April is Parkinson’s Disease Awareness Month. It is an annual worldwide campaign that began in 1997 to commemorate the birthday (April 11) of Dr. James Parkinson. He was the first to describe the disease 200 years ago. Nearly a million people in the U.S. are living with Parkinson’s disease (PD). It is the second most Read more…
Parkinson’s Disease Awareness
Photobiomodulation for Arthritis
If you inject papain (a protein enzyme found in papaya) into your knee, your knee will develop arthritis. You would never do that, of course. But researchers do it to rats all the time. That’s what happened for a 2017 study. The researchers induced arthritis in the rats’ knees, then treated them with one of Read more…
Photobiomodulation for Skin
The photobiomodulation (PBM) bed here at Peak bears a superficial resemblance to a tanning bed. But don’t let that superficial resemblance fool you. The two could hardly be more different in what they do. Heavy exposure to ultraviolet light, which is what sometimes takes place in a tanning bed, can cause skin cancer. It makes Read more…
Photobiomodulation for Low Testosterone
Is photobiomodulation good for low testosterone? The answer is clearly yes if you’re a rat and a qualified yes if you’re a human being. I last wrote about photobiomodulation (PBM) and testosterone in August 2018. At that time, I had found a study that showed regular PBM treatments increased blood levels of testosterone in rats. Read more…
Photobiomodulation for Autoimmune Disorders
An autoimmune reaction happens when your immune system sends antibodies to attack your own tissues. The attack causes inflammation and tissue damage. The inflammation and tissue damage result in symptoms such as pain, weakness, breathing problems, itching, deformed joints, or delirium — depending on the organ or body part affected. Some autoimmune disorders are even Read more…
Photobiomodulation for Depression
Is photobiomodulation (PBM) useful for depression? There is a surprising amount of research that says it is. A study from 2009, published in Behavioral and Brain Functions, described great success with a form of PBM against major depression and anxiety. Another 2018 review in Journal of Affective Disorders also found PBM to be effective in Read more…
Photobiomodulation for Parkinson’s
I first wrote about photobiomodulation (PBM) for Parkinson’s two years ago. In that post, I described an exercise class called “Pedaling for Parkinson’s.” The promotional page for the class mentioned research that showed pedaling can reduce the symptoms of Parkinson’s. This inspired my idea that PBM might make you feel well enough to pedal at Read more…
Photobiomodulation for Hair Growth
“Photobiomodulation for hair growth” may seem trivial to some. Head hair is pretty much a cosmetic issue, and even so, more and more people seem to prefer the bald look anyway. Is Baldness Sexy? Russian American actor Yul Brynner originally set the standard for elegant baldness. He shaved his head for his first big stage Read more…
Photobiomodulation for Dementia
We all lose neurons as we age. But when the loss is so great as to cause cognitive or memory problems and to interfere substantially with daily living, we say the patient is ill with dementia. Dementia is more common among the elderly than among younger people, but it is not an inevitable result of Read more…
Photobiomodulation for Pain
We have a client at Peak who suffers from arthritis. It affects her hands, and she finds on most days she cannot straighten her fingers. She tried all the conventional treatments: pain medications, heat, cold, supplements, hand exercises. Nothing relieved the pain completely, until she tried a session of photobiomodulation (PBM). She came out of Read more…