Hey gang. So today I am catching up with my friend Ari Whitten. Ari is the founder of the Energy Blueprint. He's and the best selling author, several books, Eat for Energy and The Ultimate Guide to Red Light Therapy. And that's what we're going to talk about today is we're to talk all about red light therapy. He wrote a red light therapy book like eight years ago, which I read and it was great, extremely informative. And Ari and I even had a conversation about red light devices back then.

my first red light device probably around 2010 when they were, this was the Soda Lightworks device. And you know, no one was talking about red light therapy back then. And then, and there weren't even any books about it. wrote a great book. And then after he and I talked about it and that book came out, ended up buying one of the bigger red light devices that you hang on the wall. And then he, so anyway, fast forward, he just,

revamped this entire book. He brought in Dr. Michael Hamblin, who's a retired Harvard med school professor. And they went through thousands of studies and created what is almost essentially a textbook on red light therapy. And, you know, I think a lot of people don't, um, you know, you just see a red light therapy and you think, you know, okay.

Chris Wark (01:33.774)
Like, what's that going to do? Right? A little shine a little red light on me and it's supposed to do something. But what's insane is that there are thousands and thousands of published studies on the beneficial effects of red light in the body. And it's like, there are too many for us to even cover in this interview, but we're going to try to hit some highlights for you. anyway, Ari, thanks for taking the time to do this. Congrats on the new book. It's doing really awesome on Amazon. I know it's selling a ton already. How are you feeling?

Ari Whitten (02:01.262)
Yeah, I'm feeling great. It's the most success I've had with a paperback book before. So, you I know you've had some books that have gotten at least one that I know of that has gotten way, way up there in the charts. I probably haven't done as well as you did. But, you know, I got up there in the top 100 on Amazon, number one bestseller in a bunch of categories, including aging and longevity. And yeah, the feedback has been awesome. It's like 500 pages. think four, they...

Chris Wark (02:24.13)
Perfect.

Ari Whitten (02:30.062)
They made the book physically larger so you could fit more text on the page. And I think they got it down from like 500 to 400 pages so that it wouldn't seem as intimidating to people. But it is like kind of halfway to a textbook. It's very dense with scientific information, but it's also, you know, I've intentionally designed it to be extremely high level if you want it to be. even somebody who's, you know, for example, yesterday I was interviewed by

Chris Wark (02:36.974)
Good.

Yeah.

Ari Whitten (02:58.584)
people who specialize in this topic, in light therapy, and they had read the book and even they got tons of gold nuggets. So it's very high level information, but it's also designed for you to, for it to be simple, for it to be conveyed in simple enough terms that somebody without any background in this or any background in science can understand it. And it's also designed really less like a book that you need to read from cover to cover.

and more like a reference manual, skip around to the specific topics that interest you. And you don't need to read all the stuff that doesn't interest you or feels like too much science, too much detail, too much technical information. So it was definitely a big undertaking, a big challenge to create a book that accomplishes all of those things at once.

Chris Wark (03:47.183)
Yeah, and I think that's great too, because, you know, someone can, they can skip around in the book like wound healing or, you know, exercise recovery or skin health or whatever. mean, there's, again, we'll dig into this stuff, but there's so many different beneficial ways to use red light. I've got.

I think I have seven devices. I've got the helmet for my hair. I've got small devices. I've got bigger ones. I've got a wrap deal. I've got a mat. I have a bunch of red light devices. yeah, so I'm a fan. Again, I've used it for.

Ari Whitten (04:09.272)
Yeah.

Chris Wark (04:27.128)
for injuries and for my skin. And again, hopefully to keep the hair in my head.

Ari Whitten (04:33.974)
Yep, I'm right there with you. I'm prone to hair loss too. I use a laser cap as well.

Chris Wark (04:39.414)
Nice, great. Yeah, so if you're using it after all the research you've done, that makes me feel better about.

Ari Whitten (04:45.518)
Yeah, and I've also experimented, as you can imagine, with tons of different devices. And I started playing with this stuff right around the same time you did. It's rare for somebody to have gotten into it that early. So I have tons of experience with devices and a very deep understanding of what works and what doesn't and why and what works for specific purposes better than others. I'm happy to delve into that. I will say on that note, so.

Chris Wark (05:10.626)
Yes.

