This work by Dr. Kruse implies that light is not merely illumination but a primary organizing input through which the Sun and Earth regulate human timing, hormones, mitochondria, metabolism, repair, and disease - making our modern artificial-light environment potentially as biologically consequential as the food we eat. There are far reaching implications:
I've summarized this video via TWO different schools of thought. One is the "mainstream-ish" presentation he gives, the SECOND is through a harmonic aether model of physics (which is more accurate than current mainstream cognition):
Jack Kruse’s Photobiology Argument in Plain Language (click to expand; mainstream science explanation)
Jack Kruse’s Photobiology Argument in Plain Language
Jack Kruse’s central argument is that human health is governed not only by food, exercise, and genes, but also by the timing and color composition of the light reaching the eyes and skin. In his view, sunlight is a major biological control signal, while modern artificial lighting often delivers the wrong colors at the wrong times.
The eye, in this model, is much more than a camera. It contains light-sensitive cells that regulate the body clock (intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells, or ipRGCs). These cells communicate with the brain’s master timekeeper (the suprachiasmatic nucleus, or SCN), which then influences sleep, hormones, appetite, temperature, immune activity, and energy use. This is why Kruse places such importance on seeing natural morning light soon after waking.
Natural sunlight changes throughout the day. Near sunrise, the light contains visible red and infrared wavelengths before stronger ultraviolet light appears. Kruse argues that this changing sequence helps prepare the body in stages. Morning light sets the biological clock (circadian entrainment), red and near-infrared light influence cellular energy systems (photobiomodulation), and later ultraviolet-A light affects blood vessels and chemical signaling through nitric oxide.
Nitric oxide is a signaling molecule that helps widen blood vessels (vasodilation), regulate blood pressure, and temporarily alter mitochondrial respiration. Mitochondria are the structures that convert food-derived electrons into usable cellular energy (adenosine triphosphate, or ATP). Kruse emphasizes that mitochondria do more than make ATP: they also produce metabolic water, regulate oxidation and reduction chemistry (redox state), generate signaling molecules, and respond to light.
Red and near-infrared light can influence a mitochondrial enzyme involved in respiration (cytochrome-c oxidase, or complex IV). Ultraviolet-A light can release nitric oxide from stores in the skin, which can temporarily slow complex IV. Kruse interprets the daily solar spectrum as a coordinated system that alternately stimulates and restrains energy production rather than leaving mitochondria permanently accelerated.
The retina is especially rich in a structural fat called docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). DHA helps organize photoreceptor membranes and supports the rapid electrical and chemical changes involved in vision. The eye also depends on a vitamin-A-derived light-sensitive molecule (retinaldehyde), which changes shape when it absorbs light. Kruse uses these facts to argue that light, DHA, vitamin A, and mitochondrial function are inseparable parts of one biological system.
This is the background for his deliberately provocative statement that “blue light makes you fat.” He does not mean that every blue wavelength is inherently harmful. Morning and daytime blue light are necessary for alertness and clock-setting. His deeper claim is that excessive blue-rich light at night can confuse the body’s timing system, suppress nighttime melatonin, alter appetite and insulin responses, reduce restorative sleep, and change how energy is stored or burned.
In other words, the same food may be handled differently depending on the biological time at which it is eaten. A body receiving bright daytime light and darkness at night may partition energy differently from a body exposed to dim days, indoor lighting, screens, and bright evenings. Kruse therefore treats obesity partly as a disorder of biological timing and mitochondrial signaling, not simply as a failure of willpower or calorie counting.
He also argues that water inside cells is an active part of this system. Proteins, membranes, and mitochondrial structures are surrounded by organized water. Light absorbed by molecules can be converted into vibration, heat, pressure, and sound-like motion (photoacoustic and electromechanical conversion). Changes in water structure, membrane shape, and mitochondrial architecture can therefore affect how efficiently electrons move through the respiratory system.
Kruse extends this reasoning to environmental electromagnetic fields. He distinguishes natural solar and terrestrial signals from artificial lighting, radiofrequency fields, screen flicker, and other man-made exposures. His position is that biological effects depend on frequency, intensity, timing, modulation, and the condition of the receiving tissue - not merely on whether a field is officially classified as ionizing or non-ionizing.
He also raises the possibility that the brain interacts with natural low-frequency electromagnetic activity surrounding Earth, especially the Earth-ionosphere cavity resonance known as the Schumann resonance. Its lowest mode lies near 7.8 hertz, close to the lower edge of human alpha brain activity. Kruse sees this as evidence that biology may be synchronized not only to the solar day but also to broader environmental rhythms.
The practical conclusion is straightforward: obtain outdoor light soon after waking, spend more of the day outside, allow the eyes to receive natural daylight without staring at the sun, reduce bright and blue-rich artificial light after sunset, sleep in darkness, and align eating and activity with daytime. Skin exposure, red or infrared light, sauna, and grounding are additional tools within his system, but the foundation is the restoration of a natural light-dark cycle.
Kruse’s overall message is that light is not merely something that allows us to see. It is environmental information and biological energy that helps determine when hormones are released, how mitochondria operate, how tissues repair themselves, how appetite is regulated, and how the body distributes energy.
