMF. Turn your phone screen red at night like I detail in these posts.

In another post, I will write my practical tips to reduce EMF exposure from computers and electricals around the house.

Fun fact I’ll leave you with: The idea of “tin foil hat” comes from using foil to protect from EMF radiation. Woops, I guess I’m now in the tin foil hat camp!

You can see the EMF shielding products I use on Health Stacked here.

Follow me on X @aasthajs & Instagram @aasthajs as I parse through the snake-oil in longevity. If my work is useful, become a premium subscriber.

Browse my health stack across 12+ categories (sleep, fitness, non-toxic kitchen, clean water, skincare, diagnostics, lighting).

For the full collection of 500+ health products curated by me, see Health Stacked.

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Recent Podcast:

Dr. Moore-Ede discovered the master clock in the human brain and spent over two decades on the Harvard Medical School faculty. He has spent 50+ years studying circadian biology and is the author of The Light Doctor. I recently released a podcast episode with him. This post is the companion to the episode: every key idea explained simply, and what to actually do about it.

In This Bonus Takeaways, I Cover:

1. Why the LED bulbs in your home may be fueling cancer

2. Why melatonin is not the sleep hormone you think it is

3. How there is no blue light in nature after sunset, but your bulbs are full of it

4. The one specific blue your body clock runs on, and how LEDs get it wrong!

5. Why the red and infrared your cells need for energy are missing from every LED

6. Why banning the incandescent bulb was a mistake

7. Why avoiding the sun may be shortening your life, not protecting it

8. Why “night owls” are a myth

9. Why living on the wrong side of a time zone raises your risk of cancer

10. Why your kids are going short-sighted, and the light that prevents it

11. Which blue-light glasses actually work (most block the wrong blue)

12. The exact lighting changes to make, morning to night, to align your circadian health and prevent disease risk

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“Breast cancer as an example. A very rare disease, back before Edison invented the light bulb”

“We live in, junk light, essentially. It’s just like junk food.”

Breast and prostate cancer are linked to the LED lighting that constantly flood our homes and office spaces. So are heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.

Dr. Martin Moore-Ede has spent his career understanding how different lighting affects us, and in particular how LED lighting harms human health. He discovered the master clock in the human brain, the suprachiasmatic nucleus, the tiny structure that tells every cell in our body whether it’s day or night, and he has studied circadian systems for 50 years. He says LED lighting is the "tobacco of our time, and that we now live in “junk light, just like junk food.”

LED lighting couldn’t be further removed from sunlight, which humans evolved under for millions of years. LEDs are also very different from their previous counterpart, the incandescent bulb, which was much closer in spectrum to sunlight.

The problem worsens when we use LEDs at night, because they suppress melatonin, which is not just a sleep hormone but a powerful antioxidant and repair signal.

Dr. Moore-Ede also argues we have the sun backwards. Fear of skin cancer has driven us indoors at a cost of roughly one hundred other deaths for every one it prevents. Avoiding the sun is worse than getting skin cancer!

I feel strongly about this episode because getting more sunlight and switching my lighting were the cheapest health intervention I have ever made, and have had the biggest impact on my health, sleep, and mood.

“This is time to take lighting into your own hands, and it’s a huge thing you can do for your health.” — Dr. Martin Moore-Ede

What we discuss in this episode:

1. Why breast cancer, prostate cancer, heart disease, and diabetes all track with how much LED light we’re exposed to, especially at night.

2. Why melatonin isn’t the sleep hormone we think it is, and how it hunts down cancer cells while we sleep.

3. Why the people who got the most sun lived the longest, despite getting more skin cancer.

4. Why the type of blue in our LED bulbs is the exact wrong one for our body clock.

5. The red and infrared our mitochondria need for energy, and how LEDs contain none of it.

6. How living on the wrong side of a time zone raises our risk of cancer and heart disease.

7. Why wearing sunglasses on our morning walk defeats the whole purpose.

8. Which blue-light-blocking glasses actually work, and why most block the wrong blue.

See below for timestamps and products I use for better circadian lighting.

Watch on YouTube, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.

Bonus practical takeaways from this conversation on How to Fix Your Indoor Lighting for Better Circadian Rhythm here.

Follow me on X @aasthajs and Instagram @aasthajs for more on longevity.

Check out my health stack of the exact non-toxic health products I use. For the full collection of 500+ health products curated by me, see Health Stacked.

All other platforms: here

Bonus practical takeaways from this conversation:

Products I use for better circadian rhythm

• VivaRays 4 in 1 Blue Blockers and UV transmitters: VivaRays makes 3 in 1 blue blockers that you can easily switch from day to evening to night. As we discussed in the episode, blocking blue at night is critical for preventing cancer risk.

  • Use my link https://vivarays.com/livelongerworld or discount code LIVELONGERWORLD for 10% off

• Healthy Home Shop Circadian Bulbs: The Circadian bulbs have 3 light settings that easily switch spectrum from daylight (full-spectrum) to evening to night (blue-light free). This is exactly what you want for mimicking the sun’s wavelengths indoors. And no WiFi required.

  • Use my link https://thehealthyhome.shop/livelongerworld for 10% off

• Daylight Computer No-blue screen: I love reading on my Daylight! They have zero blue light and are flicker-free. It’s such a peaceful reading experience, without causing you any eye strain.

  • Use my link https://buy.daylightcomputer.com/livelongerworld for $25 off

• Chroma Circadian-Aligned Desk Lamp: The Sky portal desk lamp is a great circadian lamp for your workspace. It delivers bright light during the day, and red light as evening sets in.