Ari Whitten (05:15.298)
Given that you and I both got into it at that time, was before really the whole red light industry existed. There were only a few companies selling mostly these flexible pads. And I was actually creating the first LED panels, as far as I know, maybe somebody did it before me, but this was before any company existed selling LED panels from a marijuana grow light company.

Chris Wark (05:43.15)
Hmm.

Ari Whitten (05:45.362)
LED panels to grow marijuana at home that were, you know, blue light and green light and UV light and orange light and all the different colors. And I reached out to them. said, Hey, can you make me a custom light, you know, same box as what you're using, but just all red and near infrared. And they said, yeah. And I was doing business with them for like two years and probably did tens of thousands of dollars of business sending clients of mine to them to buy these devices.

And they didn't even know why they were making these devices. They, you know, like they were selling massive amounts of these devices and they didn't even understand what, what it was for. And at a certain point they reached out to me and they said, why are all these people ordering these weird red and near infrared light devices? Like, what are you doing with them? And I explained it and that company, that guy went on to then start a red and near infrared light company. They've, they've become one of the leaders in the space and have now.

have a, I don't know how many, five, 10, $20 million a year business selling these devices.

Chris Wark (06:46.286)
Was that Red Rush? Okay.

Ari Whitten (06:48.18)
No, I probably shouldn't mention the name, but it wasn't Red Rush.

Chris Wark (06:53.317)
Alright, we'll edit that out.

That's great. And it's funny to me that they're like, why are people buying these from us?

Ari Whitten (07:05.1)
Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting because there was no red light industry at that time. This whole topic, as you said, was very fringe. Nobody had heard of it. I felt like it was really important. I felt like, wow, there's, there's, there's this amazing thing and there's a whole bunch of science to support it. This amazing phenomenon that photons of light are interacting with ourselves and doing things that are positive for health. This is like,

This is an amazing phenomenon that people should know about. I feel like this is important. And there wasn't any books written on the time. The only books that existed were actual textbooks like this, the Handbook of Photo Medicine. This is written by my now co-author, Dr. Michael Hamblin, who's written many textbooks. He's been a part of over a thousand research papers on this subject. But all you had was these actual

textbooks that were designed for academics and researchers said I feel like the general public needs to know about this. So I kind of in a few months I put together this little this little book, the ultimate guide to red light therapy and I became the first to publish a book on this subject for the general audience. And my timing was good because subsequently red light therapy became mainstream. My book became the most popular book in the world on the subject. And now I got a book deal with Penguin Random House.

to write the second version of it and Michael Hamblin as my co-author. you know, things turned out good. My timing was good.

Chris Wark (08:36.655)
It's amazing. Tommy was perfect. Hey, and maybe you're the reason it got so popular. Maybe we'll give you all the credit.

Ari Whitten (08:43.808)
Well, to that point, I don't want to be grandiose and taking too much credit, but I have reached out to many companies as part of an effort we could talk about to have them send their devices to a third party lab to get tested. Part of my efforts to sort of clean up the industry and a lot of the misrepresentation and lying that goes on, which is a whole other topic we can get into. And I can't tell you how many emails I got in response from owners of these companies saying,

Arie Witten, of course I know you. You're the reason I started my company after reading your book. So I'm aware of at least maybe eight or 10 major companies that literally started their company because of my book.

Chris Wark (09:28.857)
Wow, well there you go. My suspicions are correct. So, okay, for someone that really doesn't know anything about red light therapy, let's just start first principles. What is red light? What is infrared light? Why is it helpful to humans?

Ari Whitten (09:30.946)
Yeah.

Ari Whitten (09:45.922)
Yeah, great. That's the right place to start. first of all, what is red light? It is light that is red in color. Okay, now that might seem trivial, but let's ground this in the bigger picture. So the bigger picture is sunlight. So humans evolved or were created on this planet, depending on your belief system. And we have a visual system that is designed to detect certain colors of light.

Okay, and this is the rainbow. These are the colors of light from the sun that our visual system can detect. ROYGBIV, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. And there's a whole electromagnetic spectrum that that visible light spectrum is a part of, small part of. There's a whole electromagnetic spectrum outside of that, that goes all the way from things like gamma rays and x-rays all the way to microwaves and radio waves. Okay.

