Madison Area Lyme Support Group

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Why Sunlight Is the Most Powerful Drug 

March, 2026

Explore what a single photon of sunlight does to your body the moment it touches your skin — and why the physics your grandmother never knew explains everything she told you.

This video explores vitamin D photosynthesis, circadian entrainment, and nitric oxide release. Learn how one broken chemical bond controls over 200 of your genes, and find out why indoor living is quietly weakening your bones, disrupting your sleep, and raising your blood pressure.

Whether you are curious about what is really happening inside your body, fascinated by physics, or looking for explanations that actually make sense, this will change how you understand the sun, your health, and the biology you were built with. Watch now to discover what nobody tells you about sunlight.

CHAPTERS

• 0:00 – Introduction
• 0:42 – One Photon, One Bond
• 2:21 The Vitamin D Factory
• 5:23 – The Latitude Problem
• 8:52 – Your Circadian Clock
• 14:49 – Serotonin, Mood, and Sleep
• 18:49 – Sunlight and Blood Pressure
• 22:35 – The Real Risk: UV and DNA
• 25:01 – Bones, Falls, and Immunity
• 28:52 – Conclusion

https://gregreese.substack.com/p/the-effects-of-light-on-the-human?

Clinicians also noted paradoxes: melanin in the skin reduces UV DNA damage (protective), but an abundance of melanin can correlate with melanoma (cancer) risk; neuromelanin in the brain might be protective in some ways but is lost in Parkinson’s disease, possibly contributing to degeneration. Melanin, the pigment, was behaving less like a static shield and more like a dynamic player – one with a dual nature that scientists didn’t yet fully grasp.

Such anomalies prompted a few intrepid thinkers to ask uncomfortable questions. Was it possible that melanin had a metabolic function – that it could, under the right conditions, act as an energy source or catalyst for life’s processes?

One of the early proponents [of melanin being an unrecognized bioenergetic molecule] was Geoffrey Goodman, who published a speculative paper in 2008 titled “Melanin directly converts light for vertebrate metabolic use”.

Dr. Arturo Solís Herrera, a Mexican ophthalmologist and biochemist, stumbled onto melanin’s secret while studying diseases of the eye. In the 1990s, Solís-Herrera was investigating the causes of blindness like glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy…..anatomists knew the back of the eye is pigmented. But what struck Solís-Herrera was a question: Why would nature put a dense ring of melanin 2.5 centimeters deep inside the head, effectively behind the light-sensitive retina? It’s like finding solar panels buried in a cave – seemingly out of place.  (See link for article)

SUMMARY:

After a 12 year research journey Herrera’s team:

• found melanin granules can dissociate water molecules, using light energy to split H₂O into hydrogen and oxygen – essentially the first step of photosynthesis.
• demonstrated melanin’s water-splitting in vitro and measured the currents and reaction products and laid out their findings that melanin represents over 90% of cell energy requirements – and that a vast majority of our ATP energy might come from light and water via melanin while glucose is used to build biomass.

Over time more concrete evidence trickled in:

• fungi that ‘eat’ radiation: melanin enabled fungus to harness radiation for metabolic energy – behaving like a broad-spectrum solar panel.
• melanin rich mouse skin cells could function with 83% fewer mitochondria and 30% lower respiration rate, yet developed similar to non-pigmented cells implying that melanin was compensating and providing energy through another route.
• it is hypothesized that the painted turtle can survive underwater without oxygen for months during winter hibernation due to the shell and skin containing melanin.
• seeds: life’s solar-powered time capsules. Why would dormant seeds buried in soil away from light need a ‘sunscreen’ pigment? 
• birds’ solar-powered eyes: darkly pigmented gel in a birds’ eye might directly convert light into metabolic energy to support the retina during 100 hours of flight without landing or eating.
• photomodulation in humans (hairlessness advantage): red and near-infared light boost mitochondrial activity and ATP, reduce inflammation, and activate certain genes related to metabolism.
• experiments by Dadachova’s group found that irradiating melanin with gamma, UV, visible, or infrared light all boosted the electron transfer rate – and to a similar extent regardless of the photon energy. This is telling: it suggests melanin absorbs across a broad spectrum (it is known to absorb UV through visible and into IR) and converts that absorbed energy into driving chemical reactions.
• a 2014 discovery showed mammals can absorb dietary chlorophyll metabolites which then accumulate in mitochondria, allowing cells to harvest light to enhance ATP production.
• Dr. Gerald Pollack’s research into the 4th phase of water—known as EZ water (Exclusion Zone water) opens the door to understanding how light, water, and pigment form a functional trinity at the heart of cellular energetics¹⁰.

This has far-reaching implications for health.

• A 2012 paper states: “a failure in [the] light/melanin/water system” was posited as a cause of AMD and Alzheimer’s disease¹¹. 
• some researchers think melatonin might synergize with melanin’s function to maintain mitochondrial health in the brain and retina. CF, metabolic syndromes, and developmental issues might involve melanin’s activity, opening new avenues for treatment: enhancing melanin’s function or compensating for its decline through light and other therapies.
• 2012 research showed that mice receiving just 50 mg/kg of melanin showed 100% greater survival at 30 days compared to untreated mice. Perhaps equally important, the melanin showed no toxicity even at double this dose (100 mg/kg), suggesting a remarkable safety profile.
• Another 2012 study showed 90% of mice fed a melanin-rich fungus one hour before exposing them to a massive 9 Gray dose of Cesium-137 radiation survived, but all control mice died within 13 days.  When the mice were fed white porcini mushrooms (which lack melanin but contain all the other bioactive mushroom compounds), they died almost as quickly as controls, but when the white mushrooms were supplemented with melanin, the mice gained the same radioprotection as those eating the melanized mushrooms, proving it was melanin that made the difference. (Chaga, Reishi and Turkey Tail mushrooms are all melanin dense, demonstrating anti-cancer and immune modulating properties)
• In 2015, researchers in Mexico demonstrated a prototype melanin battery which could lead to novel solar energy storage systems.