#31: Red, White, and Blue Light: Healing or Hype?

Come join me on this very important journey and I hope that you feel empowered along the way . I'm a physician , ironman , triathlete and have published several hundred scientific studies . I'm honored to be your guide . Welcome everyone to episode number 31, . Red , white and Blue Light Healing or Hype . Well , does red light therapy work ?

Is the morning sun good for you ? Do blue light blocking glasses help your sleep ? What do we know based upon real evidence , and what works and what doesn't ? That is today's episode , so join me . Well , why am I wanting to talk about this topic ?

Well , when I was a child a bit ago , I had atopic dermatitis or at the time we often called it eczema , and my feet would have real problems Cracked , skin , itchy .

It was a mess , went on for a number of years and I remember going to the dermatologist and him saying to me well , go out in the sun and stick your feet up towards the sky , and that may help your symptoms and in fact it really did help .

So I remember that my daughter recently has been going out for early morning walks and getting sun in the morning and she's finding benefit for her in all sorts of ways , especially her sleep . My wife , my dear wife Gail , wears blue light blocking glasses at night before bed to help her fall asleep .

And almost everywhere you turn there are advertisements for red light therapy boxes with claims about all sorts of things they can solve . So why not talk about light and light therapy ? Let's go down the rabbit hole together and learn about white light as therapy , red light as therapy and whether blue light is bad for you .

Now the timing is really really good because we recently talked about placebo . That was episode number 28 . And many of the benefits that people might claim from a red light therapy frankly may be the placebo effect . And if you want to re-listen to that episode to remind yourself about all the ways that placebo can be powerful , feel free to do so .

And the end of one approach , which was episode 27, . And we're going to end today's episode with how you might test out these approaches for yourself . Keep in mind that , whether you get excited about red light therapy or these other therapies , whether you get confused by the information , whether you think it's just the perfect way to dial in your health .

That may depend a lot on your health type . And remember , we've got that quiz , the health type quiz , where it will tell you which type person you are and send you information about that . Feel free , if you haven't done it already , or do it again if you wish , go to my website , drbobbylivelongandwellcom . All right , my approach for today .

I'm going to begin where the evidence is strongest , where we see that in fact , it's been tested , it's been tested quite rigorously and we can believe the results , and then we're going to work our way towards areas that , frankly , frankly , the evidence is much more scanty and I'm not convinced by it .

When we think about light therapy and we think about where it might benefit us , if it's the skin that we're trying to deal with , whether it's a skin disease or cosmetic issues , there is some evidence to say that light therapy works .

However , if we're starting to say that light therapy can cure headaches and reduce your risk of dementia and solve pain all across your body , that's issues that are deep inside you body . That's issues that are deep inside you and light really doesn't penetrate very far . So here I'm much more skeptical of the evidence . So we'll talk about that All right .

The first area where , in fact , there's some pretty darn good evidence that light therapy works . In this case we're going to begin with white light or sunlight , and sometimes that actually are light bulbs that are ultraviolet , but it's all about kind of the white light total light spectrum .

Now I mentioned earlier that for me it seemed to help for my atopic dermatitis or eczema as a child . Well , nowadays , obviously , they use more powerful lights than just the sun , and before there were these new psoriasis drugs and wonderful atopic dermatitis and other drugs , light therapy was really the mainstay .

It goes back 100 years for psoriasis , where they put a tar-like substance on you and expose you to light . So it's well recognized , has been used for a very , very long time , and the American Academy of Dermatology guidelines support light therapy for these kinds of things . And , as I mentioned , nowadays we use ultraviolet light for some of these skin disorders .

Also , if you have acne , these light therapies , white light therapy , ultraviolet therapy can be very effective . But now here's the wrinkle , and it's going to be a lot of wrinkles that we're going to talk about today .

Yes , light therapy can help your acne , but it's no better than benzoyl peroxide and , frankly , sitting under a light for quite a while is a burden . Now , you may not want benzoyl peroxide and , frankly , sitting under a light for quite a while is a burden .

