So i was walking through the streets of Tokyo
and i saw this ad for a thing called a collagen capsule that looks like a red light emitting
tanning machine that is supposed to reduce your fatigue improve, your skin, and anti-age you.
This wasn't too surprising as i've seen many other random beauty products and machines over here but
what was surprising was when my friend said he broke a bone in his hand, to improve the healing
process his doctor had him come in several times over the course of a couple months to
put his hand under a ...red light device. So this got me curious: what's going on with red light?
To understand light we need to take a look at ...American football the
idea of the game is to get the ball on this side more than the other guy gets the ball
on that side for many players a consequence of doing this is repeated head trauma and concussions
"For iron mike TV interviews became impossible." "Hell I don't know what I'm saying I'm just tired
and confused right now that's why I say I can't really I can't say it the way I want
to say it it..." "He would forget you know which way the grocery store was, which way
it was to go home! He said you know the the worst thing is... is I'm actually getting to the point
where I'm cold and I don't realize that i can fix it by putting a jacket on." When Dr
Bennett Omalu performed the autopsy of former Pittsburgh steelers player Mike Webster in 2002
he found distinct changes in the brain that had to have been the result of repeated
blows to the head. In 2005 football player Terry Long committed suicide
Dr Omalu examined his brain and found so much buildup of a specific damaging protein that the
45 year old's brain looked more like a 90 year old brain with advanced Alzheimer's.
Larry Carr is yet another football player whose brain suffered from the repeated
trauma caused by hits to the head. Years after his 10-year football career in the 70s ended
his symptoms began with language problems which progressed into severe emotional dysregulation,
depression, agitation and paranoia. Fortunately he found a way to improve his brain health after
coming into contact with professor of neurology Dr Margaret Naeser who included Larry in a trial
of shining red light to the head to restore brain function. After 18 weeks of this unusual treatment
his brain health actually improved significantly. His emotional outbursts and depression scores had
gone way down which drastically improved his quality of life and suggested that the damage
done to his brain was somehow being repaired by this light. Now hold up i can already hear
y'all's skepticism gears turning away. Come on how could light reverse brain damage?
There's actually a surprising amount of science and history behind this light therapy.So light
and different wavelengths of light affect us in all kinds of ways - as you know sunlight simply
hitting the skin allows the body to create vitamin D. Blue light in particular wavelengths around
460 to 480 nanometers affects the body's circadian rhythm, keeping you awake at night,
hence there are blue light blocking glasses and blue light filtering softwares
that are supposed to help you sleep. Maybe you've heard of seasonal affective disorder
S.A.D where people in regions of the world where there is too little sunlight during the winter
get symptoms of depression. One simple yet effective treatment for this disorder is just
exposing the person to a bright light during the day. Nowadays red and near infrared light
devices are becoming popular this red light therapy is thought to have beneficial effects
for everything from reducing inflammation and reducing recovery time after exercise
to increasing collagen production which gives you better looking skin and there's even claims that
red light raises testosterone. Ben Greenfield wrote a popular article for men's health back
in 2017 titled "I put a giant red light on my balls to triple my testosterone levels."
I picked up a red light device that emits 660 and 850 nanometer light at 68.6 watts and i've noticed
a couple things: If i leave it on my stomach for more than about 10 minutes i feel pretty relaxed
kind of like the chilled out feeling you get from sunbathing at the beach. Since i'm new to Crossfit
and have pretty bad form my wrists are usually in pain for about two days after certain workouts,
but if I apply the light to my wrists they're back to normal about a day faster than usual.
Then if i put it on my face my skin seems to look a little better not that this comparison proves
anything but here's a microscope image of the same spot on my forehead before and after a 10 minute
red light session as you can see these pores here seem to have become a lot less ...gross.
So what exactly is going on with red light how is it any different from you know ...normal light?
