Andy Smith 00:00 
A quick disclaimer before we begin, the PEMF podcast does not contain any medical advice and the content provided is for informational purposes only. If you have any health concerns, please visit a healthcare professional.

Welcome back to another episode of the PEMF podcast and today we're going to be focusing around red light therapy and how we can use PEMF and red light therapy because we're finding that it's a great combination therapy and it stacks really well together. So today we've got a red light therapy expert who's going to be talking to us all about red light therapy and also known as photobiomodulation, which we'll come to. And our special guest is coming to us all the way from Mexico today and that's Bart Walbers. For anyone who may not know you Bart, can you just introduce us, tell us a little bit about your background and who you're working with and all that stuff at the moment.

Bart Wolbers 00:49 
Sure, sure, sure. My name is Bart. I've been working with, for a website called Light Therapy Insiders and we met at the Health Optimization Summit this year and also last year. And my specialty right now is in red light therapy. I've been researching the topic for many, many, many years. In 2017, I mentioned Alec Fergus, who is like the face of the YouTube channel on red light therapy. I missed him like, ah, do you want to hire somebody as a writer? Because I had been writing for a few years and then I missed him and he was like, no, I don't need, we don't need writers. But then I sent him like a complete article on red light therapy. I told him like, this topic you've been missing on the websites and then he hired me and since then I've been working for Alex, with Alex in part. And yeah, so probably for like seven or eight years, I've been in the red light therapy space and since maybe two years ago, we've really specialized into that topic. So we no longer like have bioarchic in general, but we have a website specifically on light therapy. And yeah, that's how all this got started. So

Andy Smith 02:16 
I introduced you as coming to us from Mexico. Our listeners are probably thinking it doesn't sound very Mexican. Where are you from originally Bart, and why are you in Mexico?

Bart Wolbers 02:26 
So originally I'm from the Netherlands. I've lived there for like maybe my first 33 years. I'm pretty, I'm pretty eight now. So, but yeah, so it's in many years. I've been traveling arounds in North, Middle South America. Because the weather is really very nice here. And because this is a very, I think very health-promoting environment compared to Europe in the winter or in the fall. Europe is wonderful in the summer, but outside that also, yeah, mainly because of the lighting. I think it's so optimal for your health. So I've been living in, in Mexico and Peru or Brazil for many years now.

Andy Smith 03:11 
Yeah, so you know the benefits of red light therapy, so you're kind of following the sun around, so to speak. Yeah, yeah.

Bart Wolbers 03:18 
Yeah. And I actually did this, maybe not the best promotion, but I used a rather special one in Europe, but here in North or South America, I think I generally don't need it. And I just get out in the sun in the morning and in the afternoon and in the evening. And that's all you need. But if you live in Europe or in North America, like in the north of the US or in Canada or in the sun part of Australia or the sun part of New Zealand, then often there's not enough sun to come around and it's often dark for a large part of the year or it's cloudy. And then in those cases, many people are affected by, yeah, what I would call sunlight deficiency. And then there's a huge gain in your health that you can make by just adding the red and the near infrared part of the spectrum to your daily regimen as a supplement in a way.

Andy Smith 04:19 
And the sad part about the way we live these days, you know, I'm just as bad myself and it I live in the UK But I'm experiencing quite nice weather at the moment. I can see out the window It's nice and sunny but I'm still sitting for eight hours nine hours a day in my office and and I'm not even experiencing it So we're all we're all slaves to the to the working world these days But anyway, let's let's introduce What is you know, what's your best? Explanation in a summary recap of what is red light therapy or also known as photo bio modulation now, I think If I get that correct, it's the same thing.

Bart Wolbers 04:57 
The people working in the research will say it's not the same thing, but it's a definition. Like the definitions evolve, like it used to be called low-level laser therapy, but now we've got the LEDs that even you're using, so now the definitions have changed. James Carroll will tell you that it's not the same thing, but for me, yeah, for me and anybody else it's the same thing. Oh yeah, sure. What it does is your cells are affected by light in your environment, so once you shine the light on your tissue, there is a biological effect. The effect differs, so usually light or the visible light, which is like violet, blue, green, red, and artisty matrix, and the infrared, which is what eats your tissue or what feels like hot, that all has like a biological effect. So some of these parts of the light spectrum, that's the way it's called in physics, the red and near infrared, they have like a real healing benefit because they enhance the amount of energy that's created in the cell in a very good way. Generally, when we look at diseases, the sicker you are, the poor benefit it will have, so for like an 18-year-old, it might not make too much of a difference, but if you're 70 years old and you have Alzheimer's disease and diabetes, then it can make a big difference also in a few weeks or in a few months according to the studies. There's a lot of discussion about the exact biological mechanisms, but what's generally accepted is if you shine light, the red and near infrared spectrum on your tissue, then there will be, it builds in your mitochondria, which are the energy producing factories of the cells, it will increase the amount of energy that's created, it will also lower inflammation, it will reduce oxidative stress, which is like byproduct of energy production. So for many, many different mechanisms, it will basically make you healthier across the board.