  • Use my link https://getchroma.co/photonsfromaastha and code LIVELONGERWORLD for 10% off

For all the Lighting & EMF products I use, see my health stack

For the full collection of Lighting & EMF products I’ve curated, see Health Stacked

Timestamps:

00:00 LED Light Is the Tobacco of Our Time
01:33 The Connection Between Cancer and LED Lighting
04:05 Why Hormone-Driven Cancers Are Hit the Hardest
07:49 Is There a Link to Glioblastoma?
08:14 Why Melatonin Is Not the Sleep Hormone
11:40 There Is No Blue Light in Nature After Sunset
15:58 We Live in Junk Light, Just Like Junk Food
17:21 What Wavelengths Are LEDs Actually Missing?
20:44 The Infrared We Lost When We Banned Incandescents
22:52 The Two Ways LEDs Are Harming You
30:05 Health Stacked
30:56 White vs Yellow Light: Why It's the Wrong Question
33:59 Lux, Lumens, and a 100-Year-Old Mistake
38:27 What LED Light Does to Your Heart and Immune System
40:44 Why Regularity Matters as Much as the Light Itself
43:07 The Camping Study That Reset Everyone's Body Clock
45:26 The Longevity Data Is Mind-Blowing
49:56 Sunlight vs Skin Cancer: We Have It Backwards
53:03 The 450 vs 480 Spike Almost No One Gets Right
57:38 The Ancient Greeks Had No Word for Blue
59:52 Why Life Evolved to Run on Blue Light
01:03:13 Melanopsin: Your Body's Blue Detector
01:08:28 Do Melatonin Supplements Actually Do Anything?
01:10:42 The Hidden Clocks in Every Cell of Your Body
01:12:19 Why the Wrong Side of a Time Zone Can Kill You
01:15:37 Is There Something Special About Dawn?
01:17:12 Light and the Early Onset of Puberty
01:20:53 The Aggressive Kid Who Changed When the Lights Did
01:21:51 Should You Replace Your Windows?
01:24:00 Do not wear sunglasses in the morning!
01:26:44 What About Daytime Lighting?
01:27:41 Do Blue-Light-Blocking Glasses Work at Night?
01:29:33 Why Regulators Refuse to Look at the Evidence
01:31:20 Take Your Lighting Into Your Own Hands

For paid subscribers, I will be releasing highlights and practical takeaways from this conversation with Dr. Moore-Ede, so if you want those, please consider upgrading.

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He's a 97-year-old brain scientist who has spent 50+ years researching the importance of DHA (seafood) for the brain and how the brain won’t work without it. I recently released a podcast episode with him. This post is the companion to the episode: every key idea explained simply, and what to actually do with it.

In This Bonus Takeaways, I Cover:

1. Why it was DHA, not DNA, that built the human brain

2. Why DHA is just as critical for your vision as your brain

3. Why ARA (omega-6) is critical for the brain too, and why it’s wrongly demonized

4. Why ARA is critical in pregnancy

5. Why your body can barely make DHA and ARA from their plant precursors, and what to eat instead

6. Why the official advice to limit fish in pregnancy may be harming babies

7. How seed oils crowd DHA out of your brain, and why they barely existed before WWII

8. Why blindly avoiding saturated fat may be a mistake

9. What a 97-year-old brain scientist actually eats

10. Why grain-fed chicken lost 90% of its brain fat (DHA)

11. Why a fish oil capsule will never replace real fish

12. The theory that your brain runs on light, with DHA as a semiconductor

These conversations are dense with insight, and pulling out what matters most takes real time. That’s why I do it for you. In these bonus takeaways, I pull out the most important ideas from each episode, explain the science in plain language, and turn it into clear, practical steps you can use right away. 10 minutes spent reading these will leave you smarter about how your body works, and practical steps to improve your health starting today.

Paid subscribers get these takeaways for every episode, my own daily protocols, and direct email access to me. If you want to actually use what these scientists are sharing, become a paid subscriber.

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 “We’ve actually been losing brain size, and with it, mental ill health has been escalating.”

“Homo sapiens had to be evolving in contact with fresh water, but more optimally with the estuarine regions where they had both fresh water to drink and where they had abundant seafood.”

Unless we pay attention to the importance of the brain and its nutrition, quotes, “We will become a race of morons.” - Dr. Michael Crawford

The human brain is smaller today than it was twenty thousand years ago. Not metaphorically, but measurably, by about the volume of a tennis ball, and it is still shrinking. Professor Michael Crawford has spent fifty years explaining why, and his answer is not genetic. The answer is the lack of a single fat - DHA, an omega-3, found in seafood.

DHA makes up the signaling architecture of every neuron we own, and the brain is so dependent on it that it has used nothing else for this job in six hundred million years of evolution. No DHA, no brain.

What Dr. Crawford has argued since 1972, across more than three hundred papers is that it was not our genes that built our extraordinary brains, but DHA drawn from the sea. It's why, he says, our ancestors could only have become human beside the water, where DHA was abundant, and why the modern retreat from seafood toward seed oils and processed food maps almost exactly onto rising rates of depression, autism, and dementia.

He also makes the case that DHA behaves like a semiconductor inside our head, that the official advice to limit fish in pregnancy has harmed generations, and that the dementia people fear in old age may be set in motion before they are born.

What makes the conversation land is that Dr. Crawford is 97 years old, lucid, and still doing research. He clearly knows something about the brain - the proof is in the pudding! He has authored the popular book The Shrinking Brain: Mental Health is affected by poor Brain Nutrition, has advised the WHO and FAO, and holds Japan’s Order of the Rising Sun for this exact body of work. He has been warning about this since 1972, when his own book on the subject prompted the line that we risk becoming "a race of morons" if we keep ignoring how we feed the brain. The unsettling part is how long this evidence has been sitting in plain view while the people who write nutrition guidelines have looked the other way.

“The brain won’t work without DHA. That’s just full stop.” — Professor Michael Crawford.

What we discuss in this episode:

1. The fat (DHA) your neurons refuse to run without, and how the brain shrinks when the modern diet starves them of it.

2. The evidence that human brains have physically lost mass since the Stone Age, and what changed in our diet.

3. Why Dr. Crawford says the official advice to limit fish in pregnancy is wrong, and harming babies.

4. How seed oils in nearly every processed food crowd out DHA from our brain cells.

5. The case that Alzheimer’s and dementia may be set in motion in the womb, even before we’re born!

6. The wrongly demonized fatty acid that infant formula still leaves out.

7. Why our ancestors could only have evolved a big brain by living beside the sea.

8. The claim that DHA works like a semiconductor, wiring our neurons to run on light.

9. What Dr. Crawford eats at 97, and the simple seafood rule he lives by.

Watch on YouTube, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Timestamps and related episodes below.

If you wish to receive bonus takeaways from each podcast episode, and my detailed practical protocols, you can become a paid subscriber. Hope you enjoy the conversation!

Follow me on X @aasthajs and Instagram @aasthajs for more on longevity.

