Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Optimal Equestrian, a podcast where I dive into how to optimize ourselves, our horses, and our businesses.
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Speaker: Share the show with anyone who you think might benefit or enjoy it.
Speaker: Now let's get into the episode.
Speaker: In today's episode, we are going to be talking all things light therapy.
Speaker: So we're mainly going to be talking about red light, infrared light, and blue light therapy.
Speaker: And we're going to cover the origins of it, how it works, the benefits, contraindications, arguments against red light therapy, and finally what to look for when buying a product.
Speaker: I'm sure most of you all have seen, like for humans, there's the face mask that everybody's into for anti-aging that is typically red and blue light and infrared.
Speaker: And those are going to help with anti-aging, like I said, and also to help with if you have a lot of acne, the blue light helps with the bacterial aspect of that.
Speaker: But they can also be used in our horses.
Speaker: And I personally have one for Opie and I've used it for like warming his muscles up, recovering after a workout, breathing.
Speaker: Muscle soreness, they supposedly have benefits when it comes to reducing pain, inflammation, and even wound healing.
Speaker: So we're going to dive deep into all of that and how everything works.
Speaker: So how did light therapy originally begin?
Speaker: Originally, NASA started experimenting with it and they were looking at it for plant growth in space.
Speaker: And they then found that it can help heal wounds and the astronauts as well.
Speaker: So they just continued researching it.
Speaker: And like many other developments, they started finding other potential uses and benefits.
Speaker: And then it started trickling down.
Speaker: All these studies have started coming out.
Speaker: People
Speaker: trying to figure out exactly like how much to use, what all it's doing in the cellular level, and the benefits that you can get from it.
Speaker: I will say that the research is so new and often the studies are contradicting each other and it can be a bit controversial.
Speaker: So just take that into consideration if you're trying to treat something or use it for a specific purpose.
Speaker: Just think about that and obviously consult your veterinarian.
Speaker: So how does it work?
Speaker: So the light therapy is basically LED lights that are going to, they're designed to mimic natural sunlight.
Speaker: And the main ones used, like I said, are blue light, red light, and infrared.
Speaker: And they're going to all do different things in the body and penetrate the skin at different depths.
Speaker: And so most of these products you can isolate one or you can use all of them.
Speaker: And the specific light colors that you're going to isolate are going to all have different benefits.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: treat something different that you're looking for in the body.
Speaker: And so these lights, they're going to penetrate the skin and they're going to trigger biological processes that will do everything from helping the skin rejuvenate and heal, increasing blood flow, killing bacteria, all that.
Speaker: So on a cellular level, the light triggers a process called, this is for red and infrared.
Speaker: It's going to trigger a process called photobiomodulation.
Speaker: And this red and near infrared light is absorbed by the mitochondria, which is the powerhouse of your cell.
Speaker: This absorption boosts their ability to produce ATP, which is the cell's main energy source.
Speaker: So with this increased ATP production, the cell can then enhance its ability to repair and regenerate.
Speaker: It's going to help heal tissue, increase anti-inflammatory effects, and provides nerve cells with some neuroprotection.
Speaker: This light exposure also increases nitric oxide release, which can lead to vasodilation, which means better oxygen and nutrient delivery systems to the cells and help the tissue remove waste or the cells remove waste from the tissues.
Speaker: So all of that basically means that your skin can now stimulate collagen production, which gives the skin its structure, strength, and elasticity.
Speaker: It's going to increase fibroblast production, which makes that collagen.
Speaker: It's going to increase the blood circulation to the tissue and reduce inflammation in your cells.
Speaker: So you can see how it's obviously going to be good for the anti-aging on the face.
Speaker: But for our horses, it's also good just getting that blood circulation to that specific area that you're wanting to hopefully reduce pain, inflammation, and help recover it.
Speaker: Now, blue light works primarily more on the surface.
Speaker: So it's going to work more with surface structures of the cells and molecules that are closer to the skin.
Speaker: So it doesn't penetrate as deeply.
Speaker: It's absorbed by porphyrins, which are molecules produced by bacteria.
Speaker: And that absorption then produces a reactive oxygen species that damage bacterial cell membranes and kills the bacteria.
Speaker: Also, when blue light is exposed to the eye, there are light sensitive cells in the eye that contain melanopsin.
Speaker: which is sensitive to blue light.
Speaker: And when they are activated, it sends signals to the part of the brain that dictates your circadian clock.