Now , you may not want benzoyl peroxide on your skin , but it works and it's a quicker way to deal with it on a daily basis . So just keep that in mind . So when we think about light therapies , yes , it's important to say compared to placebo , does it work better ?

Okay , but there's another question , which is are there alternative therapies that are just as good , if not better ? So light therapy may not be the panacea . Now , in one area there's almost no alternative to good light therapy and that's for a type of depression called seasonal affective disorders . Now , this has actually only been recognized back in the 1980s .

I would have thought this had been known about for a century or more . But people who live in cloudy environments think of the Seattle area or Sweden or someplace where maybe it doesn't have a lot of sun , especially during the winter months . Folks get depression , folks who are sensitive to this issue .

So the sunlight , or the lack of sunlight , brings on their depression symptoms . And lo and behold , if you look at a summary of 10 randomized controlled trials , being exposed to light therapy for two hours really improved their depression , not just for those with seasonal affective disorder , but generally depression as well .

Now , I said earlier we should be skeptical when we're trying to have an impact deep in our body , and obviously depression is something that's going on in our brain . And how could this sunlight or white light therapy penetrate deep into the brain ? Well , we're not asking it to do that , because what happens is the light goes in your eyes .

Your eyes are connected to your brain , and that stimulation appears to be the way that it improves your depression . So keep that in mind . So keep that in mind . Now , as I mentioned with my daughter , going out in the morning and exposing to sunlight has helped her sleep , and it's not just an anecdote .

In the morning helps to set your circadian rhythms and set you up for a day of feeling well and a night of good sleep . Now , getting light in the morning is one of 12 things that I've talked about in episode three to improve your sleep . So there's 11 more .

If you're having troubles with sleep , by all means listen to that episode or go to my website and read the blog and it will list all of them and try them all that you wish . It's felt that the light in the morning helps our biologic clocks , as I mentioned , and it has an impact on our melatonin levels .

Now more about melatonin levels in a little bit when we talk about blue light glasses . And finally

, being out in the sun improves vitamin D production . So there are many areas that light sunlight , ultraviolet light help us and the evidence is really pretty good . But all the things I've talked about were because they were focused on improvements in the skin , which is very , very not deep in our bodies or it went through the eyes .

Now we're going to move into red light therapy , where the evidence is much more uncertain . Now I went on Amazon to see well , are there a lot of red light therapy boxes or options out there ? Amazon has over 2,000 .

So everybody's trying to sell you a red light therapy , red light box , red light contraption that will help improve all sorts of different things and it's been touted for hair growth , skin problems , pain relief , arthritis , cognitive function and many more . So a high level questions to ask yourself .

High-level questions to ask yourself Is it biologically plausible that a red light therapy box could be helpful to you , and we'll talk in a moment about how deep the light goes and can it work . Also , keep in mind that many of these studies were done in dermatologists or others offices and they're not using a simple red light therapy box from Amazon .

They're using lasers . Now , lasers are a lot more intense , a lot more focused , and benefits that are seen from a study in a dermatologist office are not the same as what you might do at home , where those devices are broader spectrum , not as focused and certainly nowhere near as intense .

Okay , so if you use one of the sort of home devices , the red light that comes out of them goes in maybe a millimeter to three millimeters goes in maybe a millimeter to three millimeters , so a really tiny amount . So that should then raise the question could it really affect us deep in our bodies ?

Yeah , maybe it affects our skin , but how about deep in our bodies ? Now , if can go in one to three centimeters , so maybe an inch or so , so that might be more effective , but it's not going to go deep inside your body , so keep that in mind . Okay , in the lab and , as my listeners know , I'm not real excited about lab data .

I want to see what happens in people , but we'll begin , at least for the moment , about the lab . So if you take cells and you put them in a lab , and put them in a petri dish or a test tube and you blast them with light , what happens ?

Well , you can show that the mitochondria , those little energy powerhouses in our cells , become more active and they produce more energy , atp production . And you can show that if you take cells and you expose them to light , yeah , some collagen is produced and collagen can sort of make the skin more life young-like . So that makes some sense .

