Red Light Therapy Myths: Scientific Efficacy for Cellular Repair

0:00 Introduction to Red Light Therapy

Lee Weinstein: Then there was NASA that were doing experiments with astronauts in space with red light. Red light can be thought of as energizing biological processes. It makes what is trying to happen happen faster. Sometimes that is good and sometimes it is bad.

Dr. Yi Song: I am so thrilled to have Lee Weinstein as the guest talking about red light therapy devices which we have seen all over the internet. But do you ever wonder what is the best device for me and whether those thousands of dollars of devices are actually doing the job they are talking about, or if the ones that are only a few hundred can just do the same work or even better?

So let's ask the expert, the inventor of Laser Tag back in 1984, Lee Weinstein. He has many patents pending for lasers and other health-related devices. Don't miss what we are going to talk about here and also make sure you are subscribed. Welcome to the Regeneration Effect podcast. We are dedicated to merging ancient practice principles with modern technology. All we are talking about here is based on science and evidence.

1:10 The Invention of Laser Tag

Dr. Yi Song: We are welcoming Lee Weinstein to our episode today. Lee Weinstein was the original inventor of Laser Tag back in 1984.

Lee Weinstein: That is true. It was originally called Star Laser Force. It became Laser Tag a couple of years later.

Dr. Yi Song: Do you want to talk a little bit about Laser Tag and how you got into red light therapy? I never thought of them being related.

Lee Weinstein: I don't think they are. Laser Tag was more of a pure fun kind of thing. There were a bunch of us sitting around a swimming pool after seeing the movie Star Wars and we were talking about how it would be cool if there was a battle kind of thing that you could actually participate in. "You are the game" is what we said in our original radio ads.

2:52 Laser vs LED Technology

Dr. Yi Song: I always thought laser and LED, even though they are two different technologies, were somewhat related.

Lee Weinstein: Well, that gets into the red light therapy stuff. The only difference between a laser and an LED, if they have the same wavelength, is that all the light in the laser is coherent. All the photons line up; their wavefront lines up in space.

But once light gets inside your body, it refracts in all kinds of directions anyway. There really isn't any difference between how the light from a laser would behave or the light from an LED would behave once it is inside your body. If it is outside your body and you are projecting an image, then there's a big difference. But inside your body and tissue, there isn't a difference.

4:17 Marketing and FDA Clearance

Dr. Yi Song: Do you think some people selling devices saying theirs is laser and not LED are claiming a better therapeutic effect without a scientific base?

Lee Weinstein: No. If you look at the devices that say they are laser and how they implement them, most have a small number of lasers and a large number of LEDs on the same device. Like the hair regrowth helmets, only a small percentage are lasers. There is a marketing angle to it because people hear "laser" and think it's special, so they are willing to pay more money.

There is also a marketing angle regarding FDA clearance. You actually need clearance from the FDA to sell a medical device that has lasers in it. Whereas you not only don't need but cannot get a clearance for an LED device because the FDA already knows it is safe.

5:27 Eye Safety and Power Levels

Lee Weinstein: Because laser light is coherent, if you focus it, you can focus it down to a really tiny point. That is what makes it dangerous for eyes. A very low-power laser, like on a supermarket scanner, isn't terribly dangerous. But a laser used in a medical treatment setting that has a hundred or a thousand times as much power could cut a slot across your retina. You don't get that with an LED.

8:20 Therapeutic Effects on Eyes

Dr. Yi Song: You mention that your device can be used to treat eye problems like macular degeneration or retina issues.

Lee Weinstein: I won't make direct claims, but there have been studies done where people's eyes were treated with red light. The measurable thing found is that night vision gets better if they give themselves three minutes of treatment time per day.

12:45 Treating the Retina Safely

Dr. Yi Song: So if people want to slow down the aging of the retina, are they looking directly into this light?