Andy Smith 07:19 
Yeah, so we say it works. I mean PEMF therapy. We say he works on a cellular level and The same sort of thing with red light therapy. It's it's affecting the cells of the body. It's creating that environment in the body to heal So what would you say in terms of what's the most common use of red light therapy? you know who would benefit the most even though that's quite a broad spectrum because same thing with PEMF it helps a lot of different things, but But where do you think is is the main applications for these?

Bart Wolbers 07:52 
I think it is a tool, a general tool, just like exercises, just like eating healthy diets and avoiding like junk food. It is a general tool that can make you healthier across the board and it doesn't really matter whether it's about sleep quality or about avoiding heart disease or diabetes or just performing better in the gym or if you want to improve your eye health or whatever, almost whatever, not in every case because there's some cases where I think the evidence is not as strong, but in always every case, it will support your health. In the same way that exercise does, right? Or in the same way that eating a healthy diet does. Yeah, once you stop eating junk food, your health will generally improve or stop drinking soda, which is loaded with sugar. Once you implement relative therapy, if you live in an environment where there's almost no light, so yeah, where I'm from and not in Europe, it will often make a big difference in your health. Some people, they don't respond the way other people do, so just the way you can have some individuals, they're very lucky and they can get away with eating junk food 24 of seven and still be healthy. And in the same way, some people don't respond to light therapy like others, but generally your health will improve a lot by implementing this.

Andy Smith 09:32 
So is this the same as sitting under the sun?

Bart Wolbers 09:36 
That is a big discussion, I think. Not a simple answer.

Andy Smith 09:40 
Yeah.

Bart Wolbers 09:40 
That's another whole rabbit hole to go into. I have my opinion on this. I think if I could travel with like a big relative panel and put it in my carry-on bag or somehow in my luggage I would do it, I don't do that about it. I think relative therapy, especially if you apply it at a high power output and close to the skin or even directly on the skin, it has additional benefits over and above sunlight. But sunlight has benefits too that you, right now, because the way these panels or whatever product you think about like I want it to put on the skin or like a handle device, these products are designed in a way that they only, mostly, most of the most surprised, they only emit red and near infrared lights. If you're lucky, there's a little bit of green or blue in there, but they don't emit the full spectrum that the sun does and if you could, well, yeah, sunlight has some additional benefits that relative therapy doesn't have in my opinion, which is not the, which is maybe not the scientific consensus, but my opinion is that relative therapy has some benefits that sunlight does have either.

Andy Smith 11:01 
Yeah, and I think it's all about the application because, you know, for people and the risk is involved if people sit under the sun for five hours a day, you know, no protection. Obviously, there's a lot about sun protection these days. The risk involved is sunburn, you know, the obvious risk. Sure. Sure. So and and, you know, it's been the sunlight has been demonized a bit, I think, by the media over the years and completely agree. Yeah, so it's kind of like.

Bart Wolbers 11:30 
Actually, we're newly Never is here. So son. Well, there is no son most of the year. Yeah

Andy Smith 11:38 
So in terms of comparing that to red light therapy are there risks involved with red light therapy in using a red light panel?

Bart Wolbers 11:45 
Now, there's no risk of sunburn, you can outdo it, especially if you have chronic health conditions, you need to be careful because the light not only acts as a nutrient, it's also certainly a stressor in a way. So it's a hormetic stressor, hormetic means that once you apply a little bit of stress, the body gets stronger and adjusts to that in the same way that exercise will or if you if you use cold showers, in time you'll adapt to the into the cold. If you get into an infrared sauna, in time you'll sweat less and get more adapted to the heat. And radiotherapy is similar, if you've got like fibromyalgia and heart disease and diabetes, start slow with the radiotherapy because it can give some side effects. But in terms of sunburn, there's no ultraviolet light involved. So yeah, you kind of get a sunburn. But yeah, and and even the research there shows that radiotherapy will help you not only prevent the sunburn, which is quite strong on but also treat the sun sunburn, there are some evidence in that. So especially not only scientifically, but anecdotally. So my my good friend Alex from my therapy inside as he will tell you that if he has a sunburn in New Zealand, he'll use radiotherapy twice a day and then it will magically go away and otherwise it would have lasted like two or three days. Yeah.

