Episode #42

Scott Nelson

What Science Says About Red Light Therapy Or Photobiomodulation

With light therapy, you’re actually delivering specific wavelengths of light that can induce a certain action within the mitochondria of your cells to produce more energy. Click To Tweet

Is it really possible to improve your sleep, skin health, muscle recovery, joint pain, cognitive function, athletic performance, and libido all from using red lights?

Or is this another health hoax that sounds way too good to be true?

It turns out, after speaking with Scott Nelson, co-founder of Joovv, a company that created an at-home red light therapy device that’s used by athletes and everyday people alike, including me, there’s over 200 double blind placebo studies that support photobiomodulation, also known as red light therapy.

But how is it possible that beams of light can have such a profound impact on someone’s health?

Since I’ve seen the positive benefits of light therapy firsthand, I knew I had to sit down with Scott Nelson to find out what’s really going on here. And that’s exactly what we’ll dive into in this podcast episode.

Prior to Joovv, Scott spent his entire career in leadership positions for some of the largest medical device companies in the world. At first, he was even a red light therapy skeptic.

But, after seeing how much his wife’s health improved after just a few sessions, Scott decided to spend time researching red light therapy to uncover the mechanisms at work.

And that’s when he discovered it’s true potential.

Scott shares his findings and more with me as we chat about how keto and red light therapy have some common ground and how it’s one of the easiest, most impactful things you can do for your health.

A good ketogenic diet works synergistically with red light therapy. Click To Tweet

Here’s a breakdown of everything Scott shares with me in this episode:

  • What is red light therapy?
  • How Scott transitioned from a traditional medical technology career to develop this at-home red light therapy system after his wife saw remarkable benefits in her skin health
  • Why he was skeptical of this therapy at first
  • Why it’s backed by over 200 double-blind placebo controlled studies (it has even more research than the ketogenic diet)
  • Two issues with most at-home red light therapies currently on the market
  • How red light therapy affects your mitochondria (cell health)
  • 7 benefits associated with red light therapy and how it works synergistically with a ketogenic diet when it comes to transforming mitochondrial (cell) health
  • How the feedback loop varies with red light therapy
  • How did we get started with light therapy?
  • How LEDs and red light therapy has evolved
  • Why NASA studied LED based light therapy and their results from using it
  • The difference between wavelengths, red light therapy, and near infrared
  • Understanding wavelengths
  • Where near infrared is more helpful than red light therapy
  • What happens if a sauna has a near infrared light
  • The problem with infrared heat
  • How mitochondrial health can also be a good indicator of overall health
  • What happens to your cells when you’re under stress, during exercise, or have a lack of sleep and how red light therapy can offset this
  • The caveats with red light therapy
  • How it affects the gut microbiome
  • How it affects pain and injuries
  • How it can be beneficial both in the morning and at night
  • Why it only takes 8-10 minutes a day to get a big enough dose to see incredible health benefits
  • How the benefits change if you do it 3-5 times per week vs 1-2
  • How the dosage is dependent on how close you are to the device
  • How red light has the opposite effect as blue light
  • Why it’s easy to stack your sessions with other things, making it one of the best, low-effort ways to improve your health

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