Introduction & Episode Overview
Intro/Outro (00:03)
Welcome to the Red Light Therapy Podcast, brought to you by Platinum LED Therapy Lights, the pioneers who spent 15 years building the world's most powerful red light technology. In each episode, we show you how to use that power to heal your body, save time with shorter sessions, and get the professional grade results you deserve. This is the Science of the Light, Simplified for you. And now, your host, Mike Volcan.
Mike (00:38)
Welcome to another red light therapy podcast section. I s session. I am your host, Mike Volcan. We are again joined with Dr. Alan Inman. Welcome to the show, Dr. A.
Alan (00:48)
Great to be back.
Mike (00:49)
Just so you all know, Dr. Inman is a longevity and sports performance specialist from West Texas. He's also a medical director of a stem cell therapy clinic. He has two clinics in Costa Rica. He's also a red light therapy expert. And today we're gonna talk about inflammaging. So this should be a really good episode because this is right in his wheelhouse. we're gonna design this just like all the other episodes to be 10, 15 minutes, maybe even less, so you can fit this into your red light therapy sessions.
So you ready for me to fire some questions at you regarding inflammaging?
Alan (01:21)
Let's go for it
Mike (01:22)
Let's do it. So first of all, why is inflammaging called the silent killer of longevity?
Why Is Inflammation Called the "Silent Killer" of Longevity?
Alan (01:28)
Okay, so first of all, inflammaging isn't really the enemy itself. Acute inflammaging is essential. So we need it if we, you know, have injury, if we have development of an infection, if you have intense exercise, inflammaging needs to be able to respond to the body so it can repair and adapt. So that's first of all, the problem is if you have chronic low grade inflammaging.
When inflammaging, you know, signaling it it remains elevated for months or even years. So we sometimes call this inflammaging because of chronic inflammaging. It tends to increase with age, and it is something that we find related to diseases and you know, and cancer. So aging does have its effect if we have inflammaging going on. And so we're talking about like cardiovascular disease, you know.
insulin resistance or type two diabetes if we look at arthritis or or other chronic conditions. And so the goal shouldn't be to eliminate inflammaging altogether. Goes to help the body resolve inflammaging when it's appropriate. And that's where photobiomodulation becomes really interesting.
How Does Near-Infrared Light Affect Inflammation Markers?
Mike (02:44)
Okay. Excellent. That makes total sense. So how does you know, these good panels like platinum therapy light, red light therapy panels have near infrared light on them. How does near infrared light turn off those inflammaging markers?
Alan (02:57)
So I wouldn't simply say it turns it off, but it does help with modulating it. so it helps modulate these inflammatory signals which are occurring whenever we have this inflammaging. And what we're gonna have is that the red and infrared photons interact with the the cellular photoreceptors, and we're gonna end up having, you know, with the mitochondria, the cytochrome C oxidase, as we have spoken about before, and how it's gonna have this.
Principal mechanism to help the mitochondria to produce ATP, which is energy. And so we're going have nitric oxide signaling and reactive oxygen species signaling and even downstream inflammatory pathways. One thing we need to know is that it does affect these different signals. And we're going to find out that it's going to affect I'm just going to name like three. Not everybody has ever heard of these. This is more related to doctors, but.
TNF alpha, interleukin 1, interleukin 6. This is where the studies have shown that photobiomodulation has been able to show you know an influence. And it's really important to be able to say that it's gonna help us in this inflammatory component. And there is a very important distinction. It's not gonna turn it off, but it's gonna help modulate or regulate it.
Can It Help With Autoimmune Flare-Ups or Joint Stiffness?
Mike (04:18)
Okay. Well can it help with like autoimmune flare ups or joint stiffness, for example?
Alan (04:24)
Okay, this is like potentially this is an area where I would like be careful. There's really interesting evidence where pain and stiffness and musculoskeletal inflammaging you know has been modulated, but it is something that we as a company, you know, have seen where it's helped people, but on the level of of studies
It didn't, you know, show there was a significant reduction in pain compared with placebo. there wasn't, you know, there wasn't improvement in like drip strength, or there was even an improvement in morning stiffness. So there's there's different studies where they've shown, you know, there was even one with eighteen randomized controlled trials involving seven hundred and ninety-three people with rheumatoid arthritis, and it concluded that there was certainly evidence was low that infrared laser
may not be superior to sham for several outcomes, which is something that we have to take in account. But we have heard people improve. So I'm not gonna just justify a medical study because at the end of the day, also there's proof in the pudding pudding. If you see people improve and they're your own patients, then you know it's working. I think it all depends upon how well the patient takes care of themselves. Because if you got someone who who's deliberately not eating well
not sleeping well, not doing any exercise, they're not supplementing well, they're they're always in a state of severe inflammaging, you may not see much of a change. But if someone is trying to make these changes in habits, and then all of a sudden you add red light, wow, there was a potential for change, then you know it helped. So that I'm gonna say on the basis of what I've seen with patients, it does work.
Is Full-Body Red Light Therapy Better Than Targeting One Area?
Mike (06:21)
Yeah. And and there's also the factor of like, were they just targeting one spot? Were they doing full body light therapy? In fact, is full body light therapy better than just targeting one part of your body?
