176: Is Red Light Therapy Just a Fad?

Scot: Today it's red light therapy. I guess the big question is, is it legit or is it just another distraction from focusing on what really matters when it comes to our health? I feel like so much of what you see in the world is just distraction from focusing on what really matters, which we've determined is the Core Four. It's good nutrition, you've got to get some activity, your emotional and mental health, your sleep, and then, of course, the plus one more is your genetics.

This is "Who Cares About Men's Health," offering information, inspiration, and different interpretations of men's health. My name is Scot. I bring the BS. The MD to my BS is Dr. John Smith.

Dr. Smith: Good afternoon.

Scot: Are you ready to enlighten us on red light therapy?

Dr. Smith: Pun intended, yes.

Scot: Wow, Mitch. You're an easy audience today. Normally, you would never laugh at anything like that. I don't know.

Mitch: It was just so . . . it caught me off guard.

Scot: Our resident convert to caring about his health, Mitch Sears is in the mix.

Mitch: Hey there.

Scot: All right. Red light therapy. Now this is a thing that you may have seen if you're on socials, if you're on social media. Dr. Smith and Mitch, I think you're a little bit more in tune to what this is, but I know it's a big trend, and I feel that we need to talk about it so guys can make some decent decisions.

So, Mitch, what do you know about red light therapy?

Mitch: So I mostly see it on places like Instagram, TikTok, etc., and it just . . . I don't know. It's usually either really pretty, young women or super-fit dudes that put on these weird red light masks, and they're all plasticky and featureless, and it looks like you're a slasher from some sort of cyberpunk future movie or something.

Dr. Smith: I prefer Jabberwocky dancer, but . . .

Mitch: Oh, I love that too. Yeah. But I guess I'm always a little skeptical of these types of trends because it seems like every other influencer says it does something different for them. It makes their skin younger. Helps them with their mental health was a weird one that I saw recently, etc. It just seems like there are so many claims that this magic mask that shoots red light in your face will do. So I don't know.

Scot: All right. I mean, I'm kind of tipping where I feel on this whole thing. I think there's one thing that probably does really well, and that's extract money from your bank account. I have a feeling they do a good job of making you spend money on this thing for some promises that it might not deliver.

Dr. Smith, what do you know? And then we'll get into actually what we do know based on research and whatnot. Do you use them or know people that do?

Dr. Smith: Yeah, my wife has a Jabberwocky mask that she wears on occasion. I have multiple friends. I know I talked about my brother a few times on the podcast. He uses red light, actually, for his psoriasis.

Mitch:Oh, interesting.

Dr. Smith:And he thinks it's very helpful for that. I have some other friends who use it for growing back hair. They have the caps as well as ones for the face, and then entire body.

I've personally used it. I do feel a difference. In the morning, I'll work out with a friend of mine, and he's got a full-body bed. And some mornings, I'll jump in that and sit in it for about 20 to 30 minutes, and I think that there's something to it.

And then, obviously, reviewing the literature, we'll kind of jump into that too. But I definitely think that I have personally felt a difference in it. We can go over kind of the different claims and then how we get there as well.

Scot: Yeah. So you say you feel a difference? What do you mean you feel a difference? What's the manifestation you're feeling?

Dr. Smith: I feel energized. While you're laying in a red light, you're like, "I'm just laying under these LED red lights." And you are in reality, and it feels nice. There's not a lot of heat there, but everything gives off a little bit of heat. But they're not supposed to get hot. It's not like a tanning bed where you're getting hot.

But these red lights are emitting different wavelengths of light, and that kind of gets into some of the claims that are made later on down the line of different wavelengths can penetrate into the skin at different depths.

Some people say 720 or 810 or 840 or 940. You hear different numbers that people will throw out, and a lot of it has to do with kind of the subject matter that they're dealing with of different wavelengths they feel like may help mental health, and some of them will help skin because they're going one to two millimeters into the skin. Others will go under. A lot of it has to do with the way that it penetrates in and affects the body's ability to do all these things.

Scot: I don't know, man. Do you think maybe the reason you feel good when you're done is because you get a good workout in and then you've chilled out for 20 minutes?

Dr. Smith: Take a 30-minute nap?

Scot: Yeah. You think maybe that might . . . You can tell I'm very cynical of this.

Dr. Smith: I think you're fair to be. I mean, there's a lot of this stuff that's out there. And what's true? What's not?

Scot: Yeah. So I did just a little bit of reading beforehand, and it sounds like your brother using it for a skin condition is not that unusual.

Dr. Smith: Nope.