Check out my health stack of the exact non-toxic health products I use. For the full collection of 500+ health products curated by me, see Health Stacked.

All other platforms: here

Timestamps:

00:00 The Brain Food We Stopped Eating
00:32 "Your Brain Won't Work Without DHA. That's just full stop"
04:04 It Wasn't DNA That Made Us Human
06:50 How the Eye Built the Brain
08:00 Why Carnivores Are Sharper Than Herbivores
11:35 The Flowering Plant That Invented Pregnancy
14:22 The Placenta: An Organ Built From One Fatty Acid
15:35 Why Arachidonic Acid Is Wrongly Demonized
18:18 More Astrocytes Than Neurons: Who Really Runs the Brain
21:39 Health Stacked
22:38 DHA vs Arachidonic Acid: Two Different Origins
25:21 How the Fetus Hoards DHA and Rejects the Rest
30:31 Are Seed Oils Actually Starving Your Brain?
32:24 Why the FDA is wrong about Fish in Pregnancy
37:50 Do Fish Oil Supplements Work?
44:15 The Lack of Fish in Pregnancy is causing ADHD and Austism
50:10 Why Governments Only Care About Body Size, Not Brains
52:00 "A Race of Morons": The Warning From 1972
55:04 Does Dementia Actually Begin in the Womb?
59:16 Does the Father's Nutrition Matter Too?
59:40 The Importance of Arachidonic Acid that Infant Formula Leaves Out
01:02:24 How Often You Should Actually Eat Seafood
01:04:05 Can Vegetarians and Vegans Get Enough?
01:05:04 Can Genetics Let You Skip Seafood? The India Case
01:08:00 Why Humans Could Only Have Evolved Beside the Sea
01:11:55 Farming the Sea: What Japan Figured Out
01:17:22 The Collapse of DHA in Chicken and Eggs
01:20:52 Why Corn-Fed Everything Is Lower in DHA
01:22:32 The Semiconductor Theory of the Brain, Explained
01:27:20 What Dr. Crawford's Vision Is Like at 97 years old
01:28:39 The Rare Double-DHA Molecule in Your Retina
01:29:23 Where Dr. Crawford Lands on Saturated Fat
01:31:09 His Advice to Young Scientists: Challenge Everything
01:32:07 Closing: Why This Is a Three-Generation Emergency

For paid subscribers, I will be releasing highlights and practical takeaways from this conversation with Dr. Crawford, so if you want those, please consider upgrading.

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Hi, I’m Aastha and thanks for joining Live Longer World as I parse through the snake-oil in longevity. On my health stack, you can see my exact collection of non-toxic health products I use (12 categories including sleep, fitness, clean water, lighting, air quality, non-toxic kitchen). For the full collection of 500+ health products curated by me, see Health Stacked.

In 2019, I was deficient in Vitamin D. Around the same time, I came across Dr. Rhonda Patrick who built much of her fame touting the benefits of Vit. D supplementation. She pointed to the associations between low vitamin D and cancer, heart disease, and worse COVID outcomes. Her recommendation was to supplement to reach the optimal range. Even today, it’s top of her list of recommended supplements1.

For 6 years, I religiously followed her advice by taking a high dose 5,000IU a day. A year ago, I learned how wrong she is.

Vit. D supplements recommendation is built on correlation, not causation. High Vit. D is linked to good health, and low Vit. D to poor health, so health practioniers jumped to the conclusion that “We should supplement people with Vit D.” Trying to discern between correlation and causation is in direct conflict with the ~$10 trillion global healthcare industry.

This is how Vit. D supplements became a thing: People learned that the sun is good, and sun produces Vit. D, therefore Vit. D pills are good. It’s a classic case of reductionist biology and poor logical leaps.

Recent evidence confirms it was correlation, not causation. A large landmark study showed how Vit. D supplementation had no effects on cancer, cardiovascular disease, stroke, or death from any cause. This does not mean Vit. D is not important. Natural Vit. D from the sun continues to be critical for good health.

Vit. D from the sun does not equal Vit. D from pills.

In this post, I will discuss:

• The cause-and-effect mistake at the heart of it all. Why we mistook the messenger (vitamin D) for the message (sunlight).

• The landmark trial that quietly broke the vitamin D story. 26,000 people, five years, and almost nothing to show for the pill.

• What sunlight does that no pill can copy. The benefits that have nothing to do with vitamin D.

• How to actually get your vitamin D, the practical, free, evolutionary way.

We have confused Vit. D as the cause when it is a marker

The history of how Vit. D research shows us how we made this mistake of confusing cause with effect. In 1980, 2 brothers Cedric and Frank Garland noted that people living in the south sunnier regions of the U.S. had lower colon cancer mortality. Back then, it was believed that the main benefit of the sun was Vit. D. So the brothers attributed the lower cancer mortality in sunnier regions to Vit. D. They attributed the “sunlight signal” solely to the “Vit. D signal”. This was a big mistake. We now know that the sun has many benefits beyond Vit. D production, and this leap from “sun helps with cancer” to “Vit. D pills help with cancer” was a logical fallacy.

Vit. D was a marker of people getting adequate sun. Not the cause of cancer protection.

This mistake got further perpetuated over the next 2 decades as observational studies linked low Vit D. to higher rates of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, stroke, infection. This was all based on correlation.

In 2007, there was one trial by a researcher named Joan Lappe that initially showed lower all-cancer incidence with calcium and Vit. D supplementation. But when the trial was replicated with cancer as the primary outcome they were testing for, the results failed to hold up2.

The 2019 landmark study that showed Vit D supplements don’t prevent cancer, stroke or cardiovascular disease

The VITAL study3 was the largest trial ever built to test whether vitamin D pills prevent cancer and heart disease. Nearly 26,000 healthy older adults, half of them women, a fifth of them Black, took either 2,000 IU of vitamin D3 a day or a placebo for just over five years.

The results? No reduction in cancer, cardiovascular events or death from any cause.

What if the pill dose was too low?

My first thought on reading the results of the study was that perhaps the Vit D dosage was low. But that doesn’t seem to be the case, because the Vit D. levels of the people who supplemented with it did in fact go up. Blood levels in the supplement group climbed from 30 to 42 ng/mL, squarely in the optimal range. So the supplement did work in moving Vit. D levels up. However, the high Vit. D from the supplements had no effect on prevention of major diseases. In other words, the supplement worked as they say - your Vit D. levels shot up, but with no benefit to health.