Andy Smith 13:20 
Yeah. And that was actually one of my questions we're going to come to because again, it seems confusing. If you burn yourself under sunlight, you know, the treatment most people wouldn't think would be to expose yourself to more light. But like you say, that's where the sun and red light therapy differs in terms of that's going to help actually the treatment side of things. So no, it's really good to hear.

Bart Wolbers 13:48 
It is the ultraviolet light, the UVA, the UVB that causes the sunburn. They're a little bit different, but yeah, sure. Both of them can cause a sunburn in a different way. Yeah, the melanin in the skin, it responds a little bit different to the UVA, the UVA, UVA, but the red and the overhead, which you would mostly get predominantly from like a morning sun or evening sun just before the sunset. It is very healing and it will prevent the sunburn in the sense that you can stay in the sun for longer before you get a sunburn, but also it will heal the skin quicker.

Andy Smith 14:31 
Yeah, yeah. Okay, no, cool. So, I mean, we're getting more involved. We've been involved in PEMF now for 10 years and within the last year, we're getting more heavily involved in red light therapy because we've seen how the benefits are stacking up together. We were trialing a bunch of red light panels and some of those red light panels were inducing some redness from the skin. So does that differ from sunburn? What's the redness that's coming from the red light panels?

Bart Wolbers 15:00 
I've heard that, I've not experienced it, but we have a stage group with almost 10 large people on relative therapy and so on. And some people, we take every potential side of like very seriously, right?

Andy Smith 15:13 
Hmm

Bart Wolbers 15:15 
Some people seem to have redness after using a red lithography panel. I don't know why, but even people describe it as a sunburn on their part. And I think, yeah, and I think generally people need to, and this is not a side effect that's described in the scientific literature, right? Because most of the research, even though they're like eight or nine times studies right now on light therapy in general, most of the studies, they don't use the very big LED panels that will treat your entire body. So that's why we probably don't have any research on the topic, but number one, just lower the dosage. So if you're treating your skin for 20 minutes a day, do it for 10 or maybe for five and see how you respond to that, and number two is don't worry too much about it because it's not a UV induced sunburn, so.

Andy Smith 16:17 
And it could come down to increased circulation in the area too, and redness from blood flow and that sort of thing.

Bart Wolbers 16:24 
Sure. It can be blood flow. In the same way, if you go to a sauna, if I go to a sauna in Finland, then I'll be read throughout the body, right? And it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a problem. It's just like a natural response in terms of blood flow to the stimulus. So, yeah.

Andy Smith 16:46 
So, most red light panels on the market, you mentioned before, they come with near infrared and red light, so what's the main difference between those two types of lights?

Bart Wolbers 16:59 
So the scientific consensus here is that new infrared will penetrate deeper into the body, so you will have more of a deeper effect onto the muscles, bones, etc. That therapy has more of a superficial effect, so it will affect more of the skin, or like tendons or ligaments that are closely, that are in the surface of the body. But I think both are, yeah.

Andy Smith 17:25 
Both are complementary in terms.

Bart Wolbers 17:27 
to choose between either of them both have very beneficial effects both would need to yeah if you want maximum health facts both i would always include both and not either or yeah yeah that that's an all different route at all but there's a whole discussion about what's the effect of different wavelengths i've done a lot of research on that and maybe you've read it maybe not but yeah alex and throw is he base me to go into these topics for many weeks at an end and then write an article about like what are the effects of like 8 10 or 8 30 or 8 50 after i'm launched and all these i cannot tell you for sure that what done with 100 certainty whether that true there probably is but whether that truly is like a difference between 8 10 or 50 uh but if you strictly look at the evidence there is a difference between them but yeah we would need new studies on the top on that topic to really know for sure or for certain what uh which is yeah which is best there is a difference and and then and then if you do if you make that argument then you could do the same for the difference between red light and red light is is there between 70 70 60 or 700 or between 700 and 650 probably but you don't know for sure

Andy Smith 18:57 
Yeah, yeah. So, panels kind of come with different wavelengths, like I've just mentioned. Is the general rule of thumb, if you were saying to someone looking out for a panel, to get more than less? Is it always better to have more wavelengths available, or would you say stick to a certain one?

