Red and near infrared lights – can they help degenerative neurological diseases?
Gives updates on the research findings about the effects of red and near infrared lights. Where possible, a link to the original article is given.
Recently, photobiomodulation, the application of red to
infrared light on body tissues has been reported to alter the course of aged decline*.
This quote comes from a very recently published article Does Photobiomodulation influence ageing? Continue reading “Red light and Ageing”
Prof John’s presentation at the recent Melbourne conference covered two areas:
I’m not able to post the exact presentation he gave a few weeks ago, but I am able to give you detailed notes that I took on 6 December 2016, when Prof John spoke to the group of people involved in the Eliza activities in Tasmania. These notes cover point (1) above.
The information Prof John covered in point (2) has been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, and when that article appears, I’ll be able to post it on the blog. That might not be for a few months, so keep watch on the blog. Continue reading “Prof John Mitrofanis presentation”
I’ve been reading an interesting 2016 review article called Cytokine networks in neuroinflammation.*
Click here for the abstract.
Some of the differences between neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration are beautifully explained. Both diagrams come from this article.
Background
Cells in our body and brain produce cytokines, small proteins that are powerful and wilful little beasties. They provide a very effective means of cell communication, and can “orchestrate complex multicellular behaviour”.
Over 300 different cytokines have been identified, but some of them have shown that in one situation they will behave in one way, but in another situation the same cytokine will do the complete opposite.
Cytokines are part of the body and brain’s response to something going wrong. But cytokines themselves can go haywire (called cytokine network dysfunction or dysregulation) and set up and maintain cascades of activity that can ultimately cause harm to the tissue.
It’s been longer than intended since the blog was updated. During this time, a new article by John Mitrofanis was published in April 2017, called Why and how does light therapy offer neuroprotection in Parkinson’s disease? You can download it here: Link.
This is a great article with much detail explained with great clarity. Even better, it is only two pages.
It poses two critical questions:
Continue reading “Can red light stop brain cells from dying?”
Sunlight has a range of wavelengths, and these have been classified into four main groups: ultraviolet, visible, near infrared and far infrared. We can see the light in the visible spectrum (red, orange, yellow, green, blue indigo, violet) but we can’t see ultraviolet light and neither can we see infrared light.
Much research has been done on the effect of the sun’s ultraviolet light. It can cause premature ageing and increases the risk of skin cancers, hence the warnings to wear sunscreen to block those wavelengths from hitting the skin.
Until recent years, the effect of red and near infrared light, had been of less interest to medical science. It is now an area of increasing research, and the implications seem to be huge.
Red lights on the brain 