What if the pill didn’t work because most people had adequate levels?

Adequate levels of Vit. D are debated. Around 30 ng/mL or above is generally considered sufficient. However, optimal levels are seen to be between 40-60 ng/mL. Under 20 ng/mL is deficient.

50% of the population was in the sufficient bucket. Most people were not in the optimal bucket. So, the pill should have still helped the people in the adequate bucket. Importantly, 13% of the population were in the deficient bucket. And the pill did not help this group either! Even among the Black population, the pill had no effect. This matters because darker skin makes less vitamin D from the same amount of sunlight, so Black participants tend to run lower levels. They were the group most expected to benefit from a pill, yet they didn’t.

VITAL Study was not the only one to show Vit. D didn’t work

Even before VITAL, other studies like the Women’s Health Initiative showed no effect of vitamin D pills. And the same result has since been repeated by several more: the New Zealand ViDA trial, the Finnish FIND trial, and Australia’s D-Health trial.

In each of these, vitamin D had no positive impact on cancer, cardiovascular disease, stroke, or other chronic disease. FIND is worth singling out, because it used higher doses than VITAL, up to 3,200 IU a day, and still found nothing. So this isn’t a case of the dose being too small.

So why then do healthy people have good Vit. D levels?

Two reasons. First, vitamin D is a proxy for whether you are getting adequate sun. It’s a marker of good health, not the direct cause of it.

Second, the sun has many benefits that extend well beyond vitamin D production.

A big one is the release of nitric oxide when skin is exposed to UV. Nitric oxide relaxes blood vessels and lowers blood pressure, and this has nothing to do with vitamin D. Tellingly, vitamin D supplements have repeatedly failed to lower blood pressure, which is exactly what sent researchers looking for another mechanism in the first place.

We’re only now starting to uncover the many health benefits of the sun. Avoiding the sun is as bad as smoking, and worse than getting skin cancer! In a landmark study of nearly 30,000 Swedish women, the ones who lived the longest were the ones who got the most sun and got non-melanoma skin cancer!

How then did Vit. D pills become a cultural mainstream?

The poor logical leap I described above is a big piece of it. Sun is good, sun makes vitamin D, so vitamin D pills must be good.

But a huge part of it was the media narrative and one central figure: Dr. Michael Holick. He wrote popular books on vitamin D deficiency, and as chair of the 2011 Endocrine Society guidelines, he helped push the threshold for “sufficient” vitamin D up to 30ng/mL, above the 20ng/mL that the other major authority, the Institute of Medicine, considered adequate. Raising the bar like that reclassified a large share of the population as insufficient overnight.

I’m not here to argue whether 20 or 30 is the right number. The point is that he was the central figure in the rise of vitamin D, and a 2018 New York Times investigation4 later reported he had received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the industries that profited from it, including a major lab that sells vitamin D tests and the indoor-tanning industry. To be fair to him, he is also a genuine advocate for getting sun, which is more than most of his critics in dermatology can say.

How to get Vit. D practically and naturally

The best way to get Vit. D is from UV light from the sun. Modern dermatology has demonized UV light entirely and this is a big mistake. All the studies that were done showing how UV light can cause skin cancer were done using UV light in isolation and on mice that were stripped of melanin, the natural ability to tan. Even at peak UV, the sun never has UV light in isolation, and it’s only 2-3% of the sun’s rays in fact. However, this doesn’t mean getting burnt and sitting in peak UV, if you’re not primed for it. Here are 12 practical guidelines for safe sun exposure I follow, including points on sunscreen use, building sun exposure, food guidelines, and more:

1. Make sure to get morning sun as a warm-up. Morning sun and evening sun have almost no UV, and are rich in beneficial infrared. Some new research shows that priming your skin with infrared before UV exposure can protect you from potential UV damage. Just like you wouldn’t do deadlifts before warming up, don’t step out in peak UV if you’re not primed for it.

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I recently released a 2-hour podcast with Dr. Stephanie Seneff that I think is one of the most important conversations I’ve ever had on this channel. This post is the companion to that episode - every key idea explained simply, and what to actually do with it.

Stephanie is a senior research scientist at MIT who has spent the last decade researching deuterium — a heavier version of hydrogen that sits in every glass of water you drink and every bite of food you eat. Most doctors have never heard of it. Medical schools don’t teach it. And Stephanie’s work suggests it may be one of the most important variables in human health.

She’s roughly 10 years ahead of the mainstream on this, and she connects it to exactly why:

• Gut health matters more than anyone realizes, and not for the standard reasons you think

• Most supplements may be harming you more than helping

• Cancer cells may not be broken, but running a cleanup operation

• Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s plaques may be doing something protective

• High-fat diets work for reasons no one in the keto world talks about

The interview gets technical in places. That’s deliberate, I didn’t want to dumb down the science. But I know technical content can be hard to follow in audio form, which is why I write these bonus takeaways. They explain everything important from the episode in plain language and end with practical takeaways on what to actually do with this information.

In This Bonus Takeaways, I Cover:

1. What deuterium is and why your body works so hard to manage it. The short version, explained simply.

2. Why carbs are loading you with more deuterium than humans have ever consumed. And the simple rule of thumb for which foods are highest and lowest in deuterium.

3. How deuterium physically breaks the molecular motors that produce all your energy. The mechanism walked through step by step.

4. The 80% deuterium-depleted fuel your gut bacteria are quietly manufacturing for the rest of your body. This is the section I learned the most from. Almost no one is connecting gut health to deuterium, and it changes how I think about the entire gut health conversation.

5. Why Stephanie stopped taking all supplements and the study that proves her point. The choline bitartrate research is genuinely shocking. Plus why folic acid in prenatal vitamins may be causing autism.

6. The most provocative idea in the entire episode: cancer cells aren’t broken. They’re running a cleanup operation for the deuterium overload that’s quietly driving the chronic disease epidemic. Once you understand this, the Warburg effect makes sense for the first time.

7. Stephanie’s exact daily protocol to reduce deuterium load. Everything she does - the food, the water, the baths, the sunlight.

