Fat loss and photobiomodulation – what does the science say?

 

What methods have you thought about using for fat loss in the past?

• Diets
• Exercise
• Surgery (even if you go through surgery, red light helps increase the healing speed - 8)
• Liposuction

Have you thought about photobiomodulation through lasers or LED?

Studies show that 95%+ of diets fail after and around half of those people end up with more weight than when they started. Any improvement to your eating habits is beneficial and should be carried on.

Exercise works and is brilliant for your health in general - everybody should move and exercise.

What about more severe fat loss?

Surgery works for those that are in desperate need and will see rapid benefits on a variety of health benefits. However, it is not for everyone.

Liposuction – It removes fat from the subcutaneous layer and does nothing for the visceral fat that is actually the dangerous and damaging fat to have. As well as that, liposuction provides temporary removal and studies have indicated that most (if not all) fat returns (1).

So what is the answer?

Fat loss can be achieved with the above procedures. However, they are time consuming, very painful and are not always permanent. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could combine a modality with no negative side effects and impressive research to help with your new exercise and eating routine? What about if you could change your body shape just by using light?

In a previous post on Facebook (2) I talked about a study from 2015 in Brazil (3) that showed the benefits of combining photobiomodulation with exercise. The women who received the near-infrared light therapy following exercise doubled the amount of fat loss compared to exercise alone.  Additionally, the women in the exercise + phototherapy group were reported to have a greater increase in skeletal muscle mass than the placebo group.

So we know that photobiomodulation, when combined with exercise can dramatically and statistically enhance the fatloss and strength gains – that’s a win right?

So we know that we can combine this modality and improve the effects of other modalities – primarily exercise. What about photbiomodulation alone?

The great news is that without any other changes to lifestyle, photobiomodulation works!! That’s right – you can simply use red light and experience changes to body composition and shape.

The 4 most common areas I see people complain about are:

Thighs

Hips

Waist

Upper arms

This study (4) was so simple, it consisted of 20 minute sessions every other day for  2 weeks. After 3 weeks. What were the results of such a simple protocol?

The results were huge: The members of study lost almost 8cm off their waist, hips and thighs.

 

Think about that for a second “8cm were lost in 2 weeks just by using light”!

“Compared with baseline, a statistically significant 2.99 in. (7.59 cm) mean loss was observed at the post-procedure evaluation point (P < 0.0001)”




Need more?

Another study had similar protocol – 3 times per week for two weeks. One group had a “sham” treatment and another had treatment on three sites (Waist, hips and thighs) 3 times per week.

What were the results:

The members of the photobiomodulation group lost over 8 cm compared to the shame group who lost just over 1 cm.

The specific areas of fat loss were as follows:

Hips	Thighs	Waist
2.67cm	1.7cm	2.48cm

The latest paper dealt with obese teenagers (7).

One of the things I often get asked in my coaching role is about diet and exercise for teenagers as teenagers begin to spend more time indoors, sedentary less time active outside. PLEASE NOTE - Whilst this paper again highlighted the immense benefit of photobiomodulation, it is important that a healthy lifestyle with activity and being outdoors is always advised.

Back to the paper from 2020 (7) which took 54 teenagers and shined light on their abdominal region. They received 12 20-minute PBMT on the abdominal area (energy/session ~4.08 J/cm² ). THese sessions were completed 3 times per week.

The results were astounding - "The W-to-H ratio and SAFT reduced significantly in the PBMT group compared with either the control group". In normal terms, they significantly reduced belly fat and the waist/hip ratio (which is a known inidicator of health outcomes). 

As you can see – photobiomodulation works!

Whether you use it as a standalone treatment or as an addition to healthy eating, exercise or another modality.

How does it work?

There appears to be many ways in which photobiomodulation has an effect:

• Red light can help in the reduction of stress hormones that effect metabolism
• Red light can upregulate the rate at which fat is released from fat storage
• Red light is able to regulate hunger hormones leptin and ghrelin (6)
• Red light is able to attenuate glucose intolerance and therefore able to alter dietary choices (5)
• Red light therapy can potentially help “brown” adipose sites making them more metabolically active.
• Red light is able to help with sleep cycles and circadian rhythm. A balanced circadian rhythm increases growth hormone and therefore increase metabolic rate.

     1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21475140

2. https://www.facebook.com/homelighttherapy/posts/275585663784875
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26398817

4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23355338
5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28223291
6. https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ije/2012/530726/ 
7. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32141112/
8.  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27841968/