Photobiomodulation - How You Can Use Red Light Therapy To Improve Your Health
IF Insider No. 55
In our last issue (IF Insider No. 54) we looked at using the natural light from the sun to enhance your health and wellbeing. In this issue, we’ll be examining another kind of light therapy known as photobiomodulation, which uses red light for health and healing.
For our premium subscribers, in this week’s Research Spotlight, coffee is once again making the news, this time with a new study that found a whopping 30% decrease in your chances of dying from any disease if you are a coffee drinker. We’ll be bringing our premium subscribers all the details, including exactly how much coffee you should be drinking to possibly enjoy this longevity benefit.
The term photobiomodulation comes from the Greek word “photo” meaning light, and “bio” meaning life, again from the Greek. Modulation means to adjust or regulate. So with photobiomodulation, you are using light to adjust or regulate life.
Plus our paid subscribers also get one of Ellen’s recipes each month and access to a live Q&A call. Last month, we brought you Ellen’s recipe for a savory Roasted Red Pepper pesto with toasted pecans and sun-dried tomatoes, and this month, to stay cool we’ll be spotlighting her Chocolate Olive Oil Plant-Based Ice Cream recipe. Yes, you read that right…olive oil! And no, it doesn’t taste like olive oil but has that creamy, smooth texture you so crave in real ice cream.
The paid option also includes a monthly live Q&A call with Ellen and Denise held on the second Tuesday of each month at 12 Noon Eastern (9 AM Pacific) time. The next call is on Tuesday, August 9, 2022.
Looking for a supportive group that “gets” your interest in IF and other cutting-edge health information? Our free intermittent fasting Facebook group, with over 1800 members, is a wealth of info, in addition to our Fast Factor Circle membership.
Using Red Light Therapy For Health
Photobiomodulation, often abbreviated simply as PMB, simply means the use of red and near infra-red light over an area of the body that is injured or has a wound or even over aging skin, to improve wound healing, speed recovery after injury, to reduce pain and inflammation and to reduce fine lines and increase collagen production in skin. You will also sometimes see it referred to as low-level laser therapy (LLLT) and also low-power laser therapy (LPLT) but these are all referring to the same thing.
PMB was actually discovered in 1967, a few years after the laser was invented. A researcher in Hungary was interested to see if skin exposed to a low-powered laser beam would develop cancer. So he took two groups of mice and shaved off an area of hair on their backs and for one group exposed them to the laser while the other group got no treatment. To his surprise, the mice which were exposed to the laser not only didn’t develop cancer but the hair grew back much faster on the treated mice than on the controls who did not get the treatment.
In the 1990s, red light was used in space when scientists discovered they could use LED red lights to stimulate plant growth. So then space scientists got interested to see if the use of red light could help alleviate muscle atrophy, slow wound healing, and decrease bone density caused by weightlessness during space travel. The answer was yes, and they discovered the reason for this effect is that red light works by actually increasing the energy inside human cells.
The mitochondria inside your cells are the source of your body’s energy. They are tiny intracellular organelles where the energy in the form of ATP (adenosine triphosphate) that your body needs is actually produced. Your mitochondria are known as the powerhouses of your cells. Red light actually strengthens your mitochondria and allows your mitochondria to make more ATP.
There is a large protein enzyme in your mitochondria called cytochrome c oxidase and it’s the last step in the complex process of extracting energy from food. By this point in the process, all the atoms have been removed and there are just a few electrons, which are negatively charged particles, left from the food molecules. So cytochrome c oxidase takes these electrons and hooks them up to an oxygen molecule. Then a few hydrogen ions are added and two water molecules H2O are formed. When oxygen and hydrogen react to form water this releases a good deal of energy, and this energy is used to power a molecular pump. This stored energy is then used to produce ATP.
When cells get stressed, from injury or aging or whatever, the mitochondria start producing NO or nitric oxide. The NO then displaces the oxygen from the cytochrome c oxidase and this reduces the amount of ATP that can be formed as well as produces reactive oxygen species which causes oxidative stress, leading to inflammation and cell death. Red light breaks up the nitric oxide and allows the oxygen to come back in, reducing oxidative stress and restoring the production of ATP.
