Red Light Therapy Dosing: UNSOLVABLE Puzzle, Or?

Check out all the resources I mention in my red light therapy dosing video, as well as other light therapy resources:

I hope you liked my red light therapy dosing video - it's not an answer you may have expected and I'm a bit disappointed with it as well. I would have loved to give you an easy tool to determine dosing once and for all, for everyone, in a simple recommendation such as "use panel X for Y amount of time" but that's not possible as I explain the video. If you've got questions or comments, leave them below!

#redlighttherapy #howtouse #howto

00:00 The Dosing Problems
01:38 Problem 1: Light Output
04:38 Problem 2: Distances
06:32 Problem 3: Other Factors
07:28 Problem 4: Beam Angle
08:57 Problem 5: More Factors
10:32 Problem 6: The Unknown
12:04 Problem 7: Personal Differences
13:58 My Solution
16:57 Key Takeaways

[LightTherapyInsiders]

Check out all the resources I mention in my red light therapy dosing video, as well as other light therapy resources:

[deepost]

Age 82 with a.Diagnosis of osteopenia and bone on bone in both knees. My intent is to grow stem cells and at first I thought I’d follow the protocol used in the study on knees. Now, I think it’s best to take it gradually and make increases based on my bodily responses. There are many variables here, even season variations. Sometimes I may tolerate less or more.

[HaveABetterPurpose]

Your honesty is refreshing. Everything has a context. Always. The non black-and-white answers you give make it clear you’re a REAL expert. Thank you!

[JamesClements-soxj]

Alex, thanks for posting this video; I find all of your content to be valuable and very helpful. On the topic of dosing and maximum treatment time per day, I note that if you have a full-body panel and get 5 minutes' of exposure on the front of your body, the cells on that half of the body have received a certain number of joules of energy depending on the output of the panels and the distance (and other factors). For example, assume that this treatment gives 45 joules of exposure. However, if you have a smaller panel with the same specifications as the full panel and treat a smaller body area for the same time at the same distance, that area of the body has also received the same 45 joules of exposure. If I repeat this treatment enough times on the front of my body to cover all of the same areas as would be covered by a full-body panel, it might take 4 separate treatments. In those 4 treatments, each body area has received 45 joules, but the total body exposure is 4 x 45 joules = 180 joules, which exceeds the recommendations I have seen (Ari Whitten's book) of 120 joules "per session". I understand that dosing is not an exact science, but the fundamental question is whether or not applying RLT to multiple smaller body areas in a day results in a cumulative body exposure that exceeds recommendations for total daily exposure. What are your thoughts? Thanks!

[mjones]

Very honest and straightforward video. Thank you for sharing!

[chrispompano]

Alex, very interesting comments on reflection! Here's my idea. I study automotive lighting photometry enhancement for many years. These panels definitely need a proper reflective surface, & people should really build their own 45degree arc reflectors for the sides. (Sort of the shape of a clock time between 12 & 3 and 12 & 9). Also the same for behind your body but a 180 degree parabolic reflector. The most reflective coating is pure silver at 98% which is expensive & will oxidize in open air but used in telescopes, & microscopes but is sealed with an inert gas.

High quality mirrors are also silver plated....

The most common reflector material is pure aluminum with a LRV (light reflectance value) of about 93%. You will want a dull reflective surface, not shinny to evenly distribute the light back to the body. I would simply use high quality cooking aluminum foil & use the dull side, not the shinny side. I would also place this over the panel & cut out holes around the LED & use rubber cement to lightly coat the panel to stick the foil too or other release adhesive in order to change out foil since Aluminum Foil will eventually micro-oxidize & loose reflectance, just not sure if Red Light wavelengths will accelerate it, or not, but a coat of SIO2 or general sealer car wax will help.

They also make aluminum foil tape used in construction industry, but it will have to be burnished with 000, 00 Steel Wool to make it dull.
Finally, the most reflective coating is Barium Sulfate & Purdue University is working on putting it in paint to paint commercial buildings to lower global warming.
It is also the gold standard coating used in Lab Integrating Test Spears. (Integrating Sphere Radiometry and Photometry).
You can easily buy lab grade Barium Sulfate powder & mix it into your own paint or use a flat white spray paint & dry-dust it into the semi wet paint for ultimate reflectance! The study from Purdue however uses multiple sized micron particles of Barium Sulfate.

Now, I hope all your LED mfgs send me free panels for this design tip, or a check$$$ for using my idea! "Prior Art" Declared!

Also, a person commented below about using Grow Tent Mylar. Not sure what is made from, but if its Chromium like chrome, its only 65% reflectance value LRV. I wonder what those large light diffuser parabollic reflector umbrellas use for their coatings for professional photography?🤔

[sashashalmina]

thank you so much, Alex! Super useful info, just watched a bunch if your videos and you've demystified everything and really helped me to pick a panel!