Lee Weinstein: When you use a treatment, you close your eye. Then your eyelid provides the diffusing so the light hitting the retina is even. I also make something with an eye cup that has multiple diffusion planes in it. You can hold it right to your eye for three minutes. You definitely do not want to look straight into the LED lights or panels.

15:29 The Discovery by Florence Nightingale

Dr. Yi Song: Let's delve into the mechanism. The first red light discovery, photobiomodulation, was discovered in 1967 by a Hungarian physician who was studying the effect of red lasers on mice.

Lee Weinstein: That was probably the second one. In the 1800s in the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale was a statistician and nurse. She kept logs of how long it took soldiers to heal under different conditions. She discovered that soldiers healing in translucent hospital tents closer to the front were healing faster than those in brick-and-mortar hospitals behind the lines. She realized the tents were translucent and while UV and blue spectrum didn't make it through, the red did.

She surmised red light was helping and ran an experiment taking one group into the courtyard for sunlight and the other didn't. The group in the sunlight healed even faster. She was the original one who discovered the biological effects of the red end of the spectrum. This used to be taught in medical schools until about 50 years ago when drugs became the big thing.

25:13 Scientific Legacy and Research

Lee Weinstein: My father died a couple of years ago at age 96, and he had MD friends who had been taught about red light and Florence Nightingale. My father was the number one scientist in superconductors and held world records for magnetic fields. Because of his influence, I am always in query for a scientific base.

30:18 Contact Devices vs Large Panels

Dr. Yi Song: What is the difference between this device you made and the gigantic red light panels?

Lee Weinstein: Panels are often hung on a door, and you stand far away. If you are far away, you get even illumination. But if you are very close to a panel, you don't get even illumination because panels are made of little lens modules in a matrix. My device is designed to be treated on contact. There is less light wasted because it isn't bouncing off you and lighting up the room. It is all getting into your tissue.

38:05 Mitochondrial Mechanism of Action

Lee Weinstein: The mechanism most people talk about involves the mitochondria. Cytochrome C oxidase along the mitochondrial respiration chain is able to absorb energy from a photon within a band from 630 to about 900 nanometers. This process can be blocked by a nitric oxide molecule. The red light unbinds the nitric oxide, unblocking the flow of the chain so mitochondria become more efficient.

A normal cell has between 1 million and 10 million ATP molecules stored. These power everything the cell does. If you are running low on ATP, processes slow down. When you are healing from an injury or viral attack, you need much more energy to create new cells. Unblocking this energy chain is a big thing and can change the speed of healing significantly.

40:51 The Concept of Photocatalysis

Lee Weinstein: There is another mechanism people don't talk about: photocatalysis. You have between 100 million and a billion chemical reactions inside every cell every second. Every reaction has a statistical likelihood of happening. The presence of light changes that potential. The quantum field of the photon changes the likelihood that a chemical reaction will take place. Red light makes chemical reactions happen faster.

46:28 Risks: Cancer and Infection Warnings

Lee Weinstein: Red light energizes biological processes. It makes what is trying to happen happen faster. Sometimes that is bad. If you have a growing cancer, speeding up that process is not good. I have had three skin cancer surgeries, and as an experiment, I treated the tumors with red light before the surgeries. They grew way faster. This is likely true of all growing cancers because the cancer wants more energy.

You also would not want to use it on an infection. The mitochondria in bacteria are better at absorbing this light than your own cells. If you shine red light on an infection, the bacteria get energized and start to win. If you feel pain when using red light, stop immediately and check for infection.

51:56 Summary and Next Steps

Dr. Yi Song: This is very good advice because most people using red light for longevity don't know about the risks with cancer or infections. In the next episode, we are going to talk about the commercially available devices and which ones are better for you.

Lee Weinstein: Thank you for having me. I don't know of anyone else who has written up experiments with their own skin cancer using these devices, so I am glad to share that information.

Dr. Yi Song: Thank you for tuning in. Please subscribe and stay tuned for our next in-depth discussion on red light therapy devices.