Bart Wolbers 19:16 
I think generally it's better to have more white things, yeah. I assume that there is a biological difference between different wavelengths. In the same way, we have studied some blue light, right? So there's a difference between blue light at like 425 and 460, and there's a difference between 460 and green light at like 515 or 560 nanometers. I assume that there's a difference between 630 and 660, and a little bit of a difference between 810 and 1060. I think there is, but to know for sure, yeah, you just need human studies that investigate the topic if you really want absolute certainty on the top. And it also mimics the sunlight, right, the topic we've been talking about before. If you go outside where you live right now or where I live right now, then you'll be exposed to UV, to green, to UV, blue, violet, green, orange, and everything in between. Yeah, yeah. Many of these wavelengths have proven benefits, including as many of them as you can in a panel is beneficial, you all think. Yeah, yeah. But like 10 years down the road, I may be wrong on this and I need to change my position, so. Yeah, yeah.

Andy Smith 20:47 
So, I mean, talking about people like looking at, you know, they might be coming into this very new and they want to find a way of applying red light therapy. How do people apply? You've mentioned panels. We bring it out. We now got access to a full body panel and we're looking at the desktop ones now, too, because, again, people don't have time to apply full body sometimes. They want a desktop one to do at work. But what other ways are there of applying red light therapy?

Bart Wolbers 21:18 
Well, you have the ones, so that's like or the spot treatment products, which sort of is like a skill right from very, from a very small treatment area to a very big one. So if you get into this very small area, you get into the ones which you can apply. Yeah, that's what people do for like facial beauty. Well, you can apply it sitting at the couch while you're watching Netflix for like 20 minutes each day and it will have effects. Then in terms of spot treatment, there are also the products that you can apply like a handheld unit that you can apply to the face, which is like this size to the face or to your knee or to a sore elbow if you have it. Then in the middle, there are tabletop panels, which yeah, those are the desktop products that you talk about, which treat like an area maybe this size.

Andy Smith 22:27 
Hmm

Bart Wolbers 22:29 
And Alex has done experiments with this and basically what we find in experiments is it will treat the area more or less straight out of the product. So if a product is this size, you won't get much treatment outside that.

Andy Smith 22:49 
Yeah, so it's pretty much the same size as the product is the treatment area you're going to ultimately get.

Bart Wolbers 22:55 
more or less. And the best treatment is in the middle of it, of course, because there are more LEDs in it, but, and so if you wear your ones, like the full body treatments, you'll need the larger panels. So you can have a wall panel that is like the size of part of my body, and then you can treat part of it, and then you can have a wall panel, which is like really large, like the door maybe behind me, which will treat your entire body. And you just need to turn around once, and then yeah, you'll treat it the entire body, maybe in 10 minutes, maybe in 20.

Andy Smith 23:31 
And I suppose it depends on the device you have but I'm under the understanding you want to be about six to eight inches away from the LEDs, is that correct?

Bart Wolbers 23:41 
Generally for a good power output, for decent power output, you want to be 60 inches away, but some of the reasons I've seen is actually there's a researcher in the space and a realtor who I disagree with a lot, but one thing I don't disagree with him on right now is that there is better penetration and potentially a better biological effect of radiotherapy when you apply it directly to the skin. So especially for deep penetration, for joint health, for whatever goal you have. Maybe not for the skin, but for many other reasons you would apply radiotherapy, there's some benefit I think for applying it directly to the skin. But again, we talked about the stress effect, right? So if you have the same example as before, if you have fibromyalgia, heart disease, diabetes, then you might need to stand six inches away at first or maybe even permanently because it's too much of a stressor. Just like, yeah, if you have those health conditions and it would stress you the same way as two hours of exercise, you cannot do two hours of exercise if you're in that time of the health state. And in the same way you cannot do, you might not be able to do, I'm not sure, but you can test for yourself. You might not be able to apply the radiotherapy directly to the skin and that phase across your entire body. And then there's another case of applying radiotherapy directly to the body when there's only a small area, like some devices, they are meant for the joints, right? So you'll wrap them around the joints and it will apply radiotherapy there. I think that is generally very safe. But for the entire body, if you treat large parts of the body directly to the skin, I think, yeah, with disease, you need to be more careful.

Andy Smith 25:50 
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think the biggest takeaway from that really is like, you can't just buy a small desktop unit and stand two meters away from it and get a full body treatment. You know, if you want a full body session, you kind of need to get a big full body application. Yeah, sure. What are the kind of common mistakes and misconceptions about red light therapy that people should be aware of? Like, a few people have asked us already, like, is this like a sunbed?