[sam]

Another factor is I've heard of studies that would treat someone's hand and they would show improvement in the brain. The TLDR on this is they found mitochondria can leave the cell and float in the blood and other areas receive benefit. So dosing a target area like a knee may be hard but dosing your chest or back could help your knee. Makes you wonder if you should target the meaty areas of the body to target the most mitochondria.

[NeoChiKai]

Hey Alex, Great work. Do you have any videos or advice you could point me to for the aging population and red light therapy for the eyes?

[lawnmower]

In my estimation, for powerful biomax900 for most superficial skin benefits would be around 60 seconds per area from 18” away (8 j/cm2)
AND for deep tissue and injury healing: 70 joules of dose = 438 seconds at 12” away (7.3 minutes at 12”)

[tonyrothwell]

Excellent video that clears up that wee do not know a lot about redlight. Just that it works!! I think there are too many shots of Alex using the Red Light with his clothes on.. Sitting in front of a panel with your clothes on is not going to give you an effective treatment. Most of the time you need bare skin. A dark shirt does not cut it.

[grumpytex]

Informative video, I tend to disagree with the "lost light' comments because of distance, shape, size. Back in the days when people actually went outside and got sufficient light, distance from sun rarely changed, beam angle, clothes, scars, moisture, skin tone and other factors you mentioned in my view are not relevant...the body is smart, put a light in front of it and it will take what it needs, we didn't all walk to the top of a pyramid and bath ourselves in sun (maybe we did!). Too much science, confusing people with different variables is only going to confuse people and send them in other directions, hence your concluding comments. Don't forget the placebo effect #powerful

[Manuis]

In your blog post you said, that you only need a low intensity and duration for anti-aging, wrinkles etc for the skin, longer sessions will have no/zero effect. I don't understand that: the skin benefits from red light therapy for the first 60 seconds (just for the example), then later the deeper tissue. So what is the difference between 60 seconds and 5 minutes for the skin? The initial first 60 seconds will have a positive effect for the skin anyway or? Why should there be zero effect in total if you do it longer than those 60 seconds?

[ranli]

Just got my 7 wavelength panel, this is very informative and helpful, thanks Alex!

[ProvocateuAstrology]

I like that when you said do it till you're sick of it.That's what I do.That's the protocol

[lancemarsh]

What are the Ruby red light panels like. Not as many bells and whistles, but do the job?

[frankfeldstein]

Alex thanks for tackling such a difficult topic. What I used to inform my stab at a dosing time is the sun salutations of yoga, the ritual of sun salutations has 12 poses that last 3 to 4 minutes each pose, for a total time (36-48 minutes). Thus I chose to do red light therapy for 40 minutes with stretching - I figure that thousands of years of yoga practice settled on a good time requirement for red light exposure via its sun salutations.ritual I don't know yoga but my tai chi practice has 10 stretches that I do for 4 minutes each. and I have heard that the first 40 minutes of sunlight is gives the best health benefit. alas I'm to lazy to wake up for sunrise but at least there are red light panels for the slow to rise

[bratgirl]

Hello, so your question got me thinking and I Google Scholar (ed) until I found the term "Arndt–Schultz law". Which essentially was as close an answer as anyone willing to hedge. "For many years, this Arndt–Schultz law has been used as a convenient concept to explain the cellular and tissue interactions with light." This quote is in a paper called "Review of light parameters and photobiomodulation efficacy: dive into complexity" ( I will link). I will post the conclusions here as the paper is dense and the conclusions are sort of funny.
1. Cells with higher numbers of mitochondria respond better to PBM than cells with lower numbers of mitochondria.
2. Ineffective studies on cells with higher numbers of mitochondria are as likely to be due to over-dosing as they are to under-dosing.
3. It is less likely that ineffective studies in cells with lower numbers of mitochondria will be due to over-dosing.
4. The fluence delivered is more important in determining the success or failure of an in vitro study than the irradiance employed.
5. Tissues with higher numbers of mitochondria tend to be deeper within the body than tissues with lower numbers of mitochondria, therefore, over-dosing is less likely.
6. Ineffective studies in vivo are more likely to be due to under-dosing regardless of the number of mitochondria.

I have MS and am using photo modulation to reduce inflammation and limit my disease progression. My fingers are crossed and if my skin glows while I heal, so be it. The paper is in the Journal of Biomedical Optics, a paper in the NIH from 2018. There may be newer studies to help us figure this out. Thanks for your videos and knowledge. It has been so helpful.

[tonyrabone]

Appreciate honesty. How do you know how much is too much? What happens if you over do it?
And for sleep, do you feel early or late is better? E.g. sunshine early in the day is good for sleep. What about red light?

[ProvocateuAstrology]

I do.
Stick to 3 minutes on the eyes with joy.What's directly looking inthe mathen?I'll close my eyes do more of the front and then turn around and do the back for as long as I feel like