Speaker: And so blue light, just think of it as your phone, like it's going to suppress melatonin, enhance alertness, mood, and cognitive performance.
Speaker: So blue light, I like to think of as like it's going to get the energy up versus red light would do the opposite and like bring the energy down.
Speaker: And this is why we have like blue light
Speaker: filters on your phone, there's red light glasses so that your eyes aren't being exposed to any of that because it's going to dictate your circadian rhythm.
Speaker: Now overuse in the eye can cause oxidative stress, inflammation, and mitochondrial damage.
Speaker: So this is why everyone's so concerned about the blue light on your phone at night and whatnot.
Speaker: So let's take a deeper dive into the benefits and the studies that have been done around it.
Speaker: So let's start with wound healing.
Speaker: There was a study from Oklahoma State University that used the low level laser therapy with a power range of one milliwatt to 12 watts.
Speaker: And they created a 2.5 centimeter square wound in the mid metacarpal region of one leg on eight horses.
Speaker: They assigned some of the horses as a control group receiving no treatment and then the other group was the experimental group and they received five minutes of low level laser therapy at a wavelength of 635 nanometers.
Speaker: and an energy output of 17 milliwatts per diode every other day.
Speaker: They did that and evaluated at the end of 80 days, they evaluated these eight horses.
Speaker: The experimental group that got the laser therapy
Speaker: Their wounds were completely epithelized, which means that it had that pink, shiny skin on it, like completely covered with that new skin.
Speaker: Whereas the control group's wounds were not epithelized fully.
Speaker: And so this concludes that using the low-level laser therapy increased the rate of wound healing.
Speaker: Now, note that the laser that they used are the professional class lasers, like cold lasers and stuff that you would get from your vet or body worker or whatever.
Speaker: They're like thousands of dollars.
Speaker: So those are not going to be your everyday red light pads.
Speaker: Conversely, there was a study out of Sweden that did study the at-home red light pads on wounds.
Speaker: And they took, again, eight horses.
Speaker: They created a two centimeter circular wound on each side of the neck.
Speaker: And they randomly, again, chose one wound that was going to get the LED red and infrared light therapy.
Speaker: And then the other one, the other wound was a control wound that received no therapy.
Speaker: They were treated...
Speaker: experimental group was treated for four minutes and 40 seconds daily from days zero to four, seven to 11, 14, 18, and 21 to 25.
Speaker: So basically they treated them daily with for 25 days with a few days off in between.
Speaker: At the end of 36 days, they evaluated the wounds and they discovered that there was no clinical significance in wound healing between the control and the experimental group.
Speaker: So this just shows that while there was no damage done by the at-home red light pad, there also was no expedited wound healing that you see in the professional class of lasers.
Speaker: Not to say that, who knows, maybe if they did it for longer or increase the frequency or duration, who knows.
Speaker: Again, we need more studies.
Speaker: The general mechanism around wound healing though is that the red light is going to increase the production of the ATP, which is going to give more energy to the cells leading to accelerated tissue regeneration.
Speaker: It's also going to enhance circulation because the red light triggers the release of nitric oxide, which is going to improve blood flow to the wound area, which would aid in quicker healing times.
Speaker: And then finally, it's going to reduce inflammation.
Speaker: The red light therapy lessens the local inflammation, which will alleviate pain and swelling related to the wounds.
Speaker: So all of that is going to have a combined effect of expedited wound healing and lessening the recovery time.
Speaker: On to inflammation reduction.
Speaker: So like I just explained, that nitric oxide release is going to be a vasodilator, which will enhance blood flow and decrease inflammation.
Speaker: That could be helpful in such things like arthritis, tendonitis, other inflammatory diseases.
Speaker: like in the hoof, the novocular, like you can wrap it around the coronary band, stuff like that.
Speaker: It's also going to help alleviate muscle inflammation and pain by boosting blood circulation to that area.
Speaker: So after a hard workout, when you've torn all those muscles down, you need to now recover, rebuild.
Speaker: It could help speed up the recovery process of that or with other injuries.
Speaker: It's also that enhancement
Speaker: Increased blood flow would also possibly boost athletic performance, which would, I mean, it could be everything from endurance, strength, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: Now onto the next benefit, which is pain relief.
Speaker: So low light laser therapy has both short and long-term effects on pain.
Speaker: The immediate pain relief can occur within minutes, but
Speaker: And they are affected by a neural blockade in the peripheral and sympathetic nerves.
Speaker: And they're going to help reduce the muscle spasms and reduction in local edema.