Jack Kruse’s Argument in Terms of a Harmonic Aether Model (click to expand)
Jack Kruse’s Argument in Terms of a Harmonic Aether Model
In terms of a harmonic aether model, Jack Kruse’s argument can be understood as a theory of biological resonance. The body is not an isolated chemical machine. It is an organized pattern within a continuous physical medium, receiving and responding to waves produced by the Sun, Earth, atmosphere, and surrounding environment.
In this model, light is a propagating disturbance in the underlying medium rather than a collection of tiny independent objects. Different colors correspond to different frequencies and wavelengths of that disturbance. Matter - including proteins, water, membranes, DNA, and cells - consists of stable or semi-stable patterns capable of absorbing, redirecting, storing, and re-emitting those waves.
The eye and skin therefore function as resonant receiving systems. Their molecules are shaped to respond to particular parts of the solar spectrum. Light-sensitive proteins (opsins), vitamin-A-derived chromophores (retinaldehyde), aromatic molecular rings, pigments, and membrane fats such as DHA act as frequency-selective receivers.
When light reaches one of these structures, it does not simply “deliver information” in an abstract sense. It changes the physical state of the receiver. The absorbed wave may alter molecular shape, electrical charge, vibration, pressure, water organization, chemical reaction rates, or the timing of a larger biological oscillator.
The eye is especially important because it connects the external solar rhythm to the body’s central timing network. Specialized retinal cells detect environmental light and influence the brain’s master clock (the suprachiasmatic nucleus, or SCN). That clock then coordinates slower oscillators throughout the nervous system, endocrine glands, organs, mitochondria, and individual cells.
This is a process of phase locking (entrainment). Just as one pendulum can synchronize another, the changing daily spectrum of sunlight helps synchronize internal biological rhythms. Morning light establishes the beginning of the active phase. Daylight reinforces it. Darkness allows nighttime processes to proceed.
Natural sunlight is not a single unchanging signal. Its spectrum changes in an ordered sequence as the Sun rises and moves across the sky. Red and infrared wavelengths, visible light, ultraviolet-A, and ultraviolet-B appear in different proportions at different times. In a harmonic aether interpretation, this sequence is comparable to a changing musical progression rather than a single sustained note.
Different wavelengths interact with different biological receivers. Red and near-infrared light can alter mitochondrial respiration and redox signaling. Ultraviolet-A can release nitric oxide from the skin, changing blood flow and temporarily modifying mitochondrial activity. Blue light strongly stimulates retinal timing pathways. The total biological result depends on the order, timing, strength, and duration of these signals.
Mitochondria can be viewed as microscopic resonant converters. They accept electrons from food, maintain a membrane voltage, organize molecular machinery, produce ATP, generate metabolic water, and release heat and signaling molecules. Their efficiency depends on membrane structure, hydration, redox balance, lipid organization, and the geometric arrangement of respiratory proteins.
From this perspective, food does not operate independently of the surrounding field environment. Food supplies material and electrons, but the light environment helps determine how those electrons are processed. A well-timed natural light cycle may support coherent energy transfer, while poorly timed artificial light may create phase conflict among the body’s clocks and energy systems.
This is the deeper meaning of Kruse’s statement that blue light can make a person fat. Blue light during the biological day is useful and necessary. Blue-rich light at night may force daytime timing signals into a system preparing for darkness. That mismatch can disrupt melatonin, sleep, appetite, insulin sensitivity, mitochondrial activity, brown-fat heat production, and the timing of eating.
In harmonic terms, the problem is not merely “too much blue.” It is resonance applied at the wrong phase. A push delivered to a swing at the right time increases organized motion; the same push delivered at the wrong time can oppose, destabilize, or scramble the motion.
Water is central because it surrounds proteins, membranes, and mitochondria and can carry electrical, vibrational, thermal, and acoustic changes. Absorbed light can be converted into molecular vibration and pressure waves (photoacoustic conversion). This provides a physical bridge between light, sound, protein movement, membrane behavior, and cellular chemistry.
The body is therefore a hierarchy of coupled oscillators. Molecular vibrations interact with membranes. Membranes regulate ion movement. Ion movement creates electrical potentials. Electrical potentials influence nerves and tissue organization. Neural rhythms regulate hormones and behavior. Hormones alter metabolism and gene expression. Each level influences the others.
Kruse’s interest in the Schumann resonance also fits this framework. The Earth and ionosphere form a vast resonant cavity with a lowest mode near 7.8 hertz. Human brain rhythms include activity near this range. Numerical similarity alone does not prove coupling, but a harmonic aether model provides a plausible physical question: can a weak planetary oscillation entrain a highly sensitive biological oscillator under the right conditions?
Artificial electromagnetic environments must likewise be evaluated by their detailed wave structure. Frequency, amplitude, modulation, pulse shape, timing, polarization, and near-field geometry may all matter. Two sources with the same average power can interact differently with a resonant biological receiver.
The practical conclusion remains simple. Human biology was formed primarily for bright days, changing natural spectra, terrestrial electromagnetic rhythms, and dark nights. Restoring morning sunlight, daytime outdoor exposure, evening darkness, regular sleep, and daytime eating helps return the organism to the environmental waveform for which its coupled oscillators were developed.
In this view, health is partly the maintenance of organized resonance. Disease can emerge when biological patterns lose timing, coherence, or proper coupling to their environment. Light, water, membranes, mitochondria, electrical gradients, and hormones are not separate systems. They are successive stages by which one continuous medium transfers motion and organization across scales.