Glass Tinting Harms Human Health

Many times in the zeal to implement scientific progress for the benefit of humankind we end up actually causing harm instead. For instance as I discuss in my other article on Fluoride and Dental Health, fluoride was shown to lower rates of tooth decay but does not actually do it by much (maybe about 25%) nor does it in a way that is proven to be healthy—arsenic would also lower rates of tooth decay, but we wouldn’t add that to dental products because everyone understands how poisonous arsenic is, and fluoride is not much different, being extremely reactive and potentially contributing to neurological disease, suppression of the commensal microbiome, disrupting the immune system, mental health disorders, etc.

Just like water fluoridation was well intended but actually quite harmful, the tinting of windows in new residential and commercial construction as mandated often by law in order to increase the energy use efficiency of buildings is also not actually that effective (about 25% also, probably) but also causes significant harm to human health. Often these policies are supported and championed by people who claim to uphold science, and yet are only doing so because institutions which implement these policies say it is supported by science and not because they have actually gone and looked at the actual studies which address these issues, which is why only ONE country in the entirety of the European Union actually fluoridates their water, because the truth is that there was never good science which justified adding the MOST reactive element to human drinking water. What most people do not know concerning light and policies regulating windows and construction is that our biology is designed to respond sensitively to the specific wavelength composition of light that we are exposed to—this is remnant biology inherited from our ancestors which helped raise or lower the metabolic rate at times of year which were associated with abundance or absence of food in the environment. Many animals still hibernate, and although we long ago evolved an anti-hibernation response the levels of light still affects our metabolic rate through the effect of light on organs like the brain and pineal gland, thyroid, thymus, and directly influences the composition of gut microbes which are required for a healthy gut and the ability to break down food. If our brain and body are so dependent on light, what effect does it have on our health when we spend all our time behind glass which filters out the very wavelengths which are required for our biological health every bit as much as nutrients in food?

One of the major systems in the body which is affected by the composition of light exposure is the reproductive organs and libido, and organs like the testes which produce the majority of testosterone in males respond actively to light exposure and the composition of light quality, and exposure to red light is shown to increase sperm health and motility while exposure to blue light does the opposite and lowers spermatogenesis. Window tinting (especially contemporary tinting) which is occurring right now all across the world specifically filters out the red, far red, and infrared spectrums of light which promote human health and functions like spermatogenesis, which has the effect of shifting the quantity of light that enters a room or building to that which is green and blue which are those that actively inhibit human metabolic pathways, effectively tricking our body into thinking that we are always in wintertime and thus downregulates the metabolic rate accordingly, to help us better survive what it perceives and has evolved to survive as a time of reduced nutritional availability in the environment. This chronic, endless lowering of the metabolic rate then prevents the body from ever fully regenerating stressed and damaged tissue, restoring the healthy microbiome, and supporting robust immune and reproductive function.

Additionally, the composition of wavelength of light directly affects emotional and mental health, with both UV and Red light shown to alleviate depression. This specifically occurs because long wavelength light like red light stimulates energy production by cells while UV and blue spectrum promotes energy consumption pathways which use it, but having only one, or neither, such as what is achieved by window tinting then strongly disrupts metabolic function (there are no studies which explore the effects of living behind tinted glass, which is why I am writing this article) so severely it can be extremely difficult to reverse metabolic dysfunction for those who are confined to indoor spaces behind heavily tinted glass.

One response to this problem might be to encourage people to go outside more often, and indeed that is exactly what my book recommends, suggesting that a minimum of two full hours of exposure to sunlight at hours and durations which do not risk sunburn is required daily for the optimum function of human biology. Many people on the internet suggest that as little as 15 to 20 minutes is all that is needed, which leads people to think that simply walking from the parking lot to their building twice a day while fully clothed is more than enough, then wonder why they contract metabolic disease, depression, and other health problems. This woefully insufficient recommendation is based on studies on vitamin D, which have shown that very little time exposed to intense sunlight such as the middle of the day can produce large quantities of vitamin D in the skin, which is true, but light exposure is more than just its effect on vitamin D levels and also includes the response of organs like the pineal gland, pituitary gland, raphe nucleus, thyroid, thymus, gametes, etc., to light exposure which instead requires many hours daily in order to PREVENT our biological response to light deficiency or changes in light wavelength composition as an adaptive survival mechanism concerning human evolutionary biology which the tinting of windows directly antagonizes and thus triggers downregulation of important metabolic pathways and functions to both initiate and sustain disease.

While energy conservation is a worthy cause it should NOT come at the expense of people’s health and wellbeing, and living in apartments and homes with tinted glass is like constantly living in a car and will make it impossible to get well, even when going outside constantly, because entering the filtered environment IMMEDIATELY shifts the body’s metabolic function in response to that light exposure. If you do live in an apartment or home with tinted glass you can mitigate the harms by having several bright lamps in the warm spectrum (not heat—color temperature, of 3000k or less) near you as you go about your day such as at your desk or by a couch, and going outside as much as possible. Tinting of glass to promote energy efficiency at maximum only probably improves efficiency by about 25%, which is not enough to justify the harm it causes to human wellbeing. Efficiency could be 100% if you just have no windows at all, but nobody wants that for the same reason that we shouldn’t even want it to be 25%, because the efficiency achieved is achieved by taking out factors we actually need to be healthy. Policies and standards should be rewritten to accommodate human health, without exceptions, and instead use traditional strategies like awnings, shutters, blinds, and trees and plants to block direct sunlight at the hottest times of day.

Especially as renewable energies come to dominate the energy industry, which are more efficient than combustion technologies, it is becoming easier and cheaper than ever to produce sufficient energy to supply our needs without requiring sacrifice or harm to human health, and policymakers and advocates should always consider science which investigates potential harm and not ONLY benefits as they have been doing, because the costs of failing that due diligence can and will be enormous.