The full takeaways below are for paid subscribers. Paid subscribers get highlights and takeaways from every episode explained simply, the practical protocols to apply them, my exact daily protocols, and direct email access to me. If you want to actually apply what the scientists on this channel are sharing, become a paid subscriber.

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“Cancer comes about because there is too much deuterium in the mitochondria. And cancer's job is to try to fix that problem.”

“What is it that deuterium depleted water does that helps it to heal the cancer?”

“Cells in the gut make 400 times as much melatonin as the pineal gland, and very few people know this.” - Dr. Stephanie Seneff

There’s a form of hydrogen in every glass of water you drink that Dr. Stephanie Seneff believes is quietly fueling cancer, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s. It has never shown up on a single lab test you’ve taken, and few people are talking about it.

It’s called deuterium — a heavier version of hydrogen, the most abundant atom in your body. It’s in every glass of water and every bite of food, and when it builds up in the wrong places, it disrupts the mitochondrial engine your cells run on. Stephanie’s argument is provocative: that cancer cells aren’t malfunctioning but running a metabolic cleanup operation in response to deuterium overload, and that the modern diet - grain-fed meat, processed food, glyphosate-sprayed crops is loading us with more deuterium than any generation in history.

This is a frontier hypothesis, and Stephanie (senior research scientist at MIT, published in PNAS, Frontiers, FASEB) is such an out-of-the-box thinker that it was a delight speaking with her. I came out of this two-hour conversation genuinely surprised at how underrated deuterium research is, and at how much she has worked out that hasn’t been published yet. Several ideas in this episode appear here for the first time.

“I don’t believe in supplements.” — Dr. Stephanie Seneff

This is Stephanie’s second appearance on Live Longer World. Her first, on what glyphosate does to your health, is below.

What we discuss in this episode:

1. What deuterium is and why it’s in everything you eat and drink

2. How deuterium breaks your mitochondria (and why this might be the root of chronic disease)

3. Why cancer might be your body’s repair response, not a malfunction

4. The two supplements Stephanie says you should stop taking immediately

5. The folic-acid-in-pregnancy and autism connection

6. How glyphosate breaks the body's deuterium defense

7. Why she drinks deuterium-depleted water every day (she drinks a brand called Litewater, use code LIVELONGERWORLD for 10% off subscription)

8. Practical steps to reduce your own deuterium load

Watch on YouTube, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Timestamps and related episodes below.

Follow me on X @aasthajs and Instagram @aasthajs for more on longevity. Check out my health stack of the exact non-toxic health products I use.

If you wish to support my work, you can become a paid subscriber. Hope you enjoy the conversation!

All other platforms: here

Timestamps:

0:00 Why deuterium might be the most important molecule you've never heard of
5:09 The hidden reason processed food is wrecking your health
7:25 How deuterium breaks your mitochondria
11:02 Glyphosate stops your body from rationing deuterium (and the osteoporosis link)
19:07 No one is connecting gut health to deuterium, until now
22:45 The two nutrients that help your gut clear deuterium
25:29 Methylation, melatonin, and protecting your mitochondria
33:14 Why melatonin supplements don't actually work
34:08 The two supplements you should stop taking immediately
38:06 How to make your gut produce low-deuterium water
41:12 How glyphosate suppresses your MTHFR gene
43:21 Why folate supplementation is a problem
45:06 "I don't believe in supplements", Stephanie's case against them
46:02 Why she's suspicious of fish oil
47:47 The folic-acid-in-pregnancy and autism connection
52:37 How glyphosate is quietly causing bone problems
56:22 Inflammation is really a deuterium problem
1:01:25 Gerald Pollack's EZ water and how your cells expel deuterium
1:04:59 Why breast milk is low in deuterium
1:09:03 Cancer's real job: repairing your mitochondria (and why chemo may be a mistake)
1:23:14 How deuterium-depleted water may help heal cancer
1:26:57 Deuterium and Parkinson's: how plaque traps it
1:30:37 How to fight Parkinson's
1:33:55 Why Stephanie drinks deuterium-depleted water every day
1:36:37 What glyphosate does to your sulfation system
1:38:38 How grounding reduces deuterium
1:39:42 Jack Kruse on glyphosate and melanin
1:40:08 Are seed oils high in deuterium?
1:45:05 Does where you live (and sunlight) affect your deuterium?
1:47:05 Practical tips to manage your deuterium load

I will be releasing my bonus takeaways from this conversation from Stephanie, so if you want those, please subscribe if you haven’t already!

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Introducing Health Stacked

I built the health store I’ve always wanted. Health Stacked is a vetted marketplace of 500+ health and longevity products across 12 categories like sleep, fitness, non-toxic home, lighting & EMF, and more. Products are screened for plastic, PFAS, and 20+ toxins.

Inclusion is 100% merit-based.

For years, I've been searching for a health store like this, and didn't find it, so I built it. Every product has been hand-picked by me. Would love to know what you think!

healthstacked.com

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“View morning sunlight to set your circadian rhythm” has become common health advice, popularized by influencers like Andrew Huberman and Bryan Johnson. They’re wrong. It misses how our circadian clocks actually work.

Circadian rhythm is not just about viewing morning sunlight. Our body clock doesn’t start in the morning and keep running smoothly on its own. It needs cues and signals throughout the day.

I spend 6 to 8 hours outside every day. Morning sun is 2 hours of that. The rest of the day matters just as much.

Why does circadian rhythm alignment matter?

Circadian rhythm is not just your body’s internal clock to keep time. It’s what powers the timing of your hormones, metabolism, immune system, gut cells, and every cell in your body. If there is disruption to your circadian alignment, the coordination between cells and hormones breaks down. It results in different cells working per their own timing without coordinating with each other. Your body begins to function like a discordant orchestra - cells don’t work in harmony with each other and create a noisy machine. Brain fog, trouble falling asleep, poor digestion could all result from circadian misalignment. It’s not just about giving your body the right signals, it’s about the right signals at the right time.

There’s a reason night shift workers have higher rates of breast cancer, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and metabolic syndrome. It’s because their circadian timings are out of tune with how we evolved.