Let's rewind a bit back to 10th century japan people at the time believed in a smallpox god
called Housoukami who caused smallpox and feared the color red. This superstition led them to
decorating patients rooms with red objects red strips of paper having people wear red clothes
and so on in fact many different cultures ended up adopting this practice this was recommended in
medical writings of medieval Arabic scholars and was practiced in England, France, Italy,
Sweden, Denmark and other areas. King Charles V of France, Elizabeth the First of England, and
Joseph the First of Austria were all subjected to this bizarre practice of being surrounded with red
stuff. Fast forward to 1903 Niels Finsen had just won the Nobel prize for discovering that specific
wavelengths of light could heal a terrible skin condition called Lupus Vulgaris caused by the
tuberculosis bacteria. The ultraviolet light he used seemed to destroy the harmful bacteria
but before that Finnson wrote in 1895 paper how the superstitious red treatment for smallpox may
have not been entirely baseless. At the time it was understood that smallpox infected skin
exposed to sunlight even briefly turned into deep scars however Finsen explained that if
you block the sunlight with heavy red curtains and expose the patient to only red rays of light
this would actually promote healing of the skin and reduce scarring.
The red rays were more beneficial than just complete darkness this red light treatment was
effective in 69 out of 70 patients across Denmark, France and Sweden. Many of the practitioners were
actually reserved in their reports on the results probably for fear of being mocked and laughed at.
Finsen was careful to write that this practice had beneficial effects only for the skin but did
not affect the smallpox infection itself. Again, Finsen was not saying red light cures smallpox.
Just that red light has healing effects on the skin. Even then, light that happens to be tinted
red healing the skin may sound farfetched. What also sounds farfetched is saying
you know that terrible bone disease children get? You can cure it with this special lamp of mine.
When Huldzchinsky claimed in 1919 that you could treat rickets with a mercury arc
lamp everyone thought he was a nut but now we know that rickets is caused by vitamin D deficiency
and uv rays from the sun or rays from a uv lamp hitting the skin allows the body to create vitamin
D, which prevents rickets. Not many people bought the idea that red light could benefit the skin
until Endre Mester miscalibrated a laser in 1968. In one of messer's experiments he made
a cut on rodents' skin to implant a cancerous tumor. Then he tried to destroy it with a laser
laser didn't kill the tumor but interestingly it healed the cut he made on the skin. This didn't
make any sense why would the laser not destroy the tumor but instead heal the skin. Actually
Mester's laser was much weaker than he realized. This accident revealed the skin healing effect of
low level lasers. Nowadays LLLT - low-level laser therapy has all kinds of applications
with many research papers written about them. One of the skin applications is healing acne scars.
Low level laser therapy mostly uses red and near infrared wavelengths of light from 660
to 905 nanometers because these penetrate into the body and have certain beneficial effects.
You might be wondering why our bodies would be adapted to react specifically to red and near
infrared light the sun has been worshipped and revered as a provider of health for
quite a while now. Hippocrates had claimed that sunbathing was beneficial to health
and even up until recently it was thought that the sun could help heal wounds this 1918 photograph
depicts wounded American soldiers exposing their unbandaged wounds to the sun to speed
up healing. In 1933 the U.S. government released a pamphlet called sunlight for babies saying
every mother who wishes her baby to have robust health should give him regular sunbaths from
early infancy until he is old enough to play in the sun himself. Nowadays we're told to stay
out of the sun unless we want to get skin cancer, but people are arguing that we need more sun
because vitamin D is so important for health. However the rising and setting sun specifically
don't get too much attention. If you compare the range of wavelengths of light from the morning
and midday sun the morning sun has far more wavelengths in the 630 to 940 nanometer range
and actually this is nearly the exact same range used in low-level laser therapy or red
and near-infrared light therapy. So perhaps red and near-infrared lights aren't randomly magical
but are simulating something we used to get plenty of in our lives. Unless you sleep outside you're
probably not exposed very often to red and infrared rays from the morning or setting sun.
Red light therapy has been claimed to have a positive effect on everything from skin health to
Alzheimer's and Depression. That sounds way too good to be true... So how exactly does red
light affect the cells? Well to understand let's take a look at cyanide poisoning.
As you know the mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell. They produce energy in the form of ATP.
Cyanide poisoning works by basically throwing a wrench in the mitochondria's ATP
energy factory which starves the cell of the precious energy it needs to operate.
Cyanide inhibits an important enzyme in the mitochondria called cytochrome c oxidase. This
is a key enzyme for producing lots of energy. When cytochrome c oxidase is inhibited, ATP production
slows to a halt and the powerhouse of the cell becomes the abandoned shack of the cell
and if this happens to enough cells then you die. "oh geez milhouse how could you let this happen?"