Scot: From what I read, it's something called photodynamic therapy, where they use a low-power red laser light to activate a photosensitizer drug. And that interaction creates a chemical reaction that destroys cells, which is used to treat some skin conditions, including skin cancer, psoriasis, acne, warts, and other types of cancer. And that's how medicine uses it. Am I correct in that? Was that accurate information?

Dr. Smith: Yeah. I mean, there are people who are using it just as red light in general as well, but that's been around for quite some time. The red light itself, in the '60s is kind of where it got its start, and it was thought to be kind of snake oil for a few decades. And then they revisited things, and people started looking at, "Is this really beneficial? Is this helpful?" Now it's gaining a lot of traction, and especially now you're seeing it all over social media.

But even before that, the last 15 years, 20 years or so, people have been doing more and more research to show that it can help build collagen in the skin, and it can help improve hair quality, improve the size of the hair follicles, the quality of the hair grown, and help regrow hair on the scalp.

So there are these studies that are showing improvement in these areas where you're kind of skeptical, like, "Oh, you're going to put this hat on with red light and these different red lights on, and then all of a sudden you're going to, poof, take it off and have just a beautiful head of hair? Fabio is going to pop out of the top of your head with his hair?" I don't think it's going to be that dramatic, but I think if you're looking at it you will see some of those benefits. And I think that they are there if you look at the literature.

Now, again, the literature is continuing to come out on this stuff as people are doing it, but there are plenty of folks who are using it at academic centers, really high quality medical academic centers, in their dermatology departments. They're doing studies on it right now, like Mitch said, with using it to help with mental health to kind of do those things.

And we can talk a little bit about kind of the understanding that we have of how it works, because the big problem was for 20 years, nobody knew the mechanism of how it worked. They're like, "Well, what does this do?" And they're like, "We don't know." And then everybody was like, "Well, then it's snake oil. If you don't know what it does, then how are we doing it?"

I mean, we have medicine that we use too right now in neurology and different areas where we don't know the mechanism of action of some of these drugs, but we know that they stop seizures or do other things, and we use them. And so it's not a ton different. I mean, it definitely seems a little bit hokier when you're just turning on a light, right?

And there are also people who believe that the first morning light of the sun is good for you, and getting outside and being outside in that natural light can provide some of these same benefits that you're going to see from red light as well.

And so you've got all these dynamics to kind of look at, and it's like, "Well, which one is the right one?"

Scot: Yeah. I think it's interesting, and I think this aspect of it is interesting, that from the brief reading I did, and from a little bit of what I'm hearing from you, red light therapy has been used for some things successfully in the medical community, and there's research to support it.

Where you start getting a little funky is when then claims start being made outside those areas. And in order to make those claims outside those areas, then additional research has to be done.

It's just like a lot of times drugs are released that we know will help with one condition, and then we learn that as a side effect it could actually help with another condition. But that's not what it's intentionally made for, so then a bunch of research has to be done to see if that's legit, if it's safe, etc.

Is that a fair assessment of what we've got going on here a little bit?

Dr. Smith: Yeah, and in some of the studies we have right now that have been done, they have been done on rats and animal models where they've shown improvement in, say, metabolic syndrome, like diabetes and things, and also Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

Now they're starting to do those trials on humans, because the downside of doing red light therapy is minimal. And so they're like, "Well, what do we have to lose?" And they are seeing some improvements in some of the early studies, but the data is not out yet.

But the data is out for those animal models, which is really the part where people are pulling some of this data and extrapolating it a little bit outside. They're saying, "Hey, we have this model here that showed that these Alzheimer's rats regained some function. There's promise here."

Well, yeah, that's how we start a lot of these things, is we have these initial studies that then we take on. Who knows how it'll benefit us 15, 20 years from now? I mean, when I'm starting to lose my mind in 20 years, there may be something where the literature is like, "Hey, this may be beneficial for you."

Scot: Yeah, putting on the mask might be a good idea. And I think it's also worth saying that just because it works on animals, that's still a long way away from humans. I mean, it's a step closer, but . . .

Mitch: Yeah, I guess that's what I was wanting to ask about. On the social media, they're talking about some of the things that it sounds like these animal studies have at least kind of shown in one way or another, right? But how much can we really expect right now, whether or not this stuff will actually work if it's based on really, really early science?

Dr. Smith: Well, the science isn't necessarily that early. I mean, the science is there of what it supposedly will do and help. It's just is it going to give us what we think we're going to get?

And so, again, also the side effect profile of red light, doing red light 15 to 30 minutes a day, there's relatively low downsides. I mean, the burns and things that you'll read about in some articles, they say where people have had heat burns and stuff, some of that has come from malfunctioning equipment, things like that.