Speaker: Some longer-term effects can occur within days to weeks and last in even months to years, possibly.
Speaker: And those effects are...
Speaker: affected by the modulation of the inflammatory response and stimulation of tissue healing.
Speaker: So there's this study out of Denmark that I found really interesting where they experimented with low light laser therapy on the backs of horses.
Speaker: And they took eight horses and they picked six specific points along the thoracolumbar region.
Speaker: So down the longissimus dorsi and the gluteus region.
Speaker: And they took these readings.
Speaker: So the first reading was called a mechanical knockoceptive threshold, which is basically they...
Speaker: Recorded the amount of pressure that was needed to induce pain in each of those six spots.
Speaker: So that's the first reading.
Speaker: And then they also took another reading called an acoustic myography recording, which this basically just assesses the muscle function and the force of the muscle by recording the low frequency sounds produced during muscle contraction.
Speaker: So they did this at the walk, trot, and canter.
Speaker: Recorded all those prior to treatment.
Speaker: Then they gave the horses treatment, which they used the low-level laser therapy, and they applied
Speaker: for it was on each six spots they applied a thousand hertz for one minute on each point they then retook the readings an hour after the treatment and then again 24 hours after the treatment and they did those same readings so the the amount of pressure threshold needed to cause pain and then the muscle force readings
Speaker: And they found that there was no significant change in the pressure needed to induce pain in those regions.
Speaker: So the laser did not help in that portion of it.
Speaker: However, in the muscle function readings, they were positively affected.
Speaker: And so they concluded that the cold laser therapy had a positive effect on the horse's muscles that revealed a change in their firing frequency.
Speaker: So this change is similar to changes that you can see if you use analgesic, so anything that dulls or stops the pain.
Speaker: And horses, they have basically had the same effect as that.
Speaker: And so while they haven't really concluded or proven that they can treat back pain, they did show that they could increase the mechanical pain threshold in horses, which would cause them to
Speaker: Like the horses are now going to be moving their muscles with more force and function like they would if they weren't feeling the pain in those areas.
Speaker: So I just thought that was interesting.
Speaker: Doesn't necessarily prove pain relief because if you still put pressure on it, they were still inducing pain with the same amount of pressure.
Speaker: But still interesting either way.
Speaker: And I'm going to link all of these studies in the show notes.
Speaker: Now, the light therapy also has some effects on the brain and your mood.
Speaker: And while this is less common...
Speaker: It can show to reduce stress.
Speaker: So blue light therapy has been used to treat seasonal affective disorder in humans.
Speaker: And so the exposure to specific wavelengths of light can help reset the body's circadian rhythm and it can improve mood, sleep patterns, all of that.
Speaker: My personal experience has been when I put the red light therapy pad on Opie, it's like within minutes.
Speaker: He's like fast asleep, so calm, just seems to be enjoying it.
Speaker: But it's so fast how fast it happens.
Speaker: Now, I haven't really messed with the blue light a lot, but they do say that it is more of a high energy, like brings their mood up.
Speaker: If your horse is maybe a little too dull, maybe it would be good for that.
Speaker: But Opie really just, he lowers his head, licks, chews, becomes calm and sleepy with the red light almost immediately.
Speaker: Now, the blue light is more known.
Speaker: It's going to work more on the surface of the skin.
Speaker: And it's known to kill bacteria.
Speaker: So it can help with conditions like rain rot or other bacterial skin infections like in humans that use it for acne.
Speaker: So it's just working on that really close surface to the skin, killing bacteria.
Speaker: And that's really where I think most of the benefits for the blue light come into play.
Speaker: And mine has settings where you can do red light only.
Speaker: You can do red and blue light together, or you can do just blue light.
Speaker: So you can kind of, if you're trying to work on different things at the same time, it can help do that.
Speaker: Now let's jump into the contraindications.
Speaker: So in general, the LED light therapy, which is going to be your at-home pads, they're going to be pretty safe.
Speaker: It's non-invasive, doesn't normally cause burning or pain.
Speaker: However, the experts do caution that long-term effects of the devices are still unknown.
Speaker: And if you do overuse it, you can cause damage to the skin.
Speaker: So that's mainly going to be misuse or overuse of the red light therapy could lead to burns or reddening or damage to the skin at the surface.
Speaker: Tissue and cell damage can possibly happen with too much exposure, mainly due to the heat.
Speaker: So again, just, and all these pads, they should give you guidelines on how long to use them.