Circadian rhythm beyond morning sunlight

Viewing morning sunlight is sub-optimal advice on its own. Circadian rhythm alignment is about viewing the sunrise, getting ample afternoon sunlight, not using the wrong artificial lights at night, not eating out of sync with daylight, exposing your skin and eyes to sunlight, hydrating well, having good melatonin production, and going to bed by the right time.

Here is the full protocol I follow, sunrise to sleep. Skipping any of it disrupts your circadian rhythm.

1. Sunlight activates your master clock. We have a master circadian clock in the brain called the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN). Its activation is the most potent signal that the day has started. And it is activated by light, more specifically by full-spectrum sunlight. If your SCN does not get its sunlight cue, your body doesn’t fully know the day has begun. It will function sluggishly the rest of the day. Missing the morning sun is like driving a car with a broken engine. It’ll chug along but very sub optimally.

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For 4+ years, I tried to shed my stubborn last 10lbs. I tried it all: calorie counting, intermittent fasting, long fasts, keto, gym grinding, you name it. I’d lose 1-2 lbs, then gain them back. This is despite working out every day and eating clean. I thought the problem was that I wasn’t restricting calories enough.

Then I got pregnant. I obviously wasn’t going to try and lose weight during this period. So I decided to let go. I ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I would finish tubs of honey ice-cream and packets of honey chocolate on some days. The caveat was that I’ve never enjoyed junk food much, so my diet was still 95% clean. But I had zero self-imposed restrictions. I enjoyed my chocolate and ice-cream guilt-free.

I noticed that my relationship with food started to change. Despite having unrestricted access to sweets in the refrigerator, most days I simply didn’t want it. I started eating naturally based on hunger cues. I wasn’t bound to the clock by crazy fasting schedules.

I had a healthy pregnancy, gained ~27lbs, and delivered a healthy chubby baby. I lost all my pregnancy weight in the first 3 months and miraculously in the next 6 months, I lost those stubborn 10lbs that I’d been trying to lose for 4 years. And I didn’t even try this time.

I re-established my power over food

While sunlight and other factors played a massive role in my weight loss, I realized that a big part of it was changing my relationship with food. Pre-pregnancy, I lived in fear of eating too much. Food had more power over me. This fear caused me to eat artificially: gorge on cheat days, eat less even when I’m truly hungry, eat more when I’m not hungry to follow my diet plan, and eat foods that I didn’t want to. I was living in a scarcity mindset, worried about food.

In pregnancy, I let go of this fear. I had power over food. One thinks that without any willpower or restrictions, you’d eat junk food all the time. Quite the opposite. I started to live in a state of food abundance. Because I knew I had access to food whenever I wanted, I didn’t worry about overeating.

Why calorie counting apps make weight loss harder

Those who struggle with overeating and/or eating junk food have a tenuous relationship with food, that I described above. The irony is that calorie counting and weight loss apps perpetuate this fearful negative relationship with food. By making you log every calorie, they make you live in constant fear of food. The very fear that was stalling me from losing weight. These apps want you to be loyal customers, not ones who fix the problem and leave.

Losing weight is not so simple as “eat less and move more.” It’s not a matter of willpower and counting calories. It’s a psychological game. It’s about you having power over food.

The answer to weight loss lies not in calorie counting but in changing your relationship with food.

How to regain your control over food

If you want to change your dynamic with food, try this experiment for a few days: eat as much as you want, whatever you want. Guilt-free. The first couple of days you might eat more. But then you might begin to notice how your fear over food changes. You begin to control food, food does not control you. You might begin to eat naturally, more intuitively. In this fearless state, controlling your food choices will become easier.

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Weight loss is not about calories

Contrary to popular belief, calories are the least important metric when it comes to food regulation. Your appetite is heavily regulated by protein intake, circadian timing, light exposure, and hormones, not calories.

Below, I share the exact 10 things I changed to help me lose 10lbs without trying. No calorie counting. No willpower needed.

1. Morning protein breakfast: I used to do intermittent fasting and skip breakfast. My first meal of the day was around 11am. This shifted my gut clock to start the day later, which naturally pushed my dinner time later too. We have a master circadian clock in the brain and local clocks at every organ and cell. My master clock would get its cue from morning sunlight upon waking up. But my gut clock was getting its morning cue only much later in the day. This creates a desynchrony in our body clocks, disrupting circadian and hormonal signaling. Losing weight and optimal health requires your body to work in synchrony. Morning breakfast is key for proper circadian alignment. Aim for 30-40g of protein at breakfast. Eggs, meat, or Greek yogurt. This anchors your gut clock to your wake time and keeps you full until lunch without snacking.

2. Eat dinner by sunset: This was one of the biggest levers in me losing weight. I ran a simple experiment for a few days: eating the same dinner but finishing before sunset vs. after. I noticed that whenever I ate post sunset, I felt more bloated and had worse sleep. I also effortlessly started losing some weight after only a few days of eating by sunset. Eating after sundown not only delays the onset of melatonin which helps you wind down, but it also desynchronizes your body clocks which I discussed above. Eating late also tends to make you hungrier the next day and shifts your body toward fat storage. Your metabolism is highest earlier in the day and winds down as the sun sets. Eat with the sun, not against it.

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Dermatologists have spent decades telling us to avoid the sun. Wear sunscreen. Cover up. The fear is skin cancer. But one of the most thorough studies ever conducted on sun exposure and mortality found the opposite. Women who got the most sun lived the longest. Women who avoided the sun died at the same rate as smokers. And the most surprising finding of all? The women who lived the longest in the entire 20-year study1 got skin cancer AND were most sun-exposed.

And it wasn’t just about living longer. The study showed that women who got more sunlight were protected from:

• Cardiovascular disease

• Cancer (including skin cancer!)

• Type 2 diabetes

• Venous blood clots

• Death from all causes

And the more the sun, the better the outcomes. In this post, I break down the study and what it means for how you think about the sun.

Basics of the study:

Researchers recruited 29,518 Swedish women between 25 and 64 years of age starting in 1990. They asked four simple questions about sun exposure:

1. Do you sunbathe during the summer?

2. Do you sunbathe during winter holidays?

3. Do you use tanning beds?

4. Do you go abroad on holiday to swim and sunbathe?

No to everything = low sun exposure. Yes to one or two = moderate. Yes to three or four = high. They also recorded smoking status, exercise habits, BMI, education level, marital status, disposable income, and whether the women were on medication for diabetes, blood clotting, or cardiovascular disease, all of which were used to adjust the results. Then they followed these women for 20 years and tracked what happened.

