The compounds in our lights are in our tissues.
Gallium. Arsenic. Indium. Mercury. They make LEDs glow. They're accumulating in us. What happens when the wavelengths meet their source materials?
LEDs aren't simple. They're semiconductor sandwiches.
Gallium Nitride
Generates blue and green light
Gallium Arsenide
Yes, gallium + arsenic. Makes red LEDs.
Indium Gallium Nitride
Powers every white LED since 1993
Mercury Vapor
Generates UV in fluorescent bulbs. 5-115mg per tube.
They don't just pass through you.
Gallium
No known function in the human body. Concentrates in bones. Substitutes for iron in biological processes. Inhaled aerosols stay in lungs.
Arsenic
Accumulates in skin, hair, nails, muscle, bones, teeth. Even low concentrations build up in liver and kidney. Blocks ion channels. Disrupts ATP synthesis.
Indium
ITO particles don't leave lungs quickly. During "recovery," indium redistributes to spleen, liver, brain. Hydrated indium oxide is 40x more toxic than ionic indium.
Mercury
Estimated level in adults: 0.40 mg/kg due to biomagnification. Inhaled vapor distributes to all tissues, including fetal tissues.
Aluminum
60% in bones, 25% in lungs, 10% in muscles, 3% in liver, 1% in brain. Induces DNA oxidation in cardiac tissue. Disrupts bone calcification.
The resonant interaction hypothesis.
When compounds in our tissues get exposed to their own emission wavelengths, they may undergo the same electronic transitions they exhibit in LEDs.
Think about it: The compounds that glow blue at 450nm are sitting in our retinas. Our retinas are bathed in 450nm blue light. What happens?
Key finding: The accepted phototoxicity threshold is overestimated by a factor of 50 for blue light and 550 for white light.
What the research shows.
Low doses of LED light induce caspase-independent apoptosis
Green light in white LEDs induces 8x more macrophage invasion in retina than blue alone
Light exposure produces reactive oxygen species, with taurine pathways most perturbed
Lipofuscin + blue light = ROS leading to retinal damage
The perfect storm.
Bioaccumulation
Compounds build up in specific tissues over time
Constant exposure
12-16 hours of wavelength bathing daily
Photochemical activation
Accumulated compounds respond to their emission wavelengths
Synergistic effects
Multiple compounds interact, amplifying individual toxicities
Novel reactions
Photochemical processes that don't occur in nature
This has never happened in human evolution.
LEDs aren't classified as toxic.
They go in regular landfills.
Low-intensity red LEDs contain up to 8 times the lead allowed by California law
Phototoxicity thresholds underestimate blue light risk by 50x
White light risk underestimated by 550x
An unprecedented biological experiment.
We're accumulating toxic semiconductor compounds in our tissues while bathing ourselves in the exact wavelengths they emit.
Same compounds. Same wavelengths. Inside and outside. All day.