Speaker: Just sticking to that will be, you should be pretty safe.
Speaker: You can also cause some eye damage.
Speaker: Direct exposure to the red light could possibly be damaging to the eyes, which would,
Speaker: I mean, in horses, you just wouldn't expose them to it, but for you, if you're using it on your face, you're supposed to be using eye protection.
Speaker: The blue light could possibly cause skin dryness or irritation.
Speaker: Again, just use it as directed.
Speaker: Never ever use it over a malignant tumor or any animal unless it's instructed by a qualified veterinarian.
Speaker: Again, just use some common sense.
Speaker: If you are trying to treat something specific, definitely contact your veterinarian.
Speaker: It's not a cure-all for sure.
Speaker: It also states to not use it on pregnant mares or pregnant dogs' abdominal area, not because it's harmful, but there's just no studies citing the use of it on pregnant mares or dogs.
Speaker: So just err on the side of caution and prohibit your use to there.
Speaker: The final contraindication is don't use it if you're using photosensitive drugs, such as but not limited to tetracycline.
Speaker: So if your horse is on some kind of specific prescription drug or something that you're just unsure about, then definitely contact your veterinarian and see if it is a photosensitive drug or if it should be used with red light at all.
Speaker: Now onto the arguments against red light therapy.
Speaker: So red light therapy has, there's a study that I'll link again that shows that it cannot penetrate through the hair.
Speaker: So a study showed that placing a two millimeter thick layer of blonde hair between an infrared laser and a laser sensor resulted in 98% of the laser power being absorbed or reflected by the hair.
Speaker: Um, that study was only done using blonde hair and only done using infrared.
Speaker: So who knows if that would still have the same effect if it was dark hair or if it's just the regular red light.
Speaker: So
Speaker: I think that the horses are probably, I mean, this is all mimicking the natural sunlight.
Speaker: So my thought is their body is going to have a way to let that light in because it's necessary for all living beings.
Speaker: But you can take that how you want.
Speaker: And I will link the study if you're interested in looking deeper into that.
Speaker: A lot of the published studies using red light therapy include only a small number of people or horses.
Speaker: I think every study I've cited today only used eight horses.
Speaker: And then they don't usually include a placebo group in the humans.
Speaker: And most of the studies are just really limited to the actual cell tissue itself.
Speaker: A lot of the researchers say that so far it looks promising, but we just really need a lot more quality studies with larger numbers of people and animals and horses and all that.
Speaker: So hopefully some people are on it and we'll get some more information here soon.
Speaker: So what to look for in a device.
Speaker: So like I've mentioned throughout, there's two main types of red light therapy devices.
Speaker: The low level laser therapy devices, which are sometimes called cold lasers, as they're not going to generate the heat because they're doing more of a pulsing device.
Speaker: um, light therapy, but those are all going to be commonly used by professionals.
Speaker: So your body workers, your veterinarians, these are often thousand, like five to $15,000 to purchase these.
Speaker: So it's not going to be something that the everyday equestrian is going to have.
Speaker: The at-home devices are called light-emitting diode devices.
Speaker: So these are the LED devices.
Speaker: And these are going to be typically employed for your skin treatments, and they're going to be your at-home devices for your everyday use, warming muscles up, recovering, just everyday kind of scenarios, not treating any injuries or major skin conditions or anything like that.
Speaker: So when you're looking for these pads, the red light should be between 630 and 700 nanometers.
Speaker: And those red lights are going to penetrate the skin at a depth of 10 millimeters.
Speaker: For blue light, you'll look for a 400 to 490 nanometers.
Speaker: And again, these are only going to work on the surface of the skin.
Speaker: And then the infrared light, which if you get a pad, the infrared is naked to the human eyes.
Speaker: So you'll often see there'll be like in each LED little bundle, there'll be three light bulbs, but one of them doesn't turn on.
Speaker: And that's because you can't see it.
Speaker: But the infrared should be 800 to 1,000 nanometers, and those penetrate the deepest at 50 millimeters.
Speaker: So you're really kind of seeing, I mean, you can't reach these deep muscles to warm them up, but I just think of it as a good little, it's going to bring the circulation to that area and warm those muscles up.
Speaker: That's how I think of it.
Speaker: Um, yeah, like I said, my personal experience with them has been a noticeable mood change in my horse when it's applied.
Speaker: Um, maybe it's just because it's a little warm.
Speaker: I mean, they don't get really hot, but it definitely gets just a little warm.
Speaker: Plus it's, you're putting a pad on top of them.
