NEW STUDY: Sunlight Penetrates the Human Body, Improving Mitochondrial Function and Vision
Just 15 minutes of fully clothed infrared sunlight exposure triggered systemic effects and measurable improvements in vision — even with eyes completely covered.
A new study published in Scientific Reports titled, Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through the human body and have a systemic impact which improves vision, confirms what animal studies have long suggested: longer wavelengths of sunlight—particularly in the infrared range (830–860 nm)—can penetrate the human body and improve mitochondrial function systemically. Remarkably, even 15 minutes of back exposure (fully clothed) improved vision 24 hours later — without any light entering the eyes.
40 adults (ages 25–63) participated in the study. Researchers first measured sunlight transmission by placing a radiometer against the chest of shirtless participants standing in direct midday sunlight. In a controlled lab setting, subjects were then exposed to 15 minutes of 850 nm near-infrared (NIR) LED light directed at their backs. Visual performance was evaluated before and 24 hours after exposure using color contrast sensitivity tests. To isolate systemic effects from direct eye exposure, a subgroup wore foil-wrapped head coverings to fully block light from reaching the eyes.
Key Findings
Sunlight penetrates the human torso. Infrared wavelengths (especially 850 nm) passed through the chest and back, reaching internal tissues. Peak transmission was observed between 800–875 nm.
Mitochondrial boost to visual function. A single 15-minute exposure to 850 nm light led to a 16% improvement in tritan (blue-yellow) contrast sensitivity and a 9% improvement in protan (red-green) sensitivity 24 hours later — even in dim lighting conditions.
Systemic effect confirmed. In participants whose heads were completely covered with foil (blocking all ocular exposure), tritan sensitivity still improved by 7%, proving that long-wavelength light acts systemically — likely via mitochondrial and cytokine signaling pathways.
Clothing is not a barrier. Even six layers of common garments (T-shirt, shirt, wool sweater) were nearly 100 times more transparent to 850 nm light than to visible light, allowing infrared to reach the skin and tissues underneath.
Built environment warning. Most indoor LED lighting lacks infrared and instead emits sharp peaks in the blue spectrum (400–450 nm), which are known to impair mitochondrial function and elevate oxidative stress, especially in the absence of balancing long wavelengths.
These findings underscore the critical role of full-spectrum sunlight — particularly its infrared components — in maintaining cellular health and sensory function. As modern environments increasingly rely on artificial lighting that omits these beneficial wavelengths, we are depriving our bodies of essential biological signals. Daily exposure to natural sunlight, even through clothing, appears to be a simple yet powerful tool to support mitochondrial health and optimize vision.
Epidemiologist and Foundation Administrator, McCullough Foundation
www.mcculloughfnd.org
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What?! And not listen to the "experts" who tell us not to go out without our SPF 999999. Those were the same people who said to stop eating butter and eggs - that red meat will kill you, and 11 servings of grains a day is a good thing.
My Eyes Will Help You See
Your personal model holds second thoughts about your vision. This may includes expectations of it deteriorating and for many, to wear glasses for the rest of their lives or take on lasers. I live something else. Look Deeper….
Blue eyes are in the global minority. We process light differently than other colors. My first experience in industrial approaches to correcting sight and the challenges born in my blue eyes landed me in thick glasses and the emotional trauma delivered in the amusement of my peers.
Born and raised in Chicago, I now have an ever deeper honoring of the intelligence held in the collective melting pot of cultures in my home town. I am forever grateful to my grandfather (a farmer without formal education) who decided to entrusted my poor sight and thick lens to a Chinese Optometrist on Lincoln Ave.
Can you imagine a farmer in the 1950s taking his grandchild over and over and over again - rhythmically over longer and shorter periods of time to get new lenses put into the same frame?
Grandpa and I would go to Lincoln Park, no matter what the season 7 days a week unless it was raining or freezing. Even in winter he would pack me up into a sled and off we would go in the snow to be with the air currents that never stop on Lake Michigan, the waves resonating life message of the water element, the sunlight seasonally moving my place in life, the trees and I would hand feed the squirrels. We would sit on the rocks becoming the becoming of living systems all beholding the child with being love.
For years I lived an authentic experience of shaping the molecular structures of my body at a very young age; working with nature to correct my sight. Becoming the environment that enriches the view with a resonant field of feed back flow in information.
It was a journey of being in nature, changing lens, shapes pointing until what I saw before was no longer. It was a journey of collecting my scattered energy and harmonizing me into “ownership of my living systems” until I began to live with a astigmatism transformed and eyes that can focus near and far without aid. Since the last lens (7th Grade), I have lived a lifetime without glasses.
It took my grandfather’s commitment and the man who had rooted stance in the brilliance of ancestral wisdom. It took years of moving my body into fresh stances that could sustain greater and greater clarity, alignment and signal integrity in Gravity’s Shaping and learning to accepting the Power of Regeneration belonging to my body….do you see?
Coherent energy belong to one who “experiences knowing” as it resonates nature’s genius in the cradle of wisdom with emergent designs that flow to guide while honoring the uniqueness of the individual. Seems appropriate to disclose this in Courageous Discourse - not something I have ever shared before.