Shedding Light on LEDs

Fascination with visible light has been constant, from Isaac Newton’s famous prism experiments, to the use of color in Chinese traditional medicine, to the current interest in light-emitting diode (LED)-based aesthetic treatments. More LED devices are available than ever before, and public and physician interest has quickened. The real trick, however, is in measuring how effective LED treatments are in current clinical applications. Clinical use has evolved from blue light acne treatments to a range of wavelengths used for a number of medical and aesthetic treatments. This article reviews the latest research and looks at current clinical applications.

Just as plants use chlorophyll to convert sunlight into cellular building blocks, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) trigger natural intracellular chemical processes that can produce a host of effects in the body, says Marcel Besse, vice president, sales and marketing, Light BioScience/Gentle- Waves. “We experimented for years with pulsing technology on fibroblasts, turning on the cells themselves rather than increasing the blood flow through a thermal induction process.”