Alan (06:33)
It kinda depends on entirely what you're trying to accomplish. And so if you have painful knee or a shoulder and you just wanna have it localized, then you just use it in that spot. That doesn't necessarily mean if you do it, you know, on the whole body, it's not gonna work. It will. It's gonna help the entire body. It just depends on the size of your panel. So I mean, if you look at someone and you you go, look, I've only got a panel that's, you know, yay big, well then place it on that localized spot. You're not gonna be able to do your whole entire body unless you wanna
you know, laughs it out through you know, the duration of time that you've got. And, you know, when it comes down to this, it's really important to to know that researchers measured interleukin six and inflammatory signaling and cre creatine kinase, and they found no significant reduction in these with the control. That's an important negative result, but at the end, like I keep saying, the studies may show
certain things, but they're not explaining how severe these patients are and how their habits are. So it it comes down to the wire of seeing what we're seeing in you know, in my clinic and and and in other patients that we hear feedback from the company.
How Long Does It Take to See a Drop in Systemic Inflammation?
Mike (07:51)
Yeah. And it you know, everyone's different, right? So but on average, how long would it take to see a drop in systematic inflammaging?
Alan (08:00)
This is where I would separate how somebody feels from what actually demonstrated in their blood. Okay. Because whenever you do these labs, it doesn't show in the studies that there have been improvement in, you know, all these inflammatory markers. So clinical photobiomodulation studies vary enormously. Some examine acute effects after one treatment, others are repeated treatments over several weeks. So I would not promise to be able to say.
You know, do three sessions and your CRP will drop thirty s thirty percent. There's just not significant amount of studies to be able to promise this.
Can Red Light Therapy Help With Gut Inflammation?
Mike (08:38)
What about, you know, at Platinum Therapy Lights, we have a very robust customer service team and they're always on the always on the phone. And I was talking to one of them the other day and they said, a very common question we get is about inflammaging in the gut. Can red light therapy help with inflammaging in the gut?
Alan (08:55)
This is one of the most fascinating emerging areas in medicine, but the evidence still largely preclinical. So, what we're gonna find out, there was a 2026 study that investigated eight thirty nanometer red light therapy, the the near infrared photobiomodulation, and the experimental model of inflammatory bowel disease. So IBS that everybody knows about. And the research found that there was a reduction
in inflammatory activity and immune cell markers. See, that's that's saying the contrary that I just said. So that's why I'm saying you can't always be based on medical study. but something else happened that I find really interesting because I love to speak about this and has to do with the gut microbiome. So what happened is it altered the gut microbiome. It increased the micro the the microbial richness and the changes that
were found were potentially beneficial for the bacterial population. So this is saying that the the microbiota is getting benefited by the use of red light therapy. That's that's pretty that's pretty broad to be able to say. And so it goes beyond just thinking of inflammaging because if you have microbiome that's in good you know
And good richness with a good bacteria, you're gonna find that there's gonna be a control over inflammaging because the gut is one of the areas in where inflammaging is highest. Not everybody's eating the way they should. So the photobiomodulation may you know potentially influence the gut through combination of local immune modulation, of mitochondrial signaling, even the intestinal barrier effects or microbiome changes. But
It is important to be able to say these are predominantly animal data, but that doesn't mean it's not working. We are animals. So it is important to say that that is just the premise of where everything is gone.
Does the Mood/Wellness Mode on the Platinum Pro Panel Help With Inflammation?
Mike (11:02)
Okay. That was a very thorough answer. Thank you. This this last question I have for you is specifically in regards to people that are using platinum therapy lights, because I have on my remote, I'm not sure which version you have, but I have the Platinum Pro and we have a mood wellness mode on our remote. Does that do you know if that helps with inflammaging?
Alan (11:19)
Yeah.
With inflammaging itself, like I said before, there's no way for me to be able to to liberally say it's helping with inflammaging. What I can say is red light therapy is gonna increase energy. Anytime you increase mitochondrial function, you're capable of repairing. And by doing so, if you're repairing, you should be decreasing inflammaging. So
I'm gonna say it does have a indirect effect. I just can't say that it directly affects it because they've already done studies where they did blood work and they didn't find any changes that could be significant to be able to prove that it did. But well, as I said before, it is something that is becoming more and more of a topic and where they're trying to do more studies and, you know, make sure that the population in which they're doing the study in, they should be able to, you know
Isolate and make sure they're all going through the same.
Closing Outro
Mike (12:21)
Yeah. You know, red light therapy, young industry. A lot of studies still need to be done. but early results showing very promising across the board for many, many health-related issues. And thank you, Dr. Allen. We're gonna have you on for another show very soon. for I don't know, fifteen, sixteen episodes, or actually this is our eighteenth episode, right? You've joined us on, so many more to come. For all you viewers out there who want to have a question answered by Dr. I, go ahead and submit it at redlight therapy podcast dot com.
in the meantime, spread the word about this podcast. Let's get the word about red light therapy. Until next time, guys, thanks very much. Thank you, Dr. I. Thank
Intro/Outro (12:59)
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