Photobiomodulation Targeting, Dose & Multiple Wavelengths

Dose in Photobiomodulation is measured in joules which breaks down into irradiant energy (brightness on the skin) times seconds.

A light therapy bed is typically low in terms of energy per cm2 of energy hitting the surface skin. Since it irradiates the entire body, the cumulative energy can be quite large. 10 Joules/cm2 could be equivalent to 10,000 Joules of energy delivered to the body. This is a huge dose of energy.

A multiwave system is a system that delivers multiple energies. Green, for example, is a surface energy that is thought to affect the quality of blood cells, while 810 nm near infrared might penetrate deepest into the body to affect connective tissues, muscles and organs. A continuous current system might be felt as heat while a pulsed system might be felt as tingling. So by varying the light we can vary the outcomes.

At the ARRC LED, we believe that light therapy is like a multi vitamin. With a multiwave system, the cells are being supplemented with multiple healing signatures, reaching into different depths of the body based on the wavelength, in an extraordinarily safe mid level dose to create a broad systemic benefit to the body.

Optimum Dose

PBMt Тherapy is ‘biphasic’ in its dose.

If the energy is under-delivered the system does not work to trigger changes. The right energy will stimulate (biostimulation) cell growth. At a certain point (Arndt Schultz), the biostimulatory benefits peak. If energies are increased beyond this peak level, then the benefits begin to fall off. It does not necessarily produce negative side effects, but the gains begin to reverse.

Dose is a function of time and energy. The higher the energy in the LED array, the shorter the treatment time. Studies suggest that 2.7 – 20 joules per cm2 of skin may be an optimal dose. Generally increasing the intensity of NIR will increase the heat dispersed into the cells.

Our objective at the ARRC LED is to deliver enough energy to stimulate positive cellular changes without overdosing the total energies and potentially lose the benefits gained.

So optimum dose in ARRC LED systems is designed to trigger changes without heating the cells. While our systems are high energy, those energies are spread among 5 active wavelengths and pulsed.

Can you overdose on red light therapy?

Joules of light are like milligrams of Aspirin. You don’t take the whole bottle of aspirin you take 2.

Overdosing can be surprisingly easy with a powerful LED therapy bed. Overdosing, while unlikely to create damage, will create less benefit than the proper use. What this means is staying inside a chamber for 15 minutes when the peak dose is 10 minutes is actually less effective than 10 minutes. Or coming in for 3 sessions a week might provide no additional benefit over 2 sessions a week.

Dr. Hamblin suggests we want irradiance to be under 100mw/cm2 on the skin and that we should be between 30 – 60 mw/cm2 for reds and near-infrared. ARRC LED is dose optimized at a verified intensity at 83.9. If the peak dose for performance is 30 Joules (per a recent study), then 83.9mw/cm2 would hit just over 30 Joules in 6 minutes.

Peaks for pain relief can be much higher than the peaks for performance which means a person could stay in the chamber longer (10 – 12 minutes) with the same intensity.