Bart Wolbers 26:13 
There are literally, and Alex has just, I think he's doing a video on it, or, well, he's a model, probably, but like, people are equating it directly, some dermatologists, because I think this is somewhat dangerous to the dermatology industry, because, well, it's not only the red light, the blue light, the green light, they have, and even the yellow light, they have pretty big effects on skin for many people, so you've now got videos for us on dermatologists, tell people to be careful with red light therapy, because it will have the same harms as UV light. Again, I'm not against UV light, I think it's very essential for the health, but you should know through it, just like exercise, but that's a common misconception. Maybe also the one that you mentioned, you cannot get a small panel that I put on my desk here and expect that you will have full body benefits, you can, of course, but then you would need to move it around, like the 20 minutes treatment here, the 20 minutes here, the 20 minutes here, 20 minutes here, and before you know it, it took her like four or five hours into the day, and it's very inefficient, so that's why you, ideally you would want a big panel, if you can afford it, and that's the biggest issue, I think, with many people. Price, sure, everybody wants like a full body setup, but for now, even though prices have been coming down over the years, which is a very good thing, for now, it is more expensive for many people.

Andy Smith 27:49 
And I think one that I've had a few times, just like you won't get sunburn, you won't effectively get a suntan from a red light panel either. But one thing that I kind of like to respond to that, and I feel like that's happened a lot with myself, is I don't get a suntan from my panel, but my skin looks significantly healthier and a lot nicer. So it kind of has a better complexion.

Bart Wolbers 28:16 
Yeah.

Andy Smith 28:17 
Sure. So it's a byproduct of using the therapy.

Bart Wolbers 28:21 
And in that area, I've done a very detailed blog on this, maybe go through 80 studies or something, I'm not sure, at all at least. And some of the best studies they show, like, those are more or less the ballpark numbers of 50% increase, of some percent increase in collagen, more firmness, better hydration of the skin, better... Of course, subjectively, when you look at it from the outside, it looks a lot better, so yeah, the benefits are very nice in that area. Yeah, yeah.

Andy Smith 28:56 
And I mean, I'm actually 38 this year as well, but I'm the same age as you But it's it's something that I've noticed and I've been having compliments blowing my own trumpet here Is since I've been using the red light panels? Yeah, a few people have accused me of using Botox. So I'm gonna take that as a compliment One other topic that's quite hotly debated at the moment is eye health and You know some manufacturers are saying Stare directly into the you know into the LEDs that are coming from the red light panels Well, what are your thoughts on this and and does red light therapy help with eye health?

Bart Wolbers 29:34 
Just a question, did you read my blog on this topic?

Andy Smith 29:37 
I haven't yet, no. Really? We'll link that. We'll link that under this podcast.

Bart Wolbers 29:42 
So I basically went through all the studies, all the, not just cherry pickers, I went through all the studies on high health and I think it's beneficial and I think it's very safe. Yes, you do it properly. So it depends a little bit on the condition. So it's different from like diabetic retinopathy or ACE related macular degeneration or corneal injury, which you need a very low dose for, for instance, for the other ones, not so much. But, um, it's very safe if you apply for two or three minutes, a dose of 40 to 60, 70 milliwatts of centimeter squared. That's it. And that is the same dose you would be getting from Shane in terms of red and neover red from what you would be getting from going outside on a sunny day. The only thing I will say about that is from most panels on the market, you would probably get that dose from like eight or 10 inches away because panels are pretty powerful. Not right now. And you wouldn't be to look directly into it because the light needs to go into the back of the eye because there, there you have to direct the retina and macular which are very biological active tissues that are also regenerated by the red and neover light. But generally, um, if you do it for two, two to three minutes, it's very healing.

Andy Smith 31:07 
Mm-hmm.

Bart Wolbers 31:08 
You shouldn't overdo it, so I also think you don't need to look directly into the panel for 20 minutes. That's not the case I'm making. I'm making the case, get some exposure to the red and UV red for two or three minutes a day. Even on Alex Fergus's YouTube channel, my interview on this that we did in London after I met you on the Health Automation Summit, feel me about this topic and we'll be uploading that in the coming two or three weeks, which is specifically about relative being idle, in which I go into much more detail about this.

Andy Smith 31:47 
Yeah. So, I mean, I tend to like to close my eyes when I'm using my full body panel. It's quite bright. But what we're saying is that the near infrared is affecting eye health anyway. Even with your eyes closed, is that.

Bart Wolbers 31:59 
Probably, yeah. But to get the full benefit, you will probably need to open your eyes and if it's uncomfortable, don't do it and gradually build up to some exposure. And also, some people, they're very sensitive to the light, right? So I have some friends from college who will never go outside without sunglasses and they're very sensitive to the light and they cannot, they tell me that they can literally cannot see when they were outside accidentally wear the sunglasses. So that's like a person who should be more careful and build up slowly to those so you stand maybe 20 inches away and maybe after which you stand 15 inches away from panel. Ideally, especially because much of the research is on red light for eye health and not for near for red, but lots of the research is on red light, you would want to keep your eyes open. Yeah, yeah. Again, it's nothing crazy if you go, if you go, if you're in London, doing a sunny day, you're getting 40 to 50 to 60 millibits of 70 meters squared for red and near red for many hours when you're just walking outside. So the only thing I'm arguing is like two or three minutes. And the reason it works for, I think that's my theory. I'm not, I can't afford it. I cannot afford it. But the reason I think this works is because many people, they never go outside anymore, right? So many people only get laid, they never go outside. And when they go, when they're outside, they wear sunglasses and they never get any bright light exposure to the eyes ever in doing a day.