So somewhere on that electromagnetic spectrum is, let's say in the middle, roughly, we have visible light. And then on either side of visible light, we have ultraviolet light, some of which we can see, some of which we can't see. We get ultraviolet light from the sun. And on the other side of the visible light spectrum, we get into infrared. We get into near-infrared, mid-infrared, far-infrared.

And that is invisible to the human visual system. So big picture is electromagnetic spectrum. can think of it as largely as a result of being emitted from the sun. We have these wavelengths. And some of these wavelengths of light interact with human biology. Now you could look at that from an evolutionary frame, you could look at it from, if you're religious, you could look at it from a frame of talking about why we're

We were created a certain way for our biology to respond to wavelengths of the sun. Doesn't matter how you want to think of it. The point is that our biology does unequivocally, undebatably respond to wavelengths from the sun. That certain wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum are bioactive, influence human biology. Couple simple, not very non-controversial examples of this. We all know that we...

Ari Whitten (12:07.65)
we all have at least some vague awareness that we get vitamin D from the sun. know, people think that you can just pop a vitamin D pill and then you don't need to worry about the sun anymore, which is far from accurate. But we have some vague awareness that there's an interaction there. And vitamin D, which is actually not a vitamin, it's a hormone, influences and regulates over 2,000 genes in our body. It impacts on musculoskeletal health, immune health, many different...

aspects of our physiology the kovat era sort of brought to light a lot of awareness of the importance of the vitamin D story and Predominant source of where we create this vitamin D is from sunlight specifically from part of the ultraviolet spectrum Okay, so that ultraviolet light is bioactive it interacts with our cells with compounds in our skin and leads to the synthesis of vitamin D

Another layer to this story is the blue wavelengths of light, okay, visible blue light. So like, for example, you look at a blue sky, that's blue wavelengths of light entering your eyes. And those wavelengths of light feedback into your eyes, interact with receptors there that trigger electrical signals back into a part of the brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus, which is where our 24 hour biological clock resides, our circadian rhythm.

and that circadian clock in our brain then influences almost everything in our body directly or indirectly. It influences many different hormones that are tied to the circadian rhythm like testosterone and thyroid hormone, cortisol, melatonin, and it influences, in more recent years we've discovered that there are all these circadian clocks and clock genes and

proteins inside of the cells in basically almost all the cells of our body in our skin in our Internal organs our liver our heart our intestines our muscles our bones They all have mechanisms that are designed to respond to circadian rhythm inputs and So we have this clock in the brain that is responding to light from the Sun light in our environment specifically in the blue wavelengths that is now impacting on the function of

Ari Whitten (14:33.408)
almost every cell in our body. Okay, so I'm painting a picture here of the bigger context of that light is not just this inert thing. It's not just the opposite of darkness. isn't just something that allows us to see things. It interacts with our physiology. Now, perhaps the most interesting, let me say one more layer. like infrared saunas,

Or you go out in the sun, you feel heat on your skin. There's a few mechanisms of why that occurs. But part of it is from far infrared energy. And this is the type of, this is the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that we would get in an infrared sauna. Okay, and in those infrared saunas, they emit this far infrared. And that far infrared primarily absorbs in water in our body and heats us up.

Okay, and so we feel that as that energy is being absorbed in water, it's now heating that and then creating the effect of heating us. can heat us to the point where we feel hot and we start sweating. Okay, so that's another way that this electromagnetic spectrum can be bioactive. What's interesting is almost all these wavelengths and parts of the electromagnetic spectrum really stop for the most part at the level of the skin. Okay, they don't really go beyond the level of the skin.

with one exception, that is the exception is red and near infrared light. And this is specifically, somebody wants to do a Google image search of the electromagnetic spectrum, I would recommend it. It'd be helpful to visualize this. The band that is from 600 to 900 nanometers, roughly, you can parse this in different ways, 600 to 1,000, 600 to 900 is the best, and that's red and near infrared light.

And those wavelengths do something really fascinating. Our biology is designed in such a way that it is translucent or largely transparent to those specific wavelengths of light. And this is something called the optical window. You could also do a Google search for the optical window in photo biomodulation. That photo biomodulation is the term for this. Photo means light, bio means life, biology.