Results: Risk of disease & death increased by avoiding the sun

• Not getting sun was as dangerous as smoking. Nonsmokers who avoided sun exposure had a life expectancy similar to smokers who got the most sun. Even among smokers, those around age 60 who actively sought the sun lived ~2 years longer than smokers who avoided it.

• Heart disease: The highest sun exposure group had ~60% lower risk of cardiovascular death.

• Cancer: The highest sun exposure group had ~40% lower risk of cancer death, including melanoma. In fact, women with the most sun exposure who developed non-melanoma skin cancer had the lowest mortality of anyone in the entire 20-year study. Lower than cancer-free women. Lower than every other group. More on skin cancer and melanoma findings below.

  • Melanoma: Melanoma incidence was slightly higher in the high sun exposure group (0.81% vs 1.1%), but the increase wasn't statistically significant. And when they did get melanoma, their risk of dying was essentially the same as sun avoiders who never got cancer at all. Meanwhile, sun avoiders who got melanoma had 4x the risk of death. And within the melanoma group specifically, sun avoiders had 8x the death rate of sun-seekers.

• Diabetes: Women who avoided the sun were at nearly 2.5x the risk of type 2 diabetes compared to those with the highest sun exposure. The relationship was dose-dependent: moderate sun exposure carried 47% higher risk, and low sun exposure carried 147% higher risk. The effect was even more dramatic in normal-weight women, where sun avoiders had nearly 4x the diabetes risk.2

• Other non-cancer deaths: The highest sun exposure group had over double (110%) the reduction in non-cancer, non-cardiovascular death (things like diabetes, multiple sclerosis, pulmonary diseases). Combined with the cardiovascular disease reduction, this is where the biggest increase in lifespan came from.

• Dying from anything: Women who avoided the sun had double the risk of death over the next 20 years compared to those with the highest sun exposure. This translated to 0.6 to 2.1 fewer years of life for sun avoiders.

• Blood clots: For every “yes” answer to sun exposure, women were at ~30% lower risk of venous thromboembolism. Blood clot risk was also 50% higher in winter compared to summer.

But is it really the sun? You might wonder: do sun-seekers just live longer because they're wealthier, more active, and healthier to begin with? The researchers tested this. They adjusted for age, smoking, education, marital status, income, pre-existing conditions, BMI and physical exercise. The results held. The survival benefit of sun exposure wasn't explained by lifestyle differences.

This study is not a one-off. A 2024 analysis3 of 376,000 UK Biobank participants found the same pattern: higher UV exposure was associated with lower all-cause, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality. A separate Swedish cohort study4 of women followed for three decades found sunbathing vacations were linked to 30% lower risk of death. The data pointing to sun exposure as protective against the leading causes of death is consistent across multiple large cohorts and countries.

But what about skin cancer risk?

Here's where it gets really counterintuitive. The women who lived the longest in the entire 20-year study weren't the ones who avoided skin cancer. They were the ones who got skin cancer and had the most sun exposure. They outlived everyone, including cancer-free women.

I couldn't believe this when I first saw it. For paid subscribers, I break down exactly what's going on:

• How women with skin cancer outlived every other group in the study, including women who never got cancer.

• The 8x death gap: why getting melanoma while avoiding the sun was the deadliest combination in the study, while getting melanoma with high sun exposure barely affected mortality.

• The vitamin D connection: why the same cancer can kill one woman and barely affect another.

• What no one tells you about the sun vs. skin cancer tradeoff: the risk of dying from skin cancer vs. the risk of dying from avoiding the sun.

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I threw away my polyester clothing. And switched to organic cotton.

Polyester clothing is literally wearable plastic. It’s not just a skin irritant, it might be contributing to the fertility crisis, hormonal imbalance, and reduced energy levels.

Roughly 60% of clothing is made from polyester and other synthetic fibers. Lululemon, Under Armour, Zara, Calvin Klein are all predominantly polyester. Testing on popular sports bras from Nike, Athleta, The North Face, and others found BPA levels up to 40x the safe limit under California law!1 These brands are great for the booty bump and coolness factor. Not so great for your health.

This is what the modern human looks like. We eat plastic, drink plastic, breathe plastic, and now wear plastic too!

What’s the big deal with polyester clothing?

• Poor sperm health: Polyester traps heat. Tighter underwear and more heat are linked to worse sperm markers. In one study2, 14 men who wore a polyester scrotal sling had zero sperm(!) within 5 months. And a 2024 study3 found microplastics in 100% of human semen samples tested. Enough for me to not want my husband to wear plastic down there.

• Disrupted hormone health: Polyester clothing carries phthalates, PFAS (forever chemicals)4, BPA5 and other finishing chemicals. These are endocrine disruptors - they mimic or block estrogen, testosterone, and thyroid hormones.6 A study of children's school uniforms found PFAS in 100% of products tested.7

• Loaded with PFAS and heavy metals: Water-resistant, stain-resistant, wrinkle-free, and performance finishes mean added chemicals like PFAS. Polyester is also commonly made using antimony (heavy metal) as a catalyst, and antimony can migrate from polyester textiles into sweat. Antimony is a possible carcinogen. What’s worse is that the antimony keeps leaching even after repeated washes.8

• Microplastics contribute to heart disease: A 2024 study9 found micro and nanoplastics in the carotid artery plaque of 58% of heart patients. Those with plastics in their plaque had a 4.5x higher risk of heart attack, stroke, or death over the following 3 years.

• Increased inflammation: Synthetic textiles are the dominant source of indoor airborne microplastics. It is estimated that you may shed up to a billion polyester microfibers into the air each year just by moving around. Indoor air contains roughly 6x more microplastic fibers than outdoor air, resulting in oxidative stress and inflammation.10 Investing in an air filter and opening your windows is worthwhile.

• Skin irritation: Polyester traps heat, sweat, and oils against your skin. Textile dyes and finishes, including formaldehyde (a Group 1 carcinogen used for wrinkle-free finishes), add chemical irritation on top of the physical discomfort.11

So what did I do about it?

• For my undergarments, I only do organic cotton.

• For the rest of my clothing, I do organic cotton or cotton 99.9% of the time. Pact is my favorite - they are affordable and fashionable.

