Professor Pelle Lindqvist has followed 29,000 Swedish women for 34 years. His conclusion: in northern countries, avoiding the sun may be as risky as smoking.

About this episode

Almost every guest on Sunlight Matters has quoted Pelle Lindqvist's work. In this episode Dave finally talks to the man himself.

Pelle is a professor and senior consultant at Södersjukhuset, Stockholm's South General Hospital. An obstetrician who specialises in blood clots, he has spent the past 20 years researching a question most of medicine stopped asking in the 1980s: what are the benefits of sun exposure?

He explains how a hunting trip with an oncologist friend led to one of the field's most-cited studies. He shares new findings that melanoma risk linked to sunbeds is higher among people who also overexpose and burn. He also explains why, after 20 years, he still struggles to get funding for research on sunlight's benefits.

In this episode

• How a hunting trip started a 34-year study of 29,000 Swedish women
• New findings: why melanoma risk among sunbed users is driven by overexposure, not sunbed use itself
• Why sunbed users in the cohort had around 18% lower all-cause mortality
• How Pelle uses a sunbed for a couple of minutes a week through the Swedish winter, "not to get a tan, just to continue to be in good health"
• Beyond vitamin D: the roles of nitric oxide and endorphins
• Sun habits and blood clots, and why the problem in the north is winter, not summer
• How sun exposure made its way into Swedish guidelines for pregnant women at risk of blood clots
• Why non-smoking sun avoiders had a similar life expectancy to smokers who got the most sun
• The growing evidence on sunlight, blood sugar and type 2 diabetes
• Why research into the sun's benefits goes "against the wind", and the risk of a structural bias in the science

Sunlight Matters is a podcast that explores the Sun's role in human health, architecture, cities, and everyday life.

Through conversations with scientists, architects, and technologists, the series examines how natural light shapes our bodies, our buildings, and how we live indoors.

Hosted by Dave Wallace, Sunlight Matters asks a simple but overlooked question: what happens when we disconnect from the Sun?

Because sunlight isn’t optional. It matters.

Please like and subscribe.

Disclaimer: Sunlight Matters is for information and general interest only. Nothing discussed on the podcast should be taken directly as medical, architectural or other professional advice.

What if sunlight deserves a place in the health conversation alongside sleep, exercise, and nutrition? And how do we weigh its potential benefits against the very real risks of too much exposure?

In this episode, Norwegian GP and author Torkil Færø joins Dave and Georg to discuss The Sun Cure, his latest book on sunlight, circadian rhythms and health. Torkil describes how his views changed after years of assuming sunlight had little benefit beyond vitamin D. He now believes its influence reaches much further, affecting a range of processes in the body, though many questions remain open to research and debate.

Georg shares what happened during his three-week sunrise experiment in Vienna. He used Shadowmap to find places to watch the sun rise, then tracked his light exposure and several health measures. He reports that his heart rate variability rose by 13%, his resting heart rate fell by 8%, and his Whoop recovery score improved by 25%. Torkil explains what HRV can tell us about the body’s response to stress and recovery, while the conversation considers what wearable data can—and cannot—show.

The discussion also examines skin cancer and how risk is communicated. Torkil questions how to interpret the gap between rising melanoma diagnoses and comparatively stable mortality, suggesting that changes in detection and diagnosis may be part of the picture. Georg brings a personal perspective, describing his diagnosis and how it changed his relationship with the sun. Together, they explore the tension between advice to avoid sun exposure and research into sunlight’s wider effects.

They discuss sunscreen, shade and sunburn, as well as the importance of distinguishing between different kinds of evidence. The episode does not offer a simple answer to the skin cancer debate; it asks how medical guidance is formed, how strongly it is supported, and how it might account for both the harms and possible benefits of sunlight.

In this episode

• Why Torkil began questioning what he had been taught about sunlight
• Georg’s sunrise routine in Vienna and the health measures he tracked
• What heart rate variability may reveal about recovery and physiological stress
• Sunlight, circadian rhythms and their possible effects across the body
• Why melanoma diagnoses have risen, and how that compares with mortality trends
• The role that screening, detection and overdiagnosis may play in those figures
• Georg’s experience of skin cancer and his changing relationship with sun exposure
• How to think about sunscreen, shade, sunburn and individual circumstances
• Why the sunlight debate can produce sharply different readings of the research
• Whether wearable technology and light-based products could bring more attention to sunlight

Sunlight Matters is a podcast exploring the role of the Sun in human health, architecture, cities, and everyday life.

Through conversations with scientists, architects, and technologists, the series examines how natural light shapes our bodies, our buildings, and the way we live indoors.

Hosted by Dave Wallace, Sunlight Matters asks a simple but overlooked question: what happens when we disconnect from the Sun?

Because sunlight isn’t optional. It matters.

Please do not forget to Like and Subscribe.

What makes a house feel like home? It is not simply the number of bedrooms, the size of the kitchen or the asking price. It is also the light that comes through the windows, the way the rooms feel throughout the day and whether the morning sun reaches the places where we live, work and wake up.

In this episode of Sunlight Matters, Dave Wallace and Georg Molzer are joined by Ariel Dos Santos, Chief Product and Design Officer at Redfin — one of the largest property platforms in the United States, with around 50 million monthly active users.

Ariel explains how Redfin is moving beyond showing people what a property looks like to helping them understand what it might actually be like to live there. That means bringing together information about neighbourhoods, climate, environmental risks and, increasingly, sunlight.

We hear how the partnership between Redfin and Shadowmap led to the launch of Sunscore: a simple property-level measure that helps buyers understand a home’s access to sunlight, with the option to explore the detail at different times of day and throughout the year.

Ariel also shares Redfin research showing that 67% of US residents consider sunlight an important part of how satisfied they are with their home. The conversation explores whether sunlight could eventually influence property values, how better environmental data can give estate agents new “superpowers”, and why buyers need this information before they move in — not after.

The discussion also looks further ahead. Could we identify the best places in a neighbourhood to find the morning sun? Could property searches eventually show whether sunlight will reach a particular bedroom window? And might greater awareness encourage architects and developers to design brighter, healthier homes?

Along the way, Ariel talks candidly about Redfin’s culture of experimentation, what it means to be a genuine pioneer, and why companies cannot expect people to take risks if failure is punished.

And, on a more personal note, he explains why he will always choose sunrise over sunset — and describes the rare moments when sunlight, cooking and discovering a great piece of music come together perfectly.

In this episode:

• How Redfin serves buyers, renters, sellers and homeowners across the entire property journey
• Why property search must explain what a home is like to live in
• The research showing how much sunlight matters to homeowners
• How Redfin and Shadowmap developed Sunscore
• Why a simple score can make complex sunlight data understandable
• How people use property information differently as they get closer to buying
• The possible relationship between sunlight and property value
• Using sunlight data for gardens, renovation and solar energy decisions
• The idea of community “sunspots” for finding morning light
• How better data could help architects create brighter homes
• Redfin’s approach to innovation, collaboration and intelligent risk-taking
• Why Ariel is firmly on the side of sunrise

Sunlight Matters is a podcast exploring the role of the Sun in human health, architecture, cities, and everyday life.

Through conversations with scientists, architects, and technologists, the series examines how natural light shapes our bodies, our buildings, and the way we live indoors.

Hosted by Dave Wallace, Sunlight Matters asks a simple but overlooked question: what happens when we disconnect from the Sun?

Because sunlight isn’t optional. It matters.

Please do not forget to Like and Subscribe.