Speaker: So that's naturally going to cause a little warmth.
Speaker: And I usually do it in a relaxing environment, when I'm grooming him, tracking him up.
Speaker: So maybe that's why he just knows what's coming and it's going to be a relaxing time.
Speaker: Could be a little placebo there for me.
Speaker: But I just recall the very first time I put it on him, it was, I think, a minute and a half, two minutes.
Speaker: He was noticeably relaxed, licking, chewing, head down, eyes starting to close.
Speaker: I personally have used it because he tends to have in his lumbar region, it's tender muscle soreness and he doesn't have a lot of muscling there.
Speaker: So I'm trying to like build that hind end muscle.
Speaker: And so I use it to like help recover that area.
Speaker: But I haven't honestly noticed a big difference in the muscle soreness.
Speaker: Mainly how I gauge it is when I'm grooming him and I brush that area, he kind of flinches.
Speaker: And maybe that's just a...
Speaker: reaction that he has as protecting it now.
Speaker: So possibly it's doing it, but really the biggest difference I've seen in his muscle soreness has been vitamin E at, and it has to be at the 10,000 IU level.
Speaker: I think that makes the biggest difference over the red light, but
Speaker: I still think the red light is helpful.
Speaker: I actually lost my red light pad.
Speaker: I was trailering him and using it before to get him calm because he's not, I mean, he's not horrible on the trailer, but just kind of reduce anxiety around hauling.
Speaker: I put it on him before and I think I got in such a hurry and I left it on the back of the trailer and now it's probably in someone's yard or ditch in pieces or someone has a really nice red light pad.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: That's kind of a bummer, but still love it.
Speaker: I have my own red light pads I use at home for my face and my back and stuff like that.
Speaker: Again, always consult your veterinarian.
Speaker: It's not going to replace veterinary care.
Speaker: It's not going to heal wounds like where you don't need stitches.
Speaker: I mean, obviously, call your vet if you have any injury or anything like that.
Speaker: I just think it's a really good item to have for mood enhancement and general muscle health.
Speaker: And like I've said, we need more studies.
Speaker: They're studies that report beneficial effects.
Speaker: The overall scientific quality has been limited and results are often conflicting just due to variations in treatment parameters such as like wavelength, the laser class, dose, duration.
Speaker: I mean, there's all kinds of studies using the LEDs versus the actual...
Speaker: Class 4 lasers that are used by the professionals.
Speaker: And the pads are pretty expensive.
Speaker: I want to say mine was like $350, $400, something like that.
Speaker: I do like the little pads.
Speaker: I want to say mine was...
Speaker: maybe 12 inches by 6 inches.
Speaker: But I really like that.
Speaker: I mean, yeah, they do make the bigger ones.
Speaker: The whole back one would have been nice.
Speaker: But the one I had was really versatile, and it came with all these straps, so you can put it on different parts of the body.
Speaker: I mainly used it on... He loved his neck done, but it's just a pain because you've got to do one side, and it's for 10 minutes.
Speaker: So then if you're treating both sides of the neck, that's 20 minutes plus the hind end.
Speaker: It can just...
Speaker: get a little repetitive, but they are nice because you can wrap them around the legs, wrap them around the coronary band.
Speaker: They're just so much more versatile.
Speaker: I think if I were limited in my budget and I wanted to buy a red light pad, I would do that one again, just those little square pads.
Speaker: Obviously, if you have unlimited budget, the whole back pad is nice.
Speaker: They make the little hoof boots now, and plus you could get like all the legs and
Speaker: I mean, they have so much stuff.
Speaker: They have little pole caps.
Speaker: That's another one for trailering too.
Speaker: They have them where they like go over the ears so you can just keep it on and it's supposed to be mainly for moods.
Speaker: So keeping them calm, it's going to probably shut off after 10 minutes, but that would be a nice little thing.
Speaker: Like click it on right as you're going on the trailer.
Speaker: I probably should have had that and I wouldn't have lost mine.
Speaker: But yeah, that's just something to think about.
Speaker: And then if you want to just try something out, see if your vet has a laser for wound healing or if you're trying to heal an injury like a tendon injury or something, consult them or a body worker if you're wanting those more professional grade.
Speaker: And I don't know how much they charge or anything like that, but I'm sure it's more affordable than buying an LED pad.
Speaker: So that is all I have for you today.
Speaker: I hope you all enjoyed and head to the show notes for all those studies if you're interested.
Speaker: Bye for now.