Since NASA discovered the benefits of red light therapy for their space crews, there have been hundreds of clinical studies and thousands of lab studies looking at the effect of red light on human health and healing.
So let’s look at some of the proven benefits of red light therapy:
promotes wound healing and tissue repair
improves hair growth in people with androgenic alopecia, which is a type of hair loss that can occur in both men and women.
helps in the treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome
stimulates healing in slow-healing wounds, particularly diabetic foot ulcers
in people with rheumatoid arthritis, red light therapy can help with short-term relief of pain and morning stiffness
reduces some of the side effects of cancer treatments, including oral mucositis, which are painful mouth ulcers that some people develop as a result of chemotherapy
improves skin and builds collagen to lessen wrinkles
helps to heal sun damage
prevents recurring cold sores from herpes simplex virus infections
improves the joints of people with degenerative osteoarthritis of the knee
helps diminish scars, including acne scars
relieves pain and inflammation in people with pain in the Achilles tendons as well as tennis elbow
I think you would agree that this is a rather wide range of benefits and that is just a partial list.
Ok, so what do the different wavelengths do?
There are a lot of different wavelengths used in various devices but I am going to concentrate on three… 630 nanometers, 670, and 830 nm. This is a popular combination of wavelengths used in many devices and is the three wavelength combo used in the unit I purchased, which I will tell you about in a minute.
Let’s look at the 630-nanometer wavelength first. This is an orange-red wavelength and it’s great for skin. It can penetrate into the skin and into the sebaceous glands, which secrete an oily substance called sebum and are the cause of acne when they malfunction. This wavelength can help with acne by reducing inflammation and breakouts. This wavelength can decrease the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles and it has also been shown to stimulate hair growth in both men and women. It’s also shown to be helpful in the treatment of non-melanoma skin cancers.
Next is the 670-nanometer wavelength which is red light. This is a fantastic wavelength to promote eye health. Now you are not going to look directly into one of these lights. Most of the time you are going to use goggles over your eyes similar to the ones that you would use in a tanning booth which of course is not recommended, the tanning booth that is, not the protective goggles. Red light treatment of the eyes particularly for conditions such as macular degeneration, or diabetic retinopathy, and so forth, should be done by an ophthalmologist if you can find someone who specializes in this. Having said that, the red light will easily penetrate your eyelids and you should not do more than 2 minutes at a time on your closed eyes every other day.
There is evidence that red light can at least partially reverse the effects of mitochondrial aging in the retina of the eye, allowing them to function at capacity and recharge the cells in the retina. It’s also been shown in rodents to reverse the damage that blue light did to the retina. Plus, there have been other studies showing positive effects on cognition.
And finally, we have the 830-nanometer wavelength. This is the near-infrared wavelength and is able to penetrate deeply into the skin, tissues, and actually into bone. This wavelength helps with quicker wound healing and also helps to ward off infection. In athletes, the use of this wavelength has been shown to significantly reduce the time to return to play after an injury. It’s also associated with improved bone repair after injury and regrowth and when used after plastic cosmetic surgery, has been shown to reduce swelling, infection, bruising, and pain.
So, now let’s switch to talking about these devices you can use at home. I picked my device based on price, and recommendation from a trusted source. That device is from a company named EMR-Tek’s and my choice was the Firewave. It’s compact but very powerful.
It has all three of the wavelengths we just talked about and produces 25% of the 630 nm wavelength which is orange-red, 25% is the 670 nm wavelength which is red light for a total of 50% red wavelengths and the remaining 50% is the near-infrared wavelength at 830 nm. At 230 watts, for its size it is one of the most powerful red lights on the market, when you switch it on you get blasted with red light. You can get therapeutic effects without having to be so close to the light, putting you completely away from the device’s electromagnetic field.
For skin treatment using this device you want a distance of about 13 and a half inches (you want 3 to 15 joules of absorbed energy for skin (40 seconds = 1 joule of energy) so you want 2 to 10 minutes of exposure for skin.
For deeper tissue penetration, such as muscles or an organ, you will need to get closer to it. So for this, I would recommend, if you are using the EMR Tek Firewave, 7 and a half inches (which is outside the bad EMF range) [At this distance we have 750 watts per meter squared translates into 75 milliwatts per centimeter squared so you would be absorbing 1 joule of red light energy every 15 seconds.] We want 10 to 60 joules per treatment session so stay 2.5 to 15 minutes total.