Ari Whitten (16:56.01)
And modulation is what it sounds like. So we're using light to modify biology. And this red and near infrared infrared light penetrates through our skin in large part and can sometimes penetrate inches deep into our body. Now, this would just be kind of a trivial thing. If that light were inert, if it weren't actually doing anything to our biology, if it was just sort of.

passing through us, OK, it's random, whatever. Our biology is designed in such a way where it lets this light in, light doesn't do anything, who cares? But that's not the case. Turns out that specifically in this band of wavelengths of red and near-infrared light, not only does it penetrate through our skin, but once it penetrates, it does something. It interacts with ourselves. And it turns out, and we now have thousands of studies to support, that it does

highly beneficial things once it interacts with our cells. It absorbs in what are called different chromophores, different compounds inside of the cells or inside of the body that absorb these specific wavelengths of light. And once they absorb these wavelengths of light, it triggers cascades of responses, cellular responses, gene expression changes, biochemical changes, mechanisms inside of the cell are triggered.

in such a way that leads very predictively to various kinds of health benefits. Okay, so that's the first principle sort of understanding of light is bioactive and red and near infrared light have a unique role to play in terms of this, have a unique mechanism and a very large body of evidence showing that they do really amazing things for our biology.

Chris Wark (18:46.659)
That's good. love what you said. And, know, I think even just on the most simplistic terms, everybody knows that when you get out in the sunshine, like you feel good. You know what I'm saying? There's something that, you know, it's not just I'm warm. You know what I'm saying? In the sun, there, there is actually a, as you said, a cascade of benefits. But one of those, like, know, you know, how good it feels to be in the sunshine. Like.

Ari Whitten (19:13.422)
100 % and there's multiple mechanisms. Sorry, am I cutting you off?

Chris Wark (19:17.207)
Yeah, no, go ahead. Go ahead. Yes. You feel good in the sun. Like we all know that there's something beneficial is happening.

Ari Whitten (19:23.212)
Yes, and there's multiple mechanisms for that. So anybody who lives in an overcast place like in Northern Latitudes or something like that, if you live in England or Ireland, if you live in Seattle, you know this very well. You miss the sun when it's not around and you feel bad and there's a very established phenomenon called seasonal affective disorder. You feel depressed basically with absence of sun.

A big part of that is likely a story of circadian rhythm mediated effects, but we also know that there are many other types of effects. We also know that we get lots of other stuff from the sun, that there is the far infrared energy and how that heats us up and feels good and triggers mechanisms at the level of the skin that create cascades of responses internally. We know that there's a UV light mediated.

aspect of this story, not just with vitamin D, but there's other things that UV light does for us at the level of the skin, even affects neurotransmitters and affects nitric oxide, which affects circulation. And what's not well known, not well studied is the fact that about 20 to 30 % roughly of the sun's overall electromagnetic spectrum is in the red and near infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum.

And so a big part of what we're getting from the sun is red and near infrared light. And if you put that knowledge together with the fact that we have thousands of studies showing that there are health benefits from red and near infrared light, it's not a huge leap to suggest that part of the reason we crave sunlight is because our biology knows that those wavelengths are missing and it craves them.

Chris Wark (21:15.481)
there's beneficial health effects to them. And it depends on what time of day you're getting sunlight, right? So my understanding is that in the morning, the early morning sun is predominantly red and infrared light. And then midday shifts to more intense UV light. then evening, dusk, late afternoon, it shifts back to more

red and infrared. Is that an accurate summary?

Ari Whitten (21:47.246)
It is accurate. However, it's also there's a few nuances to it. So we need to differentiate between the absolute amount, like in terms of light and intensity. This is called irradiance of light that is present versus relative proportions of the spectrum. So what you said is accurate in terms of

in the morning and in the evening, there is less blue, less UV, and it's red, amber shifted light. However, it is in absolute terms, it is not the case that that means that there is more red and near infrared present at those times compared to midday. So in other words, yes,

in terms of relative proportions of the total amount of light present, yes, there's less blue and UV, more red, but in absolute terms, at midday, you will still get more red and near infrared. It will just also be in the presence of lots of blue and UV.

Chris Wark (23:00.803)
Got it. So the intensity of the blue and UV really goes up during the day, but the red you're saying pretty much just stays or maybe gets a little more intense as well.