If you're doing it safely and you're putting that Jabberwocky mask on, depending on the wavelength of light you're getting . . . I mean, those are the other things that you've got to look at, too. If you've got a mask that you bought off of your favorite influencer and it only has the 720 wavelength and an 810 wavelength, and they say that the 940 nanometer wavelength is the wavelength to help with mental health/depression and the Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, then you could put that thing on all day and the literature wouldn't support you. You see what I mean?

Mitch: Yeah.

Scot:All right.

Dr. Smith: So I was just going to say a lot of times you'll hear things where they may be the exact same thing. And one of the things that I looked at when I was reviewing a lot of the research is there's a bunch of different names for red light therapy. There's photobiomodulation. There's . . . what is it? Low-level laser light therapy, LLLT. There's a bunch of these different names for it.

So if you're looking at something and you're like, "Oh, what's that?" kind of look and search it, and you'll see that it'll pop up, and you'll see a bunch of different names for red light therapy that people are using. But I think the most common ones are going to be low-level laser therapy, red light therapy, and then photobiomodulation.

Scot: Before we get to some of the research, what we're seeing as far as what benefits there might be that the research is supporting . . . I just did a quick Google of red light therapy masks. One of the downsides is cost, right? Maybe you could spend this money in a better way on your health. Maybe that's even just buying healthier food. It looks like they range anywhere from $110 up to $614 in this quick search. I don't know if they go higher than that. Oh, here's one that's $3,500.

Dr. Smith: You can get a full-body bed that's $110,000 if you're wanting to get rowdy. I mean, it's going to have pretty much every wavelength you're looking for.

Mitch: I have never been $110,000 rowdy, but that's just me.

Dr. Smith: Have you ever been $110,000 reddy, Mitch?

Mitch: No.

Scot: "Reddy." Red light therapy.

Dr. Smith: Reddy or rowdy.

Scot: I mean, that could be a downside. And I suppose you kind of mentioned when you're buying these things, you have to be looking out to make sure that the right wavelength is supported by this mask, that the research says you need to do the thing you want to do.

Outside of that, I don't know what the difference is between prices and masks. Do you have any idea, Dr. Smith?

Dr. Smith: So the big thing is obviously looking for the wavelengths, and then you can find something that's in your price range even if you don't get a mask. There are some smaller units that would cover your face that you can find with multiple wavelengths.

Looking at the literature, I think some of the more popular wavelengths are going to be 640, 720, 810, and 940. They are the ones that I see a lot. And then there are others that will say between 700 and 720. There's different literature that says different things, but those are the ones I saw probably the most frequently in doing the literature review.

And if you're looking to get the benefit from all of them, that would be probably the ones you would look for to have a few of those.

Scot: Okay. Let's get to the research. What does the research actually show insofar as what can red light therapy do for me?

Dr. Smith: So I think it's good to start at kind of where red light got its prominence. You've got these red light therapists, who thought it was garbage for a long time. And then there was a Russian scientist who kind of figured out the mechanism of action, Dr. Karu. Dr. Karu has published extensively for years on it and showed that there are these little energy powerhouses in each one of our cells called mitochondria. Everybody has probably heard of them.

Mitch: The powerhouse of the cell.

Dr. Smith: Yep, powerhouse of the cell. You get them from your mom. They all come from the maternal. So you can blame any metabolic disorders on mom because all the mitochondria come from her.

Mitch: Oh, I do.

Dr. Smith: Well done, Mitch. I'm going to tell her to listen to this one and then buy your Christmas gift afterwards.

Mitch: She listens every week.

Dr. Smith: So what they found is that the red light helps to make the mitochondria more effective. So there's mitochondrial nitric oxide that can hold a place in this mitochondrial chain, and the mitochondria creates 16 times more energy.

If you look at the Krebs cycle, the thing that we had to learn in medical school that we immediately forgot after we took our Step 1 test, if you look at it, when it has oxygen, it's way more efficient, way more effective. And when it is that effective with oxygen, the wavelengths are kicking off the nitrous oxide and allowing oxygen to take its place to be more efficient and more effective as far as things go as far as energy production. And that's where a lot of people are looking at this to be beneficial, is it allows those things to happen.

And then there are also some studies that have shown other things like interleukin-1, interleukin-6, which are known to be healthy to help the body heal and bring forth healing factors for helping the skin and those types of things. Those are the things that are known as far as the mechanism of action of red light and what it does.

Scot: All right. So it's helping to make the mitochondria work better.

