LED Therapy! (seriously -- for skin [and psych] problems)

I've read about this a few places, first noticed by crew on the Space Station who were working on plants illuminated by red and blue LED lights (the bands photosynthesis uses). And, if you've seen the videos, Alpha is a very tight and often cluttered environment. Turns out they often had little cuts and scrapes from working in tight spots, and those working also in the plant=light area found their skin healed faster.

Since then it's had good research support in various ways. Red and infrared light stimulate the mitochondria; and blue light apparently is lethal to some bacteria, as well.

So I mentioned it to someone I know who's had trouble with "rosacea" -- the patchy red skin -- and gave her a red Streamlight Stylus to try. After a few weeks, it's cleared right up, and it'd been a problem for years to the point of talking about medical "laser" treatment. Yeah, red light ...

Cute stuff, anyhow

Stumbled on this gear today:
http://heelspurs.com/cgi-bin/c/store/commerce.cgi?product=LED_Therapy

[Edited 3/22]
And, here's a reliable source on light therapy for behavior/psychology/sleep:

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2007/03/12/light-and-dark/

Light and Dark Therapies is a simple explanation of the principles involved in light regulation. It discusses the difference between blue and yellow light, talks about circadian rhythms, the role of lithium, regulating sleep cycles, and more.

Re: LED Therapy! (seriously -- for skin problems)

I've seen some commercials about using LED's for backaches, but not healing cuts faster, that's really cool, is it a specific wavelength or no?
thanks! that was interesting...
lates, flash

Re: LED Therapy! (seriously -- for skin problems)

White light is a mixture of all of those wavelengths; what makes a monochromatic source of red produce a different effect on living tissue than the presence of that wavelength along with others?

Re: LED Therapy! (seriously -- for skin problems)

This is interesting stuff.

Re: LED Therapy! (seriously -- for skin problems)

If you just wanted red LED you could get this "showerhead" for less than the other site:
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1478

Re: LED Therapy! (seriously -- for skin problems)

:thinking:

Re: LED Therapy! (seriously -- for skin problems)

Light Emitting Diodes Aid in Wound Healing

Powerful light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have been shown to help heal wounds in laboratory animals and are now being tested on humans at the Medical College of Wisconsin. The LEDs were developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to spur plant life in space.

Continue:

http://healthlink.mcw.edu/article/975450257.html

Mitochondrial signal transduction in accelerated wound and retinal healing by near-infrared light therapy.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16120414&dopt=Abstract
Department of Health Sciences, College of Health Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53201, USA. [email protected]

Photobiomodulation by light in the red to near infrared range (630-1000 nm) using low energy lasers or light-emitting diode (LED) arrays has been shown to accelerate wound healing, improve recovery from ischemic injury in the heart and attenuate degeneration in the injured optic nerve. Recent evidence indicates that the therapeutic effects of red to near infrared light result, in part, from intracellular signaling mechanisms triggered by the interaction of NIR light with the mitochondrial photoacceptor molecule cytochrome c oxidase. We have demonstrated that NIR-LED photo-irradiation increases the production of cytochrome oxidase in cultured primary neurons and reverses the reduction of cytochrome oxidase activity produced by metabolic inhibitors. We have also shown that NIR-LED treatment prevents the development of oral mucositis in pediatric bone marrow transplant patients. Photobiomodulation improves wound healing in genetically diabetic mice by upregulating genes important in the promotion of wound healing. More recent studies have provided evidence for the therapeutic benefit of NIR-LED treatment in the survival and functional recovery of the retina and optic nerve in vivo after acute injury by the mitochondrial toxin, formic acid generated in the course of methanol intoxication. Gene discovery studies conducted using microarray technology documented a significant upregulation of gene expression in pathways involved in mitochondrial energy production and antioxidant cellular protection. These findings provide a link between the actions of red to near infrared light on mitochondrial oxidative metabolism in vitro and cell injury in vivo. Based on these findings and the strong evidence that mitochondrial dysfunction is involved in the pathogenesis of numerous diseases processes, we propose that NIR-LED photobiomodulation represents an innovative and non-invasive therapeutic approach for the treatment of tissue injury and disease processes in which mitochondrial dysfunction is postulated to play a role including diabetic retinopathy, age-related macular degeneration, Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy and Parkinson's disease.

PMID: 16120414 [PubMed]

Re: LED Therapy! (seriously -- for skin problems)

That's interesting. I hadn't heard of those uses, but I do see the use of UV light fairly regularly in medicine from the treatment of psoriasis to the treatment of jaundice in newborns. Seeing the newborn infants lying in their miniature tanning beds and wearing little tinted goggles always makes me smile.