Ari Whitten (23:10.7)
Yes. Yeah. And that, that distinction that you're making is more relevant to like, let's say if you wanted to look at the sun or you're doing for circadian rhythm mediated effects, if you wanted to like do sunset, you know, like staring at the sun or, or, or that sort of thing. it becomes much more important to do that in the early morning or the evening hours than to do it at midday. It in midday, can be very damaging to your eyes, but in terms of like photo by a modulation, effects.

Yeah, there's lots of lots of red and near infrared in the midday and that's actually where the most will be.

Chris Wark (23:50.379)
So at this point, I think people are probably like, what are the benefits? What am I getting? What is this going to do for me? Why do I need more red light in my body? And that's where the long list, I this is a long list. I mean, again, we talked about there's thousands of studies on this topic. And let me just say this, by the way. If you haven't.

Ari Whitten (24:01.933)
Yeah.

Chris Wark (24:13.865)
You know, obviously red light therapy is really taken off. It's become a very popular health, you know, sort of protocol. There's tons of companies making tons of devices, which we'll get into. But the reason that...

we didn't hear about it for so many years is because red light therapy can also be sort of put in the same category as nutrition or even supplementation where there's all this research being done, studies being published, fascinating discoveries happening, but there's no money in it.

Ari Whitten (24:51.491)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Wark (24:52.047)
And so all of that research just gets put on a shelf, essentially, right? All the research that ends up being delivered to the public is the research that backs the pharmaceutical. So at the university level, like your co-author published a textbook about it, right? mean, it's...

I'm sure it was very informative to other researchers, but it didn't make it to the public. It didn't make it to doctors. didn't make it to clinical practice.

for the same reasons that nutrition and supplementation didn't make it, because there's no money in it. Yes, companies can sell supplements and make money. Companies can make red light devices and make money, but it doesn't have that multi-billion dollar profit opportunity like pharmaceuticals do. And that's, that's why most research is oriented toward either pharmaceuticals or very, very expensive medical devices.

Ari Whitten (25:50.166)
Yeah, let me first say I I agree with you completely and I think that is a very good heuristic to understand everything that goes on in in in medicine and what is communicated or not communicated the whole frame of everything we learn about health What controls human health from the time? We're kids is entirely influenced hugely influenced by the pharmaceutical industry in ways that most people are not even conscious of the the story of

human health that we learn is a fundamentally disease centric story. We learn that what kills us, what destroys our health are these specific diseases. And each specific disease has some, we need to go hunting for the specific mechanisms that cause this disease at the micro level, biochemicals and this mechanism or that mechanism. And then once we find these druggable targets, we go into a chemistry lab, we synthesize a drug to combat

each one of these diseases, we find the cure, quote unquote, we try to find the cure. And that's really the story that we're all indoctrinated into. Now, I would, this is a much longer conversation. I would very strongly disagree with this whole framing of health. I think it's fundamentally misguided and shaped by the pharmaceutical industry and almost everybody, even health experts, doctors are operating within those implicit assumptions. But

That's a much broader discussion. think to be charitable on this topic of red and near infrared light therapy, I do think there's truth in what you're saying, a lot of it. I think that there is another problem that has led to difficulty accepting this topic, which is a legitimate problem, which is that, yes, there's thousands of studies on this topic showing benefits. The problem is, well, historically, one was that

We didn't really understand the mechanisms of how it works that well. And from a pharmaceutical type of model of thinking, the way we're trained to think is we want to know the mechanism of quote unquote, how it works. And we search for some specific switch that happens in, you know, like a drug flips some specific mechanism. And that's the key thing of how it works as far as how we understand it.

Ari Whitten (28:15.758)
Red light therapy near infrared light therapy just don't really work in that sort of neat way they're much more akin to something like meditation or nutrition or Exercise in that there isn't just one mechanisms. It's dozens of mechanisms and cascades of physiological responses and That's problematic to acceptance of it. The other big reason is that again to be charitable. Yes, there's thousands of studies, but there's a huge

Diversity in terms of the types of devices used the dosages applied the methodology of how they did the study There's so much variation in the methodology of these studies that People don't know what to conclude people don't know what device is best how to dose it There's all these unknowns that are present there And so it's like yes, we have thousands of studies showing that these wavelengths of light are clearly doing something

But we don't, I'm not saying me at this point, but like speaking for modern medicine, we don't know what to do with that. We don't know what device we should be recommending to people and how to use it. It's just, the science is still, again, to be charitable, the science is still very much in its adolescence. And so it hasn't evolved to the point where we have clear evidence-based frameworks of for this condition, use this device for this dosage.

and apply it in this, this, and this way. You know what I mean? And in the absence of that kind of robust evidence on device selection, on practical use and dosing, it's still sort of in this territory, this gray area territory where it's like not yet quite accepted as evidence-based.

