Sure it works in real life, but does it work in a study?

The most recent book from investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson, Follow The $cience, explores what doctors are taught in medical school and beyond. She explains that it’s the pharmaceutical companies that publish the most popular reference books for med students; continuing medical education classes are designed by the same industry.

Most alarming is her description of the way medical research (the basis of medical scholarship) is hopelessly corrupted.

• Drug companies and their researchers commonly tweak or manipulate the datasets, study parameters, or math to make negative results appear more positive;
• Drugmakers write into research contracts the power to block the study from being published if they don’t like the results;
• Researchers often do a study repeatedly until they achieve the desired results. Consumers have no way to know how many studies were done that showed no benefit, or even harm, before the study produced positive results.  

Attkisson also references the remarkable paper published in 2023 that showed about 25% of medical research studies are simply made up.

Still, in my estimation, this isn’t the biggest problem.

Here is a nice picture of me eating outside. Mealtime is not only a free moment to accumulate more sun exposure, but also there is real science behind spending life outdoors.

The sunlight that reaches the Earth’s surface is about 55% near infrared (NIR) light. People who eat food under NIR light experience an increase of blood glucose 25% lower compared to eating indoors. On the flip side, food eaten in artificial light causes blood sugar and insulin levels to spike higher compared to neutral lighting.

Natural light is so central to our health that, according to celebrity neurosurgeon Dr. Jack Kruse, what is taught in medical school is actually ​99 percent wrong​. He argues that medical research fails because it doesn’t control for light.

For example, studies examining diet and exercise as drivers of obesity are incomplete if they don’t also consider how blue light exposure at night disrupts sleep patterns, circadian rhythms, and the hunger hormones leptin and ghrelin. Research linking depression to genetic or biochemical factors miss the influence of too much artificial light and not enough natural sunlight on serotonin levels. Finally, clinical trials assessing the effects of medications or interventions for chronic disease, like diabetes, don’t consider how light exposure affects insulin sensitivity and glucose metabolism.

The bro scientists who operate 20 years or more ahead of medical orthodoxy have known for decades what works in the real world. Only doctors demand to know if it also works in a study.