Category Archives: PBM/LLLT

There has been nothing monumental going on in the world of LLLT this last 7 days (my blog week starts on a Wednesday in case you are wondering). ASLMS and NZlaser2008 are both in April so I chose New Zealand. I subsequently received five separate requests to be in Florida in the last few days so maybe I will concede and see y’all at both.

I am interested to get feedback on this. If we can suspend the debate about what acupuncture is and how effective it is for a minute …. it is my observation that a wide range of laser devices are used in acupuncture. Red* and near infrared*, 1mW to 500mW.

It is well documented that laser can inhibit as well as stimulate cellular function (read more here). Dose ranging studies and dose-rate (fluence rate) studies have been performed and we find that the thresholds for stimulation are quite low (at the target tissue level) and that they are in the range 5 – 30mW/cm2 (though this depends on what method of beam measurement was used by the original authors)(read more here)(and more here).

I would expect that the same wavelength, dose range and dose-rate issues will be true for acupuncture but do not recall seeing anything published. A quick glance at Pubmed finds 407 articles witeh the words Laser Acupuncture (click here to see) but zero return when the terms dose rate, dose range … Continue reading →