My guest is Dr. Roger Seheult, M.D., a board-certified physician in internal medicine, pulmonary diseases, critical care, and sleep medicine at Loma Linda University. We discuss the powerful benefits of light therapy, including infrared light, red light, and sunlight, for improving mitochondrial function in all the body’s organs. We also explore ways to reduce the risk of influenza, colds, and other illnesses that affect the lungs, sinuses, and gut. Topics include the flu shot, whether handwashing truly prevents illness transmission, and treatments for long COVID and mold toxicity. We review the efficacy of N-acetylcysteine (NAC), the power of hydrotherapy for combating infections, and strategies for improving sleep and overall health. Additionally, we discuss air quality. This episode provides actionable, science-based tools for preventing and treating infectious illnesses. Read the full show notes for this episode at hubermanlab.com. Sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman Joovv: https://joovv.com/huberman Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/huberman LMNT: https://drinklmnt.com/huberman Function: https://functionhealth.com/huberman Our Place: https://fromourplace.com/huberman Timestamps 00:00:00 Dr. Roger Seheult 00:02:16 Avoiding Sickness, Immune System, Tool: Pillars of Health, NEWSTART 00:08:03 Sponsors: Joovv & Eight Sleep 00:10:46 Sunlight, Mitochondria, Tool: Infrared Light & Melatonin 00:19:09 Melatonin Antioxidant, Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS)/Free Radicals 00:26:38 Infrared Light, Green Spaces, Health & Mortality 00:31:35 Infrared Light, Mitochondrial Dysfunction, Disease 00:38:46 Sunlight & Cancer Risk?, Tools: UV Light, Clothing & Sunlight Exposure 00:41:01 Sponsors: AG1 & LMNT 00:43:32 Sunlight, Incidence of Influenza or COVID 00:48:41 Tools: Sunlight Exposure Duration, Winter Months 00:55:18 Infrared Lamps?, Winter Sunlight Exposure; Obesity & Metabolic Dysfunction 00:59:48 Cloudy Days; Sunlight, Primitive Therapy, Hospitals 01:11:33 Sponsor: Function 01:13:21 Artificial Lights, Hospitals & Light Therapy?, ICU Psychosis 01:22:16 Sleep & Darkness, Tools: Eye Mask, Bathroom Navigation; Meals & Light 01:28:27 Influenza, Flu Shots, Swiss Cheese Model; Flu Shot Risks? 01:38:13 Masks?, Flu; Handwashing 01:42:16 Sponsor: Our Place 01:43:57 Water, Sodium; Innate Immune System, Fever & Hydrotherapy 01:53:46 Fever, Heat Hydrotherapy, Interferon & Immune System 01:58:25 Cold Hydrotherapy, Vasoconstriction & White Blood Cells 02:09:56 N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC), Glutathione, White Clots, Flu, Covid 02:19:28 Tool: NAC Dose & Regimen; Mucous, Flu Symptoms 02:25:25 Zinc Supplementation, Copper; Exogenous Interferon 02:28:40 Eucalyptus Oil, Inhalation 02:32:22 Air, Smoking, Vaping, Nicotine Gum 02:36:49 Fresh Air, Forest Bathing, Tool: Go Outdoors 02:40:09 Nature vs Inside Environments, Dark Days/Bright Nights Problem 02:52:38 Long COVID, Mitochondrial Dysfunction, Intermittent Fasting, Sunlight 03:00:43 Covid & Varied Severity, Smell Loss Recovery 03:05:04 Mold Toxicity, Lungs, Germ vs Terrain Theory, Immunocompromised 03:11:46 Trust, Spirituality, Community, Faith; Forgiveness 03:19:46 Hospital Admission, Tool: Asking Questions 03:25:42 Zero-Cost Support, YouTube, Spotify & Apple Follow & Reviews, Sponsors, YouTube Feedback, Protocols Book, Social Media, Neural Network Newsletter Disclaimer & Disclosures
Chapter 1: Who is Dr. Roger Seheult and what is his expertise?
Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Roger Schwelt.
Dr. Roger Schwelt is a board-certified medical doctor in pulmonology, which is the understanding and treatment of conditions that impact the respiratory system, such as colds, flus, and other viruses, mold infections, asthma, and more. Dr. Schwelt is also board-certified in sleep medicine.
He does his clinical work in the intensive care unit at Loma Linda University, and he is actively involved in medical and public health education through his terrific online channel called MedCram. Today, we discuss how to avoid getting colds, flus, and other viruses, and how to treat them to minimize discomfort, accelerate healing, and avoid long-term consequences.
During today's episode, we discuss long COVID as well as the use of sun and red light to stimulate mitochondrial and therefore metabolic health across the entire brain and body. That opens up a broader discussion about phototherapy, which is the use of light to control health and temperature and other levers for improving brain and bodily function.
Dr. Schwell emphasizes that sun and red light therapy have a long and well-established medical history and their mechanisms of action are known. And therefore it's not just biohacking as many people think. We also discussed the sometimes controversial topic of the flu shot and if and when you should get one.