Interestingly, reddit near infrared light works kind of opposite to cyanide. It actually
stimulates this enzyme cytochrome c oxidase in a way that leads to more ATP energy production
since nearly every single type of cell in the body relies on mitochondria to power them with
energy from ATP maybe it's not so far-fetched that light therapy would have such wide-ranging
effects. By the way because red and near-infrared light works essentially opposite to cyanide it's
actually been found to reverse some of the damage cyanide does to cells.
This of course is just a fun fact red light isn't an antidote to cyanide poisoning.
SO cells need energy you shine red light on them and then they are able to produce more
energy and they work better. It's an interesting concept and helps things make a bit more sense
if something can make a wide variety of cells essentially work better we should expect that
something to have beneficial effects on a wide variety of diseases where the mitochondria of
the cells are not working properly. This seems to be what's going on with red light therapy.
Let's take a look at three diseases red light is supposed to help with
Diabetes, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Notice i'm being very careful not to use any words like cure,
but you might still be thinking come on really light is supposed to improve these?
What's going on with type 2 diabetes? one feature of diabetes is a pancreas that doesn't work
properly. And in diabetes you see decreased energy production in the mitochondria
of the pancreas the organ that produces insulin. Another feature of diabetes is insulin resistance
one effect of insulin resistance on the cells is decreased energy production
in the mitochondria. Next, what's going on with Parkinson's disease? This 2018 paper explains that
overwhelming evidence shows that dysfunctional mitochondria are central factor to Parkinson's.
What about Alzheimer's? again one feature of this disease is also decreased energy production in
the mitochondria of brain cells one other thing about red light hitting this enzyme cytochrome c
oxidase is that it releases nitric oxide. Nitric oxide is a very important molecule it acts as a
neurotransmitter, helps heal damaged tissues and relaxes blood vessels- increasing blood flow.
Three men were awarded the Nobel prize in 1998 for discovering nitric oxide's significant role in the
cardiovascular system. Similar to how exposing a UVB light deficient child to the sun can have
magical benefits on their bone health by curing their rickets, red and infrared light may have
such wide ranging benefits simply because modern people happen to be deficient in red and infrared
light - something prehistoric humans would have gotten from the morning and evening sun every day.
So let's get back to TBI - traumatic brain injury. Surprisingly, 1.7 million Americans
receive treatment for TBI each year and again mitochondria come into play.
As this paper explains: widespread damage to the mitochondria of the brain
is a significant part of the symptoms seen from TBI. So there is actually very solid evidence and
logic for why Dr Margaret Naeser had Larry Carr strap this red light emitting device to his head
and there's even solid science that explains why it had such significant benefits for him.
Furthermore, a small 2009 study took 10 patients with a history of major depression
and anxiety and applied red and near-infrared light to their forehead for four weeks.
Amazingly at the end of the four weeks, six out of the ten patients depression was in remission
and seven out of the ten patients anxiety was in remission. Studies like this are very exciting
but as i said earlier i've been very careful not to use words like "cure" in this video. So
should we all go out and drop a couple hundred dollars on a red light device well it's hard
to say ...obviously you won't get results as ridiculous as this but to this collagen capsule
thing's credit there are actually many papers showing red light increases collagen synthesis.
To what degree it actually beautifies your skin is hard to say but if you're
interested in red light for these skin or other benefits it's worth looking into. If anything
hopefully this video encouraged you to try and get some early morning sun
which would be good for establishing a healthy circadian rhythm anyhow
let's say nasa wants to use a swarm of self-replicating robots to explore
mars first nasa allows the robots to self-replicate in the atacama desert of chile
for several hundred generations and then sends a dozen copies of the fastest reproducing robot
with genotype zero one one one one to mars after several years the robots have reproduced many
times over generating offspring well adapted to mars then the robots send back this data
then they send all those robots on mars
back to atacama and let them reproduce for 100 more generations and we get this data so
why did the robots best adapted for the mars environment perform even better in
atacama than the robots that were initially best adapted to the atacama environment
if you'd like to know why you'll have to check out brilliant's computational biology course
if you're naturally curious or want to build your problem solving or analytical abilities
you'll enjoy brilliant thought-provoking math science and computer science content
designed to break complex scientific concepts down into understandable chunks
like this lesson on neural networks it takes you from how a computer learns to play tic-tac-toe
up to how artificial neurons are trained with over 60 interactive courses in math
science and computer science brilliant will grow your understanding of our modern world
with a structured and engaging approach check out brilliant.org wil
and the first 200 people to follow my link will get 20 off the annual subscription