Amber light, fat cells, and nature

Researchers took human fat cells and shined different colors of light on them.. violet, blue, green, yellow, amber (nanometers), and red

Only one wavelength consistently did something dramatic:

Amber light made fat cells break down their stored fat droplets. This wasn’t done by the normal fat burning hormone pathway, but by turning on the cells cleanup and recycling machinery

Autophagy + lysosomes = internal fat digestion. Autophagy being the cell’s self-cleaning process, and lysosomes being acidic sacs that digest waste

The cell essentially ate its own fat droplets from the inside out as a result of amber light exposure

This pathway is not the classic adrenaline to HSL to fat breakdown route

The researchers even blocked the usual lipase pathways, and the amber light effect still happened

So, the study tells us that amber light activates the cell’s recycling machinery that destroys fat droplets

It’s not a stretch at all to suggest that light wavelengths can influence adipocyte (fat cell) behavior in a measurable way

•••

Every wavelength does something different in the body because different molecules and tissues absorb different photons

Blue light is highly stimulating and alerting. Red and infrared boosts mitochondrial ATP. UV-A and UV-B offer distinct benefits

Amber sits in an interesting middle zone because it penetrates deeper than blue, carries more energy than red, and interacts with metabolic tissue like fat

Amber is also heavily involved in:

• cerebellar development

• circadian signaling

• mitochondrial dynamics

• melanin intermediates

• POMC related pathways

Fat cells responding to amber light fits the pattern of amber being a metabolic wavelength

Amber exists in the natural world for your benefit. It’s most abundant during sunrise and sunset due to Rayleigh Scattering, where you have a high concentration of red/infrared/oranges/yellow/ambers

Golden hour is an amber rich experience

You literally bathe in amber light just by stepping outside during sunrise and sunset

Firelight offers a lot of amber along with many of the same wavelengths that sunrise and sunset provide

Full spectrum sunlight during the day offers amber as well, but at less concentration since it’s mixed with the rest of the spectrum

Incandescents are a man-made lighting source that is rich in amber light

By maintaining circadian alignment, you bring amber back into your life during both the day (sunrise, sunbathing, sunset, incandescents) and night (firelight & low lux incandescents)