The Quantum Based Podcast - With Dr Sara Pugh
Jul 27, 2026 · 53 min · 11 segments
Professor Glen Jeffery returns for Part 2 of our discussion on the science of light and human health. We explore how infrared and red light influence mitochondrial function, blood glucose regulation…
Glen JefferyGuest
Sarah PughHost
Well, that's a great introduction because in our last podcast, we went into quite a lot of detail and discussed the problems with the components in the very powerful red light panels.

We were just stating how you've just pointed out low level near infrared and natural sunlight is what's important.


It's slightly difficult to get over, but I work on something called mitochondria, which are these little batteries in your body, and there are vast numbers of them, and they respond to light.

And they work much harder when you're in daylight than they do when you're under LED lighting.

So after you have a meal, your blood sugars peak about 45 minutes to an hour afterwards.

If you get really big, sharp peaks, then what tends to happen is you move towards a pre-diabetic state.


Now, the converse happens, which is, if your mitochondria don't work very hard then they don't draw sugar out of your blood and your blood sugars peak so one of the things we've been able to do very successfully is go into work environments and change the lighting so just put a different light bulb or as architects call them luminaires, into your work environment and watch your blood sugars.

So what we've done, and I must admit, I'm exceedingly happy with it, is that by going into work environments where you've got a horrible kind of sharp LED light, and we change it for a light that looks the same, but we've actually put different LED in there to include infrared light then we can watch your blood glucose levels and your blood glucose levels go down it's very very clear so I think that it's always very very difficult to criticize something if you can't offer an alternative like what's the way out of this situation And I think we've successfully been able to do that just by, and it doesn't cost practically nothing, just changing the light bulb by adding, if you take an LED light and you pull it apart, you look in there, you've actually got about 10 or 15 LEDs.

We've just added a couple extra and they're the infrared ones and they're absolutely superb at controlling your blood sugars.

If your mitochondria get run down and don't work very well, well, they're the people, they're the objects that actually control your lifespan and control lots of other things.


Yeah, that's really important because what you've highlighted is that not everybody can just go outside when they want to.

Well, that's a great introduction because in our last podcast, we went into quite a lot of detail and discussed the problems with the components in the very powerful red light panels.

We were just stating how you've just pointed out low level near infrared and natural sunlight is what's important.


It's slightly difficult to get over, but I work on something called mitochondria, which are these little batteries in your body, and there are vast numbers of them, and they respond to light.

And they work much harder when you're in daylight than they do when you're under LED lighting.

So after you have a meal, your blood sugars peak about 45 minutes to an hour afterwards.

If you get really big, sharp peaks, then what tends to happen is you move towards a pre-diabetic state.


Now, the converse happens, which is, if your mitochondria don't work very hard then they don't draw sugar out of your blood and your blood sugars peak so one of the things we've been able to do very successfully is go into work environments and change the lighting so just put a different light bulb or as architects call them luminaires, into your work environment and watch your blood sugars.

So what we've done, and I must admit, I'm exceedingly happy with it, is that by going into work environments where you've got a horrible kind of sharp LED light, and we change it for a light that looks the same, but we've actually put different LED in there to include infrared light then we can watch your blood glucose levels and your blood glucose levels go down it's very very clear so I think that it's always very very difficult to criticize something if you can't offer an alternative like what's the way out of this situation And I think we've successfully been able to do that just by, and it doesn't cost practically nothing, just changing the light bulb by adding, if you take an LED light and you pull it apart, you look in there, you've actually got about 10 or 15 LEDs.

We've just added a couple extra and they're the infrared ones and they're absolutely superb at controlling your blood sugars.

If your mitochondria get run down and don't work very well, well, they're the people, they're the objects that actually control your lifespan and control lots of other things.


Yeah, that's really important because what you've highlighted is that not everybody can just go outside when they want to.
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