Transcript
I red lighted only half my face for two months. Here's what happened. I used a red and near-infrared light mask, but only on one side of my face. I literally cover the other side with blackout tape. Does that work? The top comment is from Dave Asprey. Who's going to tell him that the blackout tape is likely transparent to infrared light? So smug. Dave has millions of followers, calls himself the father of biohacking, which is ostensibly about using science to improve health. And he was one of the first people to popularize red light. light therapy. I started one of the first red light therapy companies, and I've been doing this for a very long time. And now he's got clinics all over the country that charge around $45 for a 15 to 20 minute red light session. So he should understand it, right? What the science? We're going to test it using a light meter and look at the scientific literature. I'm a Visha, a scientist who approaches all cutting-edge health and longevity science with an optimistic mind and critical review. It is true that infrared light has a longer wavelength than normal visible light. and that lets it go through some materials. It penetrates a bit deeper through human tissue. Blackout tape uses carbon black, which is basically just a form of carbon atoms that is the same as what's used in your car tires. I spoke to Dr. Bullock, and he said that he used this mask with three layers of this blackout tape. It's 2.4 mil thick, which is .06 millimeters. The mask uses 110 near-infrared LEDs at 830 nanometers and 16 at 1072 nanometers. But let's even assume that they were all the 1072, which penetrates more. This study measured infrared transmittance through a single layer of polyethylene impregnated with carbon black, basically the same as this, at 0.05 millimeters thickness, and found that for 2,000 nanometer light, more than twice of what we're working with, less than 2% got through the tape. So three layers would put that at less than 0.008%. But let's test it. Here's my light meter in front of a red plus infrared panel, turned to just infrared. 300 watts per meter squared to undetectable intensity levels. A debunk of Dave verdict? Science 1, Dave 0. What other claims should I cover?
Additional notes
@drbullockderm A better critique of the experiment would have been to comment about light from one side leaking over to hit skin on the other, both externally and via scattering within the skin itself (which is a pretty cool effect!). However, the total light intensity hitting the other side of the face due to these effects I would expect to be well below a therapeutic level, making the overall experiment fairly solid. I've considered doing this type of experiment myself many times and have done so for other skin care products on the right and left half of my body, but I'm always a bit wary of doing it on my face for fear of messing up facial symmetry. So lots of respect to @drtaylorbulloch for sticking to it over 2 months! Note: the biggest problem I have with most of these masks is just that they have such a massive price markup for what really is just… red and NIR LEDs, that could be made and sold for WAY cheaper (and many of the claims made by the sellers are highly exaggerated). #science #redlight #scienceexplained #sciencefacts #tiktoklearningcampaign
References
- Infrared transmittance through carbon-black polyethylene study discussed in transcript; title, DOI/PMID numbers, and source link not listed in workbook.
- Dr. Bullock / Dr. Taylor Bullock split-face red-light experiment discussed in caption/transcript; direct source link not listed in workbook.
- Dave Asprey red-light claim discussed in transcript; direct source link not listed in workbook.