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Dhru Purohit Show

Tapping Into The Power Of Sunlight And Practical Tips On Reducing Junk Light From Your Life With Alexis Cowan, PhD

Dhru Purohit Show

Dhru Purohit

Medicine, Health & Fitness, Alternative Health

4.73.4K Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2024

⏱️ 71 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This episode is brought to you by Lumebox and AquaTru. Numerous experts have explored the myriad factors associated with chronic disease. However, our guest today sheds light on an often overlooked factor: junk light. Our modern lifestyles frequently experience diminished exposure to natural sunlight and constant exposure to blue light emitted by phones, devices, and indoor workspaces. Dr. Alexis Cowan emphasizes the importance of minimizing our exposure to junk light and maximizing sunlight for our health. Today on The Dhru Purohit Show, Dhru sits down with Dr. Alexis Cowan to discuss the impact of junk light on our well-being and longevity. Dr. Cowan explains how exposure to junk light can alter our circadian rhythm and hormone levels, disrupting our sleep patterns and eating behaviors. Additionally, she underscores the significance of sunlight exposure for weight management, mood regulation, and daily motivation. Dr. Cowan offers practical tips to minimize blue light exposure and incorporate red light therapy for those unable to attain optimal sun exposure in their daily routines. Dr. Alexis Cowan is a Princeton-trained PhD in molecular biology who operates at the interface of physiology and metabolism. She specializes in circadian biology, microbiome-host interactions, and the metabolic effects of nutritional and exercise modalities. Dr. Alexis teaches coursework on topics in health, translational science, and scientific literacy. She also sees highly motivated clients in a one-on-one capacity. In this episode, Dhru and Dr. Cowan dive into (audio version / Apple Subscriber version): Junk light as a contributor to chronic disease (00:00:05 / 00:00:05) The implications of having too much junk light (8:00 / 6:37) What does the absence of sunlight and too much junk light cause (12:00 /10:05) How much sun should you get a day and build up your tolerance (16:00 / 14:20) Skin cancer risks (21:50 / 20:05) What damages skin and causes aging (25:00 / 23:19) The correlation between melanoma and skin cancer (31:30 / 28:50) Metabolism, weight loss, and sunlight exposure (38:40 / 33:30) Simple hacks to reduce your blue light exposure (39:20 / 36:05) Red light therapy (44:20 / 41:03) Dr. Cowan’s journey (47:00 / 43:54) Akkermansia for gut health and immunity (51:40 / 48:30) Sunlight and motivation and goals (1:00:00 / 53:52) Final thoughts (1:01:30 / 58:00) Also mentioned in this episode: Dr. Cowan’s Podcast, Undoctrinate Yourself Study on LASIK surgery Melanoma Exposure Study Study about high occupational sun exposure seemed to be inversely associated with melanoma Sun exposure is associated with increased survival from melanoma Study about low UV exposure and Vitamin D levels related to increased mortality due to skin cancer Study about the positive association between melanoma risk and intermittent sun exposure in contrast to reduced risk with high levels of occupational exposure For more on Dr. Alexis Cowan, follow her on Instagram and via her site. Lumebox is offering my community $260 off their FDA-approved portable Red Light device! That's over 40% off! Go to thelumebox.com/dhru and get your Red Light device. AquaTru is a countertop reverse osmosis purifier with a four-stage filtration system that removes 15x more contaminants than the bestselling water filters out there. Go to dhrupurohit.com/filter/ and get $100 off when you try AquaTru for yourself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Dr. Alexis Cohen, welcome to the podcast.

0:03.7

You know, you shared something pretty mind-blowing that I think a lot of individuals,

0:07.6

this might be new for them, even the ones that have been listening to my podcast for a long time.

0:11.2

You share that junk light is, in your view, one of the biggest

0:16.1

contributors to chronic disease here in America. Can you expand on that and tell our

0:21.6

audience why you feel that way?

0:24.0

Yeah, absolutely.

0:25.0

So I actually recently put a post about this on my Instagram saying that, you know,

0:28.5

junk light, not junk food is the biggest issue that we have in America and trying to be

0:31.8

kind of provocative on purpose because there's so much talk about diet and exercise in our culture and in within the space of health and yet people are getting sicker and fatter every year and we're not really getting to the point of like what's actually fundamentally going on from a metabolic from a physiologic level and also from like a willpower level like why are people struggling to execute on these things so I

0:54.4

recently within the past 12 months actually about a year ago exactly really got involved in the

1:00.9

area of circadian and light biology and just completely changed my entire

1:07.2

approach to health and life, which was already kind of charted out pretty extensively.

1:11.9

I lost 100 pounds about 13 years ago and I really

1:15.0

went down like the diet and exercise path. I actually developed an eating disorder

1:18.9

after losing that weight and also IBS and so had a lot of health challenges to figure out for myself.

1:25.0

And yet still, light wasn't on my radar even throughout my time at Princeton where I completed my PhD in the

1:31.1

rabbinowitz lab studying metabolism and I really was interested in the

1:34.5

microbiome at that point too. I thought the microbiome was like the foundational

1:37.8

thing that we were missing and yet still light wasn't on my radar and then

1:41.8

after graduation I came across Dr.

1:44.8

Jack Cruz's work this was last April and completely just it changed my

...

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