Dr. Schwelt, as you'll soon hear, is world-class at making medical concepts and the actionable items related to health exceptionally clear. As a consequence, I'm certain that you'll truly appreciate the knowledge that he shares in your efforts to be and stay healthy at any age.
In fact, by the end of today's episode, you'll be armed with the real knowledge on how to best get over nasty infections of the sinuses, lungs, and throat faster, should you happen to get one, and even better, how to avoid them altogether. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.
It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, this episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dr. Roger Schwelt. Dr. Roger Schwelt, welcome.
Thank you so much, Andrew, for having me.
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Chapter 2: What are the pillars of health according to the NEWSTART acronym?
So I know about her sayings a little bit because she was the founder of Loma Linda University, which is where I went to school. But just we had this knowledge. As you said, we had hospitals that were designed specifically to get people out of the hospital and into the sunlight. You could see the architecture was designed for this. Why don't we do this today?
I think we ought to, but I kind of have a sense. You asked the question, why don't we do this today? I have patients that I take care of now that I understand this. I have patients that I have in the intensive care unit that I want to get outside in the sunlight. I actually try to get them out. It's difficult to do. These people are critical.
The people that we admit to the hospitals today are far sicker than the people that we admitted to sanitariums and hospitals in the 1800s. You have to make sure that they don't desaturate. You got to take the oxygen tank out there with them. You've got to make sure that they don't have a code. I mean, you're outside, right?
So you're outside of the bowels of the hospital where your support system is. It's a little bit of a risk to get those patients out there. Nevertheless, I've convinced some of my hospital staff to do that. And I've had a number of success stories where we've had patients that were ready to be intubated.
And we got them outside in the sunlight, and they steadily improved dramatically after days of getting worse. And they got better. There was a lady that actually contacted me. Her name is Amy Honmeyer, H-O-N-M-Y-H-R, if you want to look her up. She's on social media. Her son, this is a really amazing story. Her son basically at the age of 15 got leukemia. got put on chemotherapy.
And this was in Minnesota. Fortunately, it was in the summertime. And he got admitted to the hospital with what they call neutropenic fever. Very high fevers, very low white counts as a result of the chemotherapy. And his immune system was completely shot. And unfortunately, he developed a very severe fungal infection in his lung called mucor.
It just basically eats up the lung, goes right to the blood vessels. He got so bad that there was only one solution that they had at the time, and that was to take out the left lung. So they took out the left lung, and he continued to get worse. The right lung became infected. He started to get worse, had higher fevers. They had a meeting with the family, 15 years old, completely with it.
realizing that he's dying and they have to tell him that he's dying so they made him what they call no code or dnr and uh the staff came to him and you can imagine and i've been in this position before where you're trying to do everything you possibly can and you just you can't do anything else so they came to him the 15 year old and they said you know this is it do you have any basically last wishes and you know amy his mom told me that he'd like to play outside so he told them
Without any knowledge about what we've just been talking about. This is his dying wish. Take me outside. I just want to go outside. And you know that nursing staff will move heaven and earth to do something that the patient requests to do. even though it's not going to benefit them. This is dying wish. They're going to do it. So they hooked up oxygen tanks.
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Chapter 3: How does sunlight impact mitochondrial function and health?
We should be able to identify it. We should be able to go and biopsy it. We should be able to go and collect it. And if that's exactly what grows out on the culture after we take a biopsy or a culture, then we can tailor antifungals for that particular thing.
In the sense, though, that someone may be having symptoms of some sort of infection or something and there's nothing on the CAT scan, it's harder to really isolate exactly which one it would be and what would be the right treatment. Although there are some syndromes known as RADs or reactive airways disease, where you can have an exposure to something that's so egregious
that even though you don't get exposed to that thing again, it can still cause persistent difficulty with breathing. It's very similar, by the way, to asthma. So for instance, let's say someone's working in a vat, and there's a chemical that's spilled, and they get an incredible amount of inhalation of that chemical.
It's well known that these people can go on and have these types of problems, even though their lungs may image correctly, and they may never be exposed to that chemical again.
Let's talk about the T in New Start, trust. You talked about higher power. You talked about community. You talked about connection generally and specifically. I've always been struck by how the belief system – can impact our physical health.
We recently had Dr. Ellen Langer on the podcast from Harvard who's done incredible studies really about how beliefs can shape our physical health in any number of different ways. What is your clinical observation of people who are ill, severely ill, mildly ill.
And the role that trust in, you know, fill in the blank, you can fill in the blank, has in terms of the severity of their symptoms and the rate at which they recover. And hopefully they do recover.
Yeah, they do. Some of the times, sometimes they don't. We can't help that, but you do the best that we can. No, it does help quite a bit. So people who have a a network, people that have faith, people that have community, have that strength that allows them to get through those very difficult times. There's been a number of studies that have looked at this.
You'd think that this area is kind of nebulous and hard to study. No, there's actually some pretty good data on this. And I think back to a number of studies that have been done and where they looked at thankfulness and the mind-body connection. People who are more thankful have less somatic complaints, for instance, than those that are not.
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