Andy Smith 33:41 
We're becoming soft, you know, all our creature comforts in the home and it's, you know, it's breaking us.

Andy Smith 33:48 
Yes, I did it.

Bart Wolbers 33:49 
I think you're right about that.

Andy Smith 33:51 
So, one thing that PEMF really helps for is sleep and I know red light has the similar sort of benefits. What about with circadian rhythm and that sort of thing? Like, I personally don't tend to use my red light panel after the sun's gone down but I think that's because I just heard that once and I've kind of stuck to that rule. Is that, what would you suggest in terms of using it late into the evening?

Bart Wolbers 34:20 
I also researched this topic in more, in, in good detail. I, when I wrote the blood article, like maybe six months ago, there were like four studies, I read the therapy and sleep, which were all positive. There was one study from, from, uh, uh, the novel floor, which is like, they're relatively bad that this, that James Carroll sells in your country in the UK, and they, they actually noticed that people needed 40 minutes of less fleet, elite, elite soccer players, right? So it's not like the average, it's like the top, top, top, top of the bill. Soccer players needed like 40 minutes of less sleep per night. Then there was one study with, uh, with women, I think from the Chinese army, where they showed 80% improvements in melatonin production. When they use, when they use only the 660 in a bed over time, there's one study, whether she will, it's improved alertness during the day and improved mood, and there's a first study. I think it was on like the patients with a brain condition, but I'm not sure about, and recently I sent out a newsletter that there was like a fifth study on this topic, but generally not, not, not even looking at the circadian benefits because the circadian benefits generally what you would want to have new life for that, right? So you want, if you want to set your circadian rhythm, you want some blue light into your eye. That's the way evolution works. So like you turned out in years ago, we would go outside, see the sun during the morning and then the blue light would tell your brain it's daytime. And you have a clock in your brain, uh, which is in the, uh, it's your breath, she has traumatic nucleus. And that clock tells all the gloves in all your cells that it's daytime. At least that's a central club. You have a pair of your clubs, all the pressure body that should follow the central clock. And yeah, blue light works for that. And generally red light therapy won't have much of a circadian effect, but red light therapy builds from the five studies, uh, that are published on the topic five for positive. So on the elite soccer player topic, uh, just went into the 40 minutes of less sleep, didn't mean that they, uh, that their recovery was worse. They actually recovered better and they performed better. They just needed less sleep during the night because of using the bed. The study with the women who were in the Chinese military, they performed better on physical tests and they had like, I don't know, I don't know the exact outcome, but maybe it was like on a kilometer run or something. Maybe a mile, I don't know the exact outcome, but they performed significantly better than their counterparts who didn't use the only the red light, not the year that's doing, doing a bed for 30 minutes per day.

Andy Smith 37:24 
Yeah, yeah. No, it's amazing. So the part of the podcast probably everyone's waiting for and they want to know is this red light going to make them look younger? We've already mentioned that, you know, I'm getting nice compliments since I'm using the red light therapy. But what is red light therapy doing to people's skin? And how is it reducing wrinkles? And, you know, what what, you know, how is it going to make me look young forever?

Bart Wolbers 37:49 
I won't promise forever, but likely if you look at the studies for like 70, 80, 90% of people they do show you some improvement, so you have to improve collagen sensors, improve elastin, which makes your skin more elastic, which is something that you will lose at your age. Also, if you look at the studies and if you have like a researcher who doesn't know whether people got the radiotherapy treatment or not, the researcher will generally rate the skin of the people who did receive the radiotherapy treatment as much younger. Some of the best studies here are done with masks, which yeah, it's like activated with a button and then you get the results. That's probably the more interesting thing for women, but yeah, for the best results, I think you need a panel and get the benefit across all your money. So there's no, I'm a little bit more skeptical about masks because it only treats your face. It's nice for appearance and I know many women probably listening to this and some men who don't want to admit it, they care mostly about the skin, but your entire body can benefit from this and there is no need to only treat your face. If you have the financial means to get treatment for your entire body, don't just focus on face. I think that's a really good point.