The Firewave also has a very low flicker rate. Flicker is unavoidable with any of these devices, as this always happens to some extent when AC power is converted to DC power, so if you see one that is advertised as having no flicker that’s not true. Also, the Firewave’s EMF (electromagnetic frequency) coming off the device is low and is non-existent when you stay positioned at least five and a half inches from the source of the light when you are using it. You should also use the goggles that come with the device to protect your eyes when using it, particularly if you are using it on your face.
Unlike lasers, there are no dangers in using these red LEDs (apart from the need to protect the eyes, although some people don’t think that is absolutely necessary), they last for thousands of hours, LEDs cost significantly less per mW than lasers to operate than LEDs and can irradiate a broader surface area than a laser. Although a laser may deliver a single beam of light into tissue deeper than an LED, LEDs are better equipped at delivering large amounts of energy into the body.
The Firewave also has a separate switch so you can just turn on the red lights to use for illumination at night if you want without the other wavelengths. It’s very portable and has clips on the back so you can suspend it as well which comes in very handy.
I highly recommend EMR-Tek, as they have lights with a very low rate of flicker. We have negotiated a special 20 percent discount for our IF Insider readers when you order through our link.
Selected References
Wunsch A, Matuschka K. A controlled trial to determine the efficacy of red and near-infrared light treatment in patient satisfaction, reduction of fine lines, wrinkles, skin roughness, and intradermal collagen density increase. Photomed Laser Surg. 2014;32(2):93-100. doi:10.1089/pho.2013.3616
Zhao J, Tian Y, Nie J, Xu J, Liu D. Red light and the sleep quality and endurance performance of Chinese female basketball players. J Athl Train. 2012 Nov-Dec;47(6):673-8. doi: 10.4085/1062-6050-47.6.08. PMID: 23182016; PMCID: PMC3499892.
Morries LD, Cassano P, Henderson TA. Treatments for traumatic brain injury with emphasis on transcranial near-infrared laser phototherapy. Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. 2015 Aug 20;11:2159-75. doi: 10.2147/NDT.S65809. PMID: 26347062; PMCID: PMC4550182.
Naeser MA, Zafonte R, Krengel MH, Martin PI, Frazier J, Hamblin MR, Knight JA, Meehan WP 3rd, Baker EH. Significant improvements in cognitive performance post-transcranial, red/near-infrared light-emitting diode treatments in chronic, mild traumatic brain injury: open-protocol study. J Neurotrauma. 2014 Jun 1;31(11):1008-17. doi: 10.1089/neu.2013.3244. Epub 2014 May 8. PMID: 24568233; PMCID: PMC4043367.
Why It Matters
“I feel like I thrive in the red light.”
~ Panos Cosmatos (b. 1974) - Writer and film director Panos Cosmatos is perhaps best known for his fantasy-horror film Mandy (2018) starring Nicholas Cage. Other films include Beyond the Black Rainbow, as well as Tombstone (1993) starring Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, and Sam Elliot.
What We Are Reading 📚
With each issue, we bring you a short blurb on what we are currently reading or watching, including books, articles, podcasts, videos, movies, and research papers of value.
Denise - With my ongoing obsession with cognitive health, this article stood out for me: A Neurologist’s Tips to Protect Your Memory. And now Dr. Richard Restak’s book, The Complete Guide to Memory: The Science of Strengthening Your Mind, is on my library list.
Ellen - I have always loved walking in the woods, whether those are the pine-filled forests of the Southeast where I now make my home or the birch-studded and balsam-scented woods of upstate New York’s Adirondack Park where I lived for many years.
I’m always interested in learning more about the woods and Peter Wohlleben’s Forest Walking: Discovering the Trees and Woodlands of North America does not disappoint. Although filled with forestry science, this book is also infused with the childlike enchantment of discovering a whole new world!
Did you like this article and learn something new? If so, please let us know in the comments! Questions and suggestions for future articles are welcome, too!
Know someone who would benefit from getting access to the IF Insider? Please share it!
This is new territory for me -- fascinating!