Dr. Smith: Correct. At least that's what I've gathered from the information that I've kind of studied here. And then you have different things . . . people will say, "Oh, it'll help arthritis pain. It'll help the skin. It'll help improve carpal tunnel." They'll even use it in the eye. It can help with neuropathic pain for diabetics with neuropathic foot pain, things like that. I mean, there are things all down the line where you're going to see and hear people say these things.

They've even studied it in helping people who are undergoing cancer treatment to help lessen the side effects of the cancer treatments. Some of these studies are very limited, but they're out there and they're showing some improvement as far as the big ones.

But I think the ones you're going to see the most commonly when you see the masks and things are going to be the skin complexion, anti-aging on the skin, and then likely hair regrowth are the ones that you're going to see the most on there.

And then when you see the full-body beds, those are going to be the ones that are going to try to help improve pain, improve recovery from athletics, like working out and things like that, helping you recover, helping your body have the energy it needs to rebuild itself after you've worked out. Those are going to be the main things that you're going to see all these products kind of pump up.

Scot: And as far as skin health, does it help improve the skin? What do we know about that? Let's just kind of go down some of these just one by one.

Dr. Smith: I think that's one of the ones that you've seen the most amount of research on, and that you have a lot of actual qualified medical professionals that are bringing those to the table that are at Harvard or at different high-quality institutions that people are going to trust. Those dermatology groups and those folks are saying, "Hey, this does have benefit and can be beneficial with a very low downside."

Scot: Okay. And the literature is also supporting that it reduces inflammation after workout?

Dr. Smith: I mean, that's another one where you've got pretty good data. Obviously, we know what it does to the mitochondria and helping your body to recover the more energy you have.

Scot: It supercharges them.

Dr. Smith: Right. And so those are things that we have seen literature that's supportive of.

Scot: Okay. And then I've heard wound healing. I mean, that kind of goes back to skin health. What do you know about that?

Dr. Smith: Yeah, there's been some that say it helps scars to look better, things like that. Again, that's in that dermatology realm where there are aging spots, different things, and those are studies that are showing positive things. Again, the data is not the most robust thing in the world where you're like, "Hey, everybody should do this."

And another thing they will always tell you with red light is you cover your eyes because it can damage the eyes if you don't. That's why you always see people wear those little goggles on their face. So just being safety first.

Scot: Got it. And hair growth, we already kind of hit that. There's some promise there. Again, in the dermatology world.

Dr. Smith: Yeah.

Mitch: Well, what about the claims about mental health? How much research is there? There's just something that seems . . . if I turn a light on, suddenly my brain will start feeling better? That just seems really strange to me.

Dr. Smith: Yeah, so those are the . . .

Scot: I don't mean to cut you off, but that's already a thing, isn't it, for people that have . . . What's that condition called in the wintertime? You just get really . . .

Dr. Smith: Seasonal affective disorder.

Scot: Yeah. Light therapy for that has been proven to work, right?

Dr. Smith: Yeah, that is probably a good indication of some of the things you're doing because you're giving your body some of that sunlight, and that's why some people say, "Just get outside. Go do something. Go get the sun on your face."

I mean, so many of us go to work, especially in the wintertime here in Utah, where we go to work and it's dark, and then we get off work at 4:00 and it's dark any time after that time.

And so some of those things, I think there is good, practical thought process through that to help just get yourself exposed to light. I mean, our bodies are meant to work on circadian rhythms to wake you up and put you to sleep. That's how people did it for years and centuries, and now we kind of think that we know better. And so I think that there definitely is some of that.

Now, as far as the depression and stuff goes, I think it's interesting. I don't have any good studies I can point you to, but there definitely are those studies that were done in the animal models that are showing improvement in those areas. Again, I think they're trying to now transpose those to the human model. And I'm hopeful.

Scot: Interesting. So it sounds like that maybe we're at the very early stages of learning some of the additional things that red light therapy can do.

You had mentioned that there are a few downsides, really. One of the downsides you did mention was it can hurt your eyes. Are there other downsides somebody might want to consider, or risks?

Dr. Smith: They do recommend no more than 30 minutes. Obviously, keep your eyes protected. If you are getting photobiomodulation on your eyes, it's going to be done by your eye professional. They're going to be doing it the right way, and making sure that they take care of those things, because there are uses in the eye.

Scot: I mean, other than the dermatology colleagues, are doctors using . . . Who would you go to if I'm like, "I've seen some promising literature in animal models that says it can do this," beyond the dermatology stuff? Should you talk to somebody before you buy a mask? Should you talk to a medical professional? Would they even know what you're talking about? I mean, what should you do there? How would you recommend somebody proceed?

