Red and Near InfraRed Light Therapy

Is Red Light a Missing Nutrient for our Health?

This Sunday addition to my blog is about more than how specific vitamins can help support our immune system, especially during Covid.  It’s also about improving overall health in general.  Because we can’t get every nutrient our body needs from food alone, we supplement with… specific supplements.  Vitamin D is getting recognized by mainstream doctors as a preventative for viruses and the dosages are being properly upped.

Which brings me to another light-associated nutrient worth discussing, namely Red and Near Infrared Light. Yet unlike Vitamin D, this nutrient isn’t available in pill form. It’s something I’ve been curious about and it’s something I’ve been using for back massage for several years, but now I’m trying it on my face.  I’ve been using a device from Melbourne, Australia called the “Hive” by BLUBlox (link below). 

Peer-reviewed scientific research has shown Red Light & Near Infrared Light therapy has anti-aging effects on our skin, it can help combat a number of neurological diseases, help fight depression and anxiety, it can help increase fat loss, speed recovery from exercise, improve your sleep, increase muscle strength and endurance, combat some autoimmune conditions, fight hair loss, and speed healing from injury, and all with few to no negative side effects.

I just listened to a podcast with Dr. Michael Hamblin; a recently retired dermatology professor at Harvard Medical School. He gets into all of the therapeutic applications, among which are skin burn therapy, beauty salon applications in skin rejuvenation and hair regrowth on thinning scalps. It is used in physiotherapy to help speed the healing of injured or inflamed tendons, ligaments, and muscles as a result of exercise. And to my surprise, the interviewer spoke about red light as a nutrient.

But what I liked most about the interview was Hamblin’s comments about Red and Near InfraRed Light being used to treat both Parkinson’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Diseases, which have no other significant treatment options; and his comments about the 4th state of water, which he called nano-structured water (@ ~27:38).

The link to this interview is below with a few other reputable links should you want to check them out.  I personally find this very fascinating.  The light also feels pleasingly warming on the skin.

Link to podcast interview with Dr. Michael Hamblin, a Harvard dermatologist and one of the world’s leading researchers on the topic: https://blog.humanos.me/red-light-missing-nutrient-for-health-podcast-michael-hamblin/ 

Link to a peer-reviewed science paper on the topic: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5066074/

Link to the Hive Near-Infrared and Red Light unit that I’ve been using:  https://www.blublox.com/collections/red-light-device 

Of course there are other device makers, such as Joov and VieLight that you can check out.

Send me your thoughts on this.  Have you tried it?