International Perspective on Healthy Lighting: From Scientific Discoveries to Public Action

Recently, Nightingale, a medical lighting brand in the United States, officially released a new product - a lamp designed specifically for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examination rooms. This product has successfully adapted to MRI environments, opening up a more precise and in-depth niche for adapting lighting products for medical settings.

  In the MRI examination room, the lighting equipment not only needs to resist the physical interference of strong magnetic fields and minimize the safety risks caused by magnetic attraction, but also needs to have built-in filters to suppress electromagnetic noise. In addition, the lamp also creates a peaceful "natural light" space for patients through more optimized optical design. The light and color flow like dawn and dusk, and the sky seems to be within reach, helping patients resist the psychological fear caused by the confined environment during the examination process and soothing their anxiety and tension. The launch of this product is also another practical application of health concepts in lighting products.

  The discovery and exploration of the mechanism of the impact of light on health by humans have been studied for a long time. As early as 1729, scientists first recorded the phenomenon of endogenous circadian rhythms in living organisms - the opening and closing cycle of mimosa plants remains about 24 hours in continuous darkness, suggesting that there is an invisible clock hidden in the body of life. In 2017, American scientists Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash, and Michael Young were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of the molecular mechanisms that control circadian rhythms, confirming the existence of an "invisible clock" in living organisms at the molecular level. Subsequently, further research revealed the "keyhole" of this clock - the ipRGC cells on the human retina. They are not responsible for imaging, but can perceive the brightness, intensity, and variation period of light? It transmits light and dark signals to the circadian rhythm center of the brain, regulates melatonin secretion, and thus influences our wakefulness and drowsiness, allowing humans to follow the natural rhythm of "working at sunrise and resting at sunset".

  Based on these findings, the law of how light affects health has been elevated from a scientific conjecture to a universal consensus in both Chinese and foreign academic circles: bright daylight should be like a gushing spring, and dark night should be like a flowing ink - this is no longer a poetic metaphor, but a hard constraint related to the rhythm of life.

  To this day, some countries' public health and standardization organizations have taken the lead in accumulating evidence and early translation work. The French National Health Security Agency has conducted a systematic assessment of the health risks associated with LED lighting and blue light exposure; The UK Health and Safety Agency participated in the development of the CIE S 026/E: 2018 standard published by the International Commission on Illumination, providing a unified measurement framework for light reactions affected by ipRGC; The German Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health focuses on real-life work scenarios and incorporates the impact of light exposure on employees into quantitative analysis.