The amount and quality of light you're exposed to every day can have an enormous impact on your health. The healthiest light, of course, is natural sunlight, which has a number of benefits beyond the making of vitamin D in your skin. Unfortunately, most of us spend very little time outdoors during the daytime, thereby missing this important health component.

What's worse, most have replaced their incandescent light bulbs — which most closely resemble full spectrum analog natural sunlight — with energy-saving light-emitting diode (LED) lights, which have a number of detrimental biological effects.

LEDs emit a large amount of aggressive blue light that generates high amounts of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and oxidative stress, and are devoid of near-infrared light that would help counteract some of that damage.

Here, I review some of the top dangers of LED lights, and provide guidance for how to remediate these issues to protect your health. Above, I've also included my October 2016 interview with Dr. Alexander Wunsch, a world class expert on photobiology, in which he reveals the hidden dangers of LED lighting that most people are completely unaware of.

The main problem with LEDs comprises two aspects: First, they emit excessive amounts of blue wavelengths, which are embedded in other wavelengths and therefore invisible to the naked eye and, second, their spectrum lacks the counterbalancing healing and regenerative near-infrared frequencies. They have very little red in them, and no infrared, which is the wavelength required for repair and regeneration.

When you are exposed to these higher amounts of blue light frequencies they catalyze excess ROS formation that contributes to biologic damage. So, when using LEDs, you end up with increased cellular damage and decreased repair and regeneration. The end result, as one would expect, is a higher risk for chronic disease and an impaired ability to heal.

Danger No. 1: LED Lighting Deteriorates Vision

As mentioned, virtually all LED lighting bulbs have no near-infrared frequencies to balance their blue light frequencies. The near-infrared frequencies are especially valuable for healing and affect your health in a number of important ways. In your eyes, near-infrared helps priming your retinal cells for repair and regeneration.

In addition, LEDs emit an excess of digital blue light, that in combination with a deficiency of the near infrared frequencies, generates ROS. Taken together, this explains why LEDs are so harmful for your eyes in particular.

You probably know that blue light in the evening reduces your melatonin production in your pineal gland. But you also have cells in your retina that are responsible for producing melatonin in order to help regenerate your retina during the night.