Category Archives: Rants

I feel sorry for anyone curious about Low Level Laser Therapy (LLLT) / Cold Laser. There is a myriad of different products with extreme differences in specification:

• 635 – 980nm wavelengths
• 5mW – 12,000mW
• Laser vs LED’s
• Super pulsed vs continuous vs gated CW
• Recommended treatment times ranging from a few seconds to several minutes
• Intervals ranging from daily to weekly
• Prices from $3,000 – $55,000

To make matters worse, many training courses are just sales pitches spiced with pseudoscience. You could try reading all the original research but it is a vast field and hard to get a good overview.

Here is my recommendation. Start by reading this Harvard Medical School review (which I co-authored). If you find it too heavy going come on our training course. It is substantially based on this paper but more simply illustrated, delivered in slow motion, you can ask questions as we go, all technical terms introduced in an understandable way.

Here is the THOR training plan

If you are keen to understand LLLT and prefer an evidence based training then attend our training. We promise that you will find it is based on sound scientific principles, not pseudoscience. Click here to see dates and venues, read testimonials and register.

This week Lars Hode and Jan Tunér put out a call for some concensus on the name for this cold laser, low level laser, Photobiomodulation thing that we do.They concluded by proposing Laser Phototherapy. I had some counter arguments:

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The BMJ “Editors Choice” headline this week was “Key opinion leaders, your time is up”. The editor Fiona Godlee asked “Why is it considered normal for medical leaders to accept personal payment for promoting a company’s drug or device?” She was referring to the BMJ article “Drug Marketing” which interviews former pharma sales representative Kimberly Elliott about  Key Opinion Leaders. “These people are paid a lot of money to say what they say,” she said. “I’m not saying the key opinion leaders are bad, but they are salespeople just like the sales representatives are.” “Influential doctors can earn up to $400 an hour”.

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It’s not new, but it is clever. The American Society for Photobiology Kendric Smith makes the case for academics improving their knowledge of photobiological fundamentals.

Laser and LED Therapy is Phototherapy

All too frequently the people in the laser [and light emitting diode (LED)] phototherapy field are untrained in the basics of photobiology. This can lead to bad science and bad clinical trials, and can contribute to conflicting results concerning a given endpoint. Furthermore, it diminishes the stature of the field, and delays the admission of laser (and LED) phototherapy into the mainstream of science and medicine.Kendric C. Smith, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Radiation Oncology (Radiation Biology), Stanford University School of Medicine, Founder and First President of American Society for Photobiology.

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