Dr. Smith: You're going to have to talk somebody who is probably in the anti-aging sphere, who's a specialist with that stuff. A lot of doctors probably aren't looking into this unless they're in the biohacker space themselves, because a lot of people aren't going to have looked over this research.

Again, I think you could probably utilize some of those folks to ask the questions, but a lot of them are probably going to be like, "I haven't read the literature, or the literature is not robust enough for me to give you an opinion."

That's where you're going to go shopping opinions from somebody, and then you're going to find the people who are going to poo-poo it completely, and you're going to find the people who think it cures cancer. I think the answer is somewhere in the middle. And I think with some of these other treatments like this where you're going to see them, that's really what you've got to keep in mind.

Now, it's very low as far as the possibility for problems. And I think there is a benefit there, but again, how much money you should spend and how much you should really invest in this is kind of up to you.

But again, it's finding someone who's really in that space that can give you the top-notch research. I mean, a lot of those people are some of these guys that are PhDs and MDs that have kind of done anti-aging and the kind of biohacking to try to keep people healthy and young as long as they can. Those are the people who are up on the literature more than anybody else.

Mitch: How do I make sure I'm not buying one that's just LEDs? I guess that's . . .

Dr. Smith: Well, that's legit all it is, Mitch.

Mitch: Well, I know. But you know what I'm saying? I have a Hue bulb in my other room that I can turn all sorts of colors. Do I just turn that to red and be like, "Ah, I feel amazing"?

Dr. Smith: Yeah. Here's the thing. The wavelength stuff is probably the biggest thing that you're going to look at, the LED light source. Those are the things that you're going to want to look at.

Scot: The ability of the light source to accurately and reliably generate the wavelength of red light you are looking for in a particular situation? I would imagine that that's probably not necessarily super easy and cheap to do.

Dr. Smith: No, but a lot of the less expensive stuff you're going to find are going to have at least two to four wavelengths on them, and they're going to have them listed. Now, how are you going to test that? I mean, you've got to trust somebody at some point somewhere.

Scot: All right. So I'm looking at these prices again. I mean, if I'm kind of in the middle, spend $200. Mitch, you want that for Christmas this year, or should I spend my $200 on something else like an adjustable-weight kettlebell for you? I mean, if you're going to spend the $200 and invest some time, what do you think is going to have benefit?

Mitch: I might be able to get influencer clout if I have one of the spooky masks. Honestly, I think that's kind of one of my takeaways, I guess, from this. Maybe you don't have to be 100% skeptical of every little thing you see on the internet. There might be actual evidence. It's kind of the same thing we did with the cold plunge episode.

But I mean, you can kind of learn something from at least what the early research has shown. I know I feel better if I go out in the sun for 20 minutes, but that doesn't necessarily mean I have to or I expect you to spend any money on getting me a mask.

Scot: All right. Well, my takeaway on this whole thing is maybe there's something here. We've got some time to figure this out. I think more evidence needs to come our way. Much like the cold plunge, if you want to get started cheap, just go out in the morning, first thing, and sit outside for 10, 15 minutes.

I'll tell you even when it's dark, I go outside and get that cool weather. It helps wake me up and I feel better, right? I mean, that's free.

I don't know that I'm going to necessarily run out and get a mask, though. But I think it's something worth watching.

And if you've got a little bit of disposable income and you want to give it a shot, then find out what wavelength you need to get to do the thing you want to do, make sure you get a mask that gets that, and give it a shot, see what happens. And protect your eyes, I think, is my takeaway.

Dr. Smith, you got anything you want to wrap us up with here?

Dr. Smith: I think you're right on. I think if you do have the desire to get into it and see if it helps . . . I mean, I think a lot of people are out there saying that it helps. And if it's something where you're like, "Hey, I've got a little bit of disposable income and I want to see if this helps," I think there's a very low incidence of risk and problems from it. And so I would say give it a go and then send us an email and let us know what you think.

Scot: All right. And this does not constitute medical advice, by the way. This podcast is guys just talking about health and you should do your own due diligence as well.

So have you come across some health trend you're curious about? We do like talking about these health trends. It would be interesting to see if there's a common pattern. I've already noticed between the two health trends, cold plunges and red light therapy, there's a common pattern that's kind of happening here that maybe you could get this from a different source, and it's still a developing thing.

Reach out to us and let us know what that is, or if you're even using red light therapy, I mean, has it helped you like it does Dr. Smith? You can email us hello@thescoperadio.com.

Thanks for listening, and thanks for caring about men's health.