But again , this is in the lab where you're blasting these poor little skin cells . But what about in people ? As I've alluded to a couple of times , the data in general is better about impact on the skin . So red light therapy has been shown to improve wound healing .

So chronic wounds that are not getting better for one reason or another , there's data to suggest that red light therapy works . But again , this is that low light laser therapy not something you get off of Amazon and it does seem to work .

The other area , and this one , actually can use some of the things you could buy over the counter , and that's hair regrowth , and there's been about seven randomized controlled trials that showed some benefit .

Now , these are very small studies and many of them , as you wouldn't be surprised , have been done or funded for by the companies that make them , but there is some suggestion that it improves hair density . So here's an example of just one .

So there were 60 patients in a randomized control trial and they wore this red light helmet , so something that goes over your head , and people had to do this for 16 weeks . So it's a big investment of time and money as well .

Now , on your head , the way they tell how your hair is doing is they count the number of hair follicles in a centimeter squared , so a small area of your head and normal is about 200 hair follicles in that small space . Obviously , as you lose hair and become bald , that number 200 falls .

So in this study they looked at people that had about 42 hairs in that square centimeter and that was their baseline . After the 12 weeks of using the helmet , that increased to 110 . So in this one study it didn't take people back to normal hair , but it took them in a very positive direction . Is this going to be true for you ? Who knows ?

Are there alternatives that you could do that might be just as effective ? Sure , but this is one modality that might have some benefit , and we'll talk at the end about end-of-one trials and how you can test out some of these concepts yourself . Well , what about the skin itself Wrinkles ?

Now , there have been some studies about whether red light therapy improves wrinkles , and these have typically been really small studies 10 people , 20 people and they're typically done again by the companies that make the devices .

But in one study they looked at 20 women and they looked at how deep the crow's feet were , the wrinkles around their eyes , and they looked at skin firmness and the elasticity and smoothness and they did show some improvements . But , as I mentioned here , one of the authors was from Parfum , christian Dior .

They're in the business of focus on wrinkles , so you have to again take that carefully . Another study a bunch of patients in a randomized controlled trial . They took photographs and they asked people to analyze the before and after photographs , and again , it was done by folks that make the device , but they did show some benefits . All right .

So for skin , there is some suggestion that red light therapy can help . Now let's go deeper in the body , and this is where the evidence gets trickier . How about arthritis pain disorders ? Can it work ? Can it work better than the usual things we would do ?

So there was a study , a meta-analysis , of 22 randomized controlled trials for osteoarthritis that's the typical arthritis of aging and they tested red light therapy for a week , five weeks , up to 12 weeks . Some of them were done and they did show pain improvement . Okay so , dr Bobby , it could work for osteoarthritis .

Well , there was another meta-analysis of five studies for rheumatoid arthritis , a very different type of arthritis , and it too showed some improvements in pain and morning stiffness and some flexibility improvements in the hand . But this is where these studies start to get tricky .

In that rheumatoid arthritis study , where they showed benefit , they showed benefit not only in the hand that had the laser light or the red light , but in the other hand as well . How could that possibly be ? We know that it only penetrates a small amount .

We could potentially see how it could help the hand that you were receiving the therapy with , but the other hand ? So that begins to raise questions like placebo . Is that really what's going on ? And there was another rheumatoid arthritis meta-analysis which showed no benefit . And finally , what about fibromyalgia ? This is a disorder often related to poor sleep .

They're connected where you have a lot of aches and pains and what are called trigger points , and so this study looked at nine randomized control trials and about 300 people , and they did show improvements with red light therapy , but in this case this was the laser light , so again , something you would need to do in a doctor's offices .

But what they found was , yes , there was some improvement in discomfort , but it was really no better than exercise . So , yes , there's some suggestive evidence of light therapy helping . But when you look more carefully , you find there are problems with these studies .

There are those that tout that red light therapy can help body contouring and weight loss , and in one interesting study , they took photographs of their abdomen and one side they gave the low light laser therapy . Again , this is the thing you would have to do in a doctor's office and the other side nothing .