Re: LED Therapy! (seriously -- for skin problems)

tulanebme said:

That's interesting. I hadn't heard of those uses, but I do see the use of UV light fairly regularly in medicine from the treatment of psoriasis to the treatment of jaundice in newborns. Seeing the newborn infants lying in their miniature tanning beds and wearing little tinted goggles always makes me smile.

Click to expand...

my dad has psoriasis and uses those UV tanning lamps. Should I get one of those red led lamps from DX? I ask because UV and red light are on the opposite sides of the light spectrum with UV containing a lot more energy than red.

Re: LED Therapy! (seriously -- for skin problems)

Interesting subject here. I wonder how it'll aid in reducing or slowing down eczema?

Re: LED Therapy! (seriously -- for skin problems)

WOW!! Thanks! what great info! I am always saying how cool LEDs are and what a great technology they are, here is yet another indication about how special this technology will become.

Re: LED Therapy! (seriously -- for skin problems)

On a related note: daylight-simulating lamps are being built with LEDs to treat "Seasonal Affective Disorder" (SAD).

My layman's understanding of "SAD" is that it's a kind of seasonal depression brought on by lack of exposure to sunlight during the winter months. Obviously when you move north from the equator, you get fewer and fewer hours of sunlight in winter.

Sitting for an hour or two in front of these lamps every day has been clearly shown to work as well or better than drug therapies. I guess the stimulus of the right wavelengths of light resets the chemistry of the brain.

Re: LED Therapy! (seriously -- for skin problems)

>monochromatic
There might be some balance effects; I know "low blue" light doesn't affect the body clock (nor does firelight, or moonlight, or gaslight) where fluorescent and sun and white LED light would.

For dental and skin, getting infrared without UV would be good.


I can speak to using bright light for winter depression -- been doing it for years -- but just a few years ago a new receptor in the eye was identified that's the basis for it, and it's only sensitive in a narrow blue-green band. For current info on that:
http://www.google.com/search?q=brainerd+melatonin

Don't use bright white or blue LEDs for winter depression; once you get into the blue-to-ultraviolet range photons pack enough energy to do chemical damage to the eye, as well as resetting the body clock: http://www.mdsupport.org/library/hazard.html

There's one "winter depression" light out that uses only the blue-green, from sunnexbiotech.com. LEDs are likely _too_ narrow, I'd guess the biological receptor's range is wider, it's -- no big surprise -- a 'blue sky and leaf green' range that works for that.

Chuckle. When that research came out, the big business lobbyist types realized the "light pollution" looks like it's affected more than just a few astronomers, and tried to claim that Brainerd's work was an attack on -- believe it or not -- the night light industry. Kind of 'the scientists want your babies left in the dark' ... amazing seeing how money and politics reacts to science: http://www.acsh.org/healthissues/newsID.1022/healthissue_detail.asp

Here's a Google Scholar search on blue light for acne (compare what you get with an ordinary Google search, which is full of people selling stuff and wild claims, beware)
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?sourceid=Mozilla-search&q=acne+"blue+light"

Here's blue light used to treat gum disease (PDF file) http://www.californianprepress.com/...s/uploads/ads/HlthQrtrly06-2/HlthQrtrly_9.pdf


But -- back to the red and infrared, which are the kind we can easily build ourselves!

I think this is really interesting. Remember basic biology? The mitochondria are the 'energy factory' units in cells, and -- they use red light. We're photosynthetic (grin). Makes sense; very few organisms are big enough to be dark inside, and red and infrared penetrate flesh well.

I would -- strongly -- say, read up on the stuff, look for science (Google Scholar is a good filter to take out the hype and quack and crap merchants).

But rosacea -- the reddish patches on skin that bother some people -- does look like it responds to the red/infrared treatment, and it's good to see more study happening.
Note "rosacea" has a lot of causes -- it's a symptom! -- and it's quite different from psoriasis, as far as I know. Again, Google -- the images you'll find are a bit scary, that's true of any medical imagery, you see the real extreme problems. Most people get just a little bit of red area on the cheeks or nose, that's all my friend had who benefited from using the red light.

Always remember what Mark Twain wrote: "Be careful reading medical books. You might die of a mis-print."

Re: LED Therapy! (seriously -- for skin problems)

I have rosacea and going to try the red light from dealextreme. Thanks

Re: LED Therapy! (seriously -- for skin problems)

I saw an ad last year for a device to treat allergies, basically two plugs with red leds that are put up into the nostrils.

Edit: link: http://www.medinose.tv/