Andy Smith 39:20 
Because the same with PEMF, you know, people come to us with like a knee arthritis or something and they think that they're just going to apply on a device on the knee and it's going to fix that issue. But they're forgetting about the whole circulatory system and fixing the whole body. Complimenting the whole body is going to accelerate in that area. Same sort of thing. Like you say, just putting a mask on is going to have small benefits. But if you really want to hit that hard, then focus on the whole body and not just the kind of localised thing. So you mentioned athletes using red light therapy as well and something that PEMF really benefits for is ATP usage. So it really helps the body to use ATP. But how can red light influence ATP production?

Bart Wolbers 40:08 
There's some scientific discussion about it. Generally, the consensus is that information goes down, HP production goes up, and that those two are interrelated. So at SUH, there's more inflammation, more oxidative stress, which are also interrelated, and HP production, which is normally regarded as currency of energy in a cell that comes down. That increases big time. The only thing I disagree about, maybe I'm not 100% sure about this, is the mechanism. I think there's not only... Well, this ties into the PEMF stuff because I think the whole ATP thing is not just chemical, but electrochemical. So there's electricity involved and there's electricity seeping up the energy of the cell at the most foundational level.

Andy Smith 41:04 
No, good. Lastly on this kind of point, we've seen a lot of people start using red light therapy for arthritis. So is this like a key area? And is there any studies around the whole usage for arthritis with red light therapy?

Bart Wolbers 41:20 
Yeah, sure. The studies on this topic, they're very positive, very, very, very, very positive, because often, well, I was trained as a physical therapist originally, right? Like in a life far away when I was young. And we would often measure the level of brain on a VAS scale. So that's the visual analyst scale from like zero to 100. And a zero would be, I don't have any pain at all. 100 would be the worst pain you could ever imagine. And people with arthritis, they might rate their daily pay maybe at the level of 60 or 70. And in many of the studies, over two or three month periods, you can reduce the level by 30 or 40 points, which means that you go from 70, which means you have quite bad pain most of the day to 30 or 40, which means there's still pain present, but it doesn't ruin your life anymore. Those are the improvements that you can generally see in people. And anecdotally, I've even seen much more crazier results with people with rheumatoid arthritis. Well, Alex always gave me a handheld radiotherapy panel. I gave it to the woman who has had rheumatoid arthritis in her hands for like maybe for 20 years. I told her like three minutes on the front, three minutes on the back, and her complaints were gone after a month completely. And then she thought like, oh, I've healed. I don't need to use this anymore. She gave away her handheld panel. And then after a few weeks, she needed it again. And I had to go running back. But yeah, in the arthritis part, the research is extremely promising. And some companies have also been developing a very nice product specifically for John L. Woods may show a very bad feature on this topic.

Andy Smith 43:38 
No, it's really good and, you know, if we can take any pain away from arthritis sufferers, especially full body rheumatoid arthritis, you know, that's such an amazing feat to reach. There's a word when it comes to red light therapy and it's irradiance. We see the manufacturers using this as a sales tool. Can you just give us a brief summary of what's irradiance?

Bart Wolbers 44:04 
Yeah, so irradiance is a quantity of lights. So in the most basic sense, how many ways particle combinations, photons that are getting into your body. So if you have a higher irradiance, then there's more light coming into your body. There's still discussion about that. Well, there's new discussion about that since a few months, maybe, what a higher irradiance means, the higher penetration. But generally, it has been accepted that higher irradiance means high penetration. So if you get a panel or whatever tool you use that has higher irradiance, you can generally assume that the light will get deeper into your body, which means that tissues that you would otherwise treat would get more benefit, right?

Andy Smith 44:52 
So generally, the higher the irradiance, the better.

Bart Wolbers 44:55 
That's a question, because then we go back to what we talked about before. If you're the fibromyalgia patient with diabetes and heart disease, you may want to go easy at first and stand farther away from the panel because the irradiance or the power output or the potency of light will be too much for you. And you might get side effects like that, like having red skin or feeling fatigued or back to sleep at first because you're exposed to too much light than compared to what you're used to. It's the same way if you never exercise and then decide to, oh, I'm going to run a marathon. I'm going to just try it out and see where I'm going. And then, of course, after the first 10 miles or something, you'll quit and you'll feel you'll be in a lot of pain because your body's not used to that. And I say wait for light. If you're not used to the irradiance, start floating. Same with the eyes, same with the body.

Andy Smith 45:56 
So it's like low and slow approach is what we say with PEMF therapy. So, um, but if you can, and if you can take the higher radiance later down the line, it's better, but to start with you start lower, lower and slower.

Bart Wolbers 46:09 
Yeah, yeah, and I would even say just for full scientific disclosure, some people would say that longer and slower is better than high power for shorter.