And they took pictures of each side and then , in a blinded way , doctors looked at them . Guess what ? There were no difference between either side . There's , finally , some thoughts that maybe it could help your cognitive function . These are again tiny studies conducted by the device manufacturers and I'm not impressed with them or the results .

So , as we think about red light therapy , do we believe the evidence ? Well , some of it , yeah , makes sense if it's in the skin areas . As we go deeper in , I'm not sure I believe the evidence . Secondly , are the home units even strong enough ?

Because , again , many of these studies were done with the low light laser therapy in doctor's offices and there's so much confusion about , well , what's the right intensity

of light and how long and what wavelength . And then , finally , of course , is the issue of safety , and you would want to cover your and protect your eyes , and there is always possibility of you know , sort of sunburn of your skin .

All right , let's turn to the last topic , which is blue light and whether blue light glasses that block the blue light are helpful in your sleep . Now here's the theory . The theory is that your body , over the course of the evening , builds up levels of melatonin which tells us it's sleepy time and it's time to go to sleep . And it's time to go to sleep .

Well , darkness promotes melatonin production . So blue light also appears that potentially it interferes with that production . So we want the melatonin to go up . Darkness gets us there , but blue light might interfere with that .

So there was this whole focus on these blue light glasses , and there were some studies that show that reading a book is better than your iPad , and if you wore blue light glasses , maybe that would help . And so there was an excitement around blue light glasses .

But recent looking at the evidence , and even experts like Matt Walker , have changed their view , and now what it appears is it's not the blue light per se , it's that blue light comes in your phone and your iPad . So people who are on their iPhone and their iPad are being exposed to blue light .

Yes , but really the issue is the agitation , the excitement of looking at your social media , looking at videos , looking at your email . So when you're ready to go to bed , you've been agitated for hours

and you're not able to fall asleep . So it likely isn't the blue light blocking glasses or the blue light , but rather the agitation that's associated with that . Okay , lots of information , but where do we go from here ? Where do I net out ? We all want to live long and well , and , of course , me too . Is light therapy the answer ?

Well , if you're talking about white light , ultraviolet light , for known skin problems or depression , or getting a better night's sleep , the evidence is pretty darn good and I think it's supportive . Red light therapy I don't know For hair regrowth . The data is pretty good . Not the only way to solve the problem , but that's a possible thing to consider .

But as we go deeper and hope that it'll do things deep in our bodies , that's where I'm not convinced about the evidence . And finally , blue light glasses . Again , focus on being quiet before you go to bed , reading a book , not having anything stimulating . That's the secret . Probably not blocking the blue light For me .

I also would ask the question is it worth the cost ? As I reviewed for some of the studies , there are alternatives . For acne , you can , of course , use

benzoyl peroxide or other kinds of things . For fibromyalgia , you can do exercise . Is it worth spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on red light boxes or the laser light therapies ? You'll have to decide . And always , is it better than other approaches ? Yes , it might provide some benefit , but other approaches may be just as good or perhaps better .

So what do you do with this ? Well , if you are intrigued and you want to try this , by all means do so . But maybe think about doing it in the context of an end-of-one trial , meaning you're going to measure something at baseline .

Doesn't have to necessarily be the counting of hair follicles in a centimeter , but think about something you're hoping will get better . Then try the therapy . If you wish , measure it again to give yourself some belief that it is real and that maybe you then stop the therapy . See if the problem comes back , restart it .

That will help you figure out how much of this might be the placebo effect and how much might be real . As always , until next time . If you like this podcast , please share it with your friends or write a review on Spotify , apple or elsewhere . Take the quiz , if you haven't , and figure out your health type .

And if you want to work more directly with me in all these cases , just go to my website and you'll find information that might be useful . So take care , and until next time . So take care , and until next time . Thanks so much for listening to Live Long and Well with Dr Bobby .

If you liked this episode , please provide a review on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen . If you want to continue this journey or want to receive my newsletter on practical and scientific ways to improve your health and longevity , please visit me at drbobbilivelongandwellcom . That's , Dr , as in D-R Bobby . Live long and wellcom .