  • Cotton is a natural fiber so it doesn’t come with the same plastic problem. The catch with cotton is that it is the world’s dirtiest crop. It is loaded with pesticides and accounts for 16% of the world’s insecticide use. These chemicals get absorbed into the cotton and don’t necessarily get off your clothes by washing them. Organic cotton is worth the extra money if you can get it.

• Our bedding, blanket, pillows, mattress are all organic cotton or organic wool. Never sleep on polyester sheets. Sleep is when your body is repairing itself, and polyester can even hinder the charge of the mitochondria.

I’ve compiled more safe non-toxic clothing brands at healthstacked.com.

The rest of the post is for paid subscribers. I discuss:

• Other materials that are safe (bamboo is not as safe as you think)

• Why to never wear polyester while working out

• More tips I practice to reduce clothing toxicity

• How to mitigate risk from textile dyes and carcinogenic wrinkle-free finishes. It’s not just the materials that matter, dyes too contain chemicals.

• Safe certifications when picking clothes

Read more

Then, I gave birth to an angel in April 2025. Postpartum, I obviously couldn’t grind at the gym and go on a diet. I started living more naturally, more in tune with our environment, and how we evolved.

• I got a lot more sun.

• I learned about the impact of artificial lights on our metabolism and sleep, and switched to red incandescent only at night.

• I threw out all the toxic everyday products from our house. I wanted our house to be as non-toxic as possible for our daughter.

• I reduced our EMF exposure through hacks I’ll discuss later.

• I spent more time in fresh air.

• I started sleeping earlier and waking up with the sunrise.

In short, I fixed my environment to make it more in tune with nature. I noticed how great I felt.

What happened when I stopped grinding and fixed my environment

• I lost the baby weight in 2.5 months and in the next 5 months after that, I lost that stubborn 10lbs that I’d been trying to lose for 4 years!

• My deep sleep doubled to over 2 hours, despite waking up 2+ times a night to nurse my baby.

• I felt higher energy and happier, with few to zero afternoon slumps.

• Snack cravings and food thoughts throughout the day vanished. I didn’t need to use willpower.

I achieved better results in under 1 year than I did with grinding for 5+ years. This is why I keep saying: Environment over effort and Health on Easy Mode. Not because it sounds nice. But because I lived both ways.

What surprised me most

Along the way, a few things genuinely shocked me:

• Avoiding the sun can be as bad as smoking (in terms of all‑cause mortality).

• Artificial light isn’t just about eye strain - it impacts metabolism, stress, and sleep.

• CO₂ buildup indoors impairs decision‑making, learning, and sleep.

• Our clothing and furniture shed microplastics and chemicals onto our skin and air.

• Non‑native EMF exposure is likely more important than mainstream messaging suggests (especially at night and near the head).

I realized: diet, exercise, and sleep matter, but your environment is the substrate all of that rests on.

Why I built Live Longer World

I’m not a “theory only” person.

• I test things on myself first.

• I talk to scientists directly (Live Longer World Podcast).

• I dig through old papers and mechanisms.

• Then I try to turn that into something you can actually use.

This newsletter, Live Longer World, is where I:

• Share the protocols and experiments that actually moved the needle for me.

• Explain the biophysics of health (light, air, toxins, environment) in plain English.

• Help you avoid the years of “hard mode” I put myself through.

And because so many products are toxic:

I built healthstacked.com/aasthajs as my curated collection of low‑toxin, PFAS‑screened, lower‑plastic products I actually use at home (light, air, water, kitchen, diagnostics, etc.). Inclusion is 100% merit‑based. Brands don’t pay to place.

For the full catalog of vetted health products hand-picked be me, see Health Stacked.
This newsletter Live Longer World is where I share the protocols and research.

What paid subscribers get (first time I’m sharing this)

Up to now, all my posts have been 100% free. That’s not changing.

• The philosophy, the big levers, and a lot of tactics will stay free.

• But the deep protocol breakdowns (step‑by‑step, with research) are going to live behind a light paywall for members.

Think of it like this:

• Free: “Fix your evening light if you want better sleep. Here’s why it matters and what to aim for.”

• Paid: “Here’s exactly how I set it up (room by room), more under-the-radar protocols, and deeper research.”

If you become a paid subscriber, here’s what you get:

• Detailed playbooks on:

  • Light & circadian rhythm (day and night).

  • Sleep environment (light, air, bedding, EMF).

  • EMF basics and practical mitigation.

  • Non‑toxic living (materials, kitchen, water, personal care).

• Deep‑dive research behind each tactic.

• Early access to my Health on Easy Mode guides and experiments.

I’m not promising a $2M/year Bryan Johnson protocol. He spends millions and built a full‑time operation around his health.

My goal is the opposite:

Live Longer World through Environment over Effort
No grind. No $2M/year budget.
Simple, low‑cost environment tweaks that stack over time.

~$100 per year gets you the deep playbooks and research that took me years (and a lot of mistakes) to assemble.

Upgrade to Paid

Who this is (and isn’t) for

This is for you if:

• You care about energy and healthspan, but don’t want to live in a lab.

• You’re willing to change your environment, not just add another pill.

• You like understanding the “why,” not just copying checklists.

• You’d rather pay a little to save dozens of hours of your own research.

This is not for you if:

• You want a $2M/year Bryan Johnson protocol.

• You only care about macros and macros alone.

• You’re hoping I’ll sell you a miracle supplement stack.

Thank you + what to do next

The best ways to support my work:

1. Share Live Longer World with someone who cares about health & longevity but doesn’t want to live on hard mode.

2. Become a paid subscriber if you want access to the deeper protocols and research.

This Friday, I’ll publish my first paid breakdown, where:

• The first half (free) covers the philosophy and main levers

• The second half (paid) walks through detailed protocols and supporting research

Upgrade to Paid

Share

Thank you for following along as I parse through the snake‑oil in longevity and practice Health on Easy Mode.

Environment over effort,
Aastha

Follow me on X @aasthajs & Instagram @aasthajs as I parse through the snake-oil in longevity. If my work is useful, become a paid subscriber.

Browse my health stack across 12+ categories (sleep, fitness, non-toxic kitchen, clean water, skincare, diagnostics, lighting).