Andy Smith 46:23 
Yeah, yeah.

Bart Wolbers 46:24 
I don't have an opinion on this, I would need to read all the studies, so that's the way I go through all the topics, I read all the available studies, then I formulate my own opinion, but I don't just repeat what other people in the space would say.

Andy Smith 46:42 
Good. So what, last kind of question for you Bart, if money was no object, what would you look for in a red light system? What are the key factors for you that people should kind of like look for when buying a device?

Bart Wolbers 46:59 
I would probably get the maximum number of wavelengths, different wavelengths. We've been trending towards that with Alex and I have covered this topic in our newsletters and this topic is also a part of the relative comparison video that we put out last year. More wavelengths is better. I think in time it would even be nice if we have more blue or green lights and the orange lights. And yeah, there's a UV panel now which is nice, which is a filter support or a few products with UV light now, which I support. So that's one full body treatment if you can afford it. But of course, if you buy bigger products, it's going to be more pricey.

Andy Smith 47:41 
The number of LEDs, does that make a difference? So if you've got a big panel, like if you've got a full body panel, does the number of LEDs make a difference?

Bart Wolbers 47:50 
Sure, I think that makes a difference. And how close are you to the cluster together? The more LEDs, it means more light output, right? And then, of course, it's always the question is, what is the radiance So that's what my good friend Alec Fergus does, is read his bar. I'm more of the science guy. Alec is more of the reefing guy, and he will test all the panels with his spectrometer, look at how much light has come out of there, and then you, yeah. With more LEDs, generally, it's not always the case because there are just some, not too optimal products out there, but with more LEDs, you'll have more radiance, which means more light output, which means more health benefits.

Andy Smith 48:34 
Yeah, no, good. So I mean, to summarize this episode, really, the reason why we've we've brought you on in terms of the PEMF podcast and why we're talking about red light therapy. The way you apply the two, especially in a full body application, most of the systems that we sell in in the PEMF industry are full body mats that you lay on. So you'd lay on top of that. You'd lay on top of the mat and red light panels. A lot of the time, the best way to apply it, you know, especially a full body, red light panel is to have that suspended above you while laying down. Or like you said, up against the door, standing in front of and that sort of thing. So the two work well together. They work well hand in hand and and like I say, our business, Newmed, where we sell many different PEMF devices and the brand Celerate is now bought in one that kind of stacks the two together. So it's a perfect combination for us in terms of two therapies that work really well and kind of harmoniously together and they piggyback on each other's benefits and and kind of accelerate those benefits. So it's kind of why we brought Bart on today to to explain the benefits of red light therapy and, you know, just putting the two together is is kind of a match made in heaven. So if you're sitting there listening to this under a red light panel, maybe you should consider a PEMF to stack with it. Same thing. If you're listening to this laying on a PEMF device, maybe you should look into a red light panel. And as Bart's mentioned, Alex Fergus, he's a real kind of expert in in the different red light panels and what's out there in the markets or watch some of his videos. And obviously you can ask us any questions you want about red light therapy. But any questions we get come through, we'll ping them off to you, especially if they're directed to you and hopefully you can help us answer them. And Bart, go for it. You want to share some of your stuff. Comment if you have any questions.

Bart Wolbers 50:32 
that they would tell you what answer, just come to our Facebook group, Live Therapy Insiders, Alex Service, and then we can help you, or at least people who have got experience in the community can help you. But we can think, obviously there's almost 10,000 people in there, we cannot answer every question personally, but there's always somebody who is willing to help you with a question that you may have on the topic of Fretless Therapy. Yes, about what- Sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm seeing- No, no, I was gonna say.

Andy Smith 51:05 
So where where can they find you I've seen your videos on YouTube as well So you're you're you're quite active. You guys are active on YouTube And did you say the Facebook group is is somewhere that people can contact you

Bart Wolbers 51:16 
The Facebook group was Live Therapy Insiders. We have the YouTube channel, which is called Alex Fergus. Alex Fergus, Relytherapy, I think. And we have the website. The website is litherapyinsiders.com. And litherapyinsiders.com is where I publish all my deep dive research. Like the iHealth articles there, I just published two blogs on dosing, which are really, really, really expensive in which look at also available research on the talk.

Andy Smith 51:46 
Amazing. Thank you so much for joining us today, Bart. I know it's an early morning for you and, you know, you've come from Mexico. You're coming all the way from Mexico to join us. So thanks again. And, you know, hopefully we'll meet up again. Hopefully in London not too soon because there's another exhibition coming up.

Bart Wolbers 52:02 
Sure, sure, sure, absolutely, and I hope to see you there.