Chris Wark (29:47.214)
Yes.

Chris Wark (30:04.557)
Yeah. The giant clinical trials, right. Which require huge piles of money to fund. And it's hard, it's hard to raise money to fund research on something that you can't patent because anyone could make a red light device in their garage. Right. And anyone could grow fruits and vegetables in their backyard. You know, it's the same sort of limiting factor on,

Ari Whitten (30:21.056)
Exactly.

Chris Wark (30:29.743)
profit incentives that I think has held it back. But all that to say, you know, that's, that's why your doctor doesn't know much about it. That's why it's not used in medicine yet, but I think it's coming. I'm very hopeful that.

Ari Whitten (30:44.856)
Well, it is in certain contexts. used in, it has been used actually for decades in the form of lasers in physical therapy offices, orthopedic, chiropractic clinics. And that is actually where most of the evidence has come from over the last few decades on lasers. And it is still the case that most of the evidence on this topic is from lasers, just because of the recency of actually the invention of LEDs.

Chris Wark (30:57.807)
Mm-hmm.

Ari Whitten (31:13.72)
Like we have to understand like where we are in the big history of this. Like LEDs were only invented pretty recently. And so there hasn't been an enormous amount of time to conduct research on them. We do have plenty of research at this point, hundreds of studies, which in many cases show similar or nearly identical effects to laser devices when they compare them. So we know that, you know, you don't need a laser to get these effects. LEDs also work.

But we do have a very robust evidence base and history of clinical use of these lasers. The problem there, the barrier for the general public, is that most of these lasers cost at least $5,000, if not $30,000, $50,000. And so there's just a hard cost of entry that limits the sort of general uptake of this technology. And LEDs have since changed that.

Chris Wark (32:10.829)
I had laser therapy many, many years ago at a chiropractor's office, did a bunch of sessions and, you know, can't say that helped. Can't say that didn't. I don't know. I just remember he was like, Hey man, we should do this. And I was like, all right, you know, sure. Pointed at me. Let's see what happens. And that was, called it back then. They called it cold laser and they may still call it cold laser.

Ari Whitten (32:31.244)
Yeah, it's cold laser only in the sense that if you use a real high-power laser, it's hot. It's literally heating the tissues to the point where very high-powered lasers can instantly ablate tissues and burn tissues and are used for surgery, like especially in dental offices. High-powered lasers are often used to do surgery instead of physical cutting instruments. But lower-powered lasers...

Chris Wark (32:35.673)
doesn't burn you.

Ari Whitten (32:58.018)
are called, quote unquote, cold lasers when they provide photobiomodulation benefits without burning the tissue.

Chris Wark (33:05.377)
Okay, so the benefits.

Ari Whitten (33:08.086)
Yes, so a lot. There's like over 100 pages in my book on this. This is like reverse skin aging. So combating wrinkles and the aging of skin, combating hair loss and helping to regrow hair, reducing cellulite, combating fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue, fighting Hashimoto's and autoimmune conditions.

Chris Wark (33:09.891)
There's a lot and.

Chris Wark (33:20.975)
which a lot of people care about for their face, right?

Ari Whitten (33:36.492)
bone health, muscle health, performance, combating depression and anxiety, combating Alzheimer's, there's research on Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases, glycemic control, joint health and arthritis, yeah.

Chris Wark (33:48.557)
Well, let me stop you. Let me stop you right there. So it's interesting with the neurodegenerative because, you know, you would think, I would think, does it, is it, I mean, as red and infrared light penetrating the skull, is it going that deep? Is it going all the way through your, through from one side of your skull to the other, all the way through your brain tissue?

Ari Whitten (34:13.942)
These are great questions that you're asking and they invite a much deeper discussion of penetration, which would be a great thing to talk about. Do you want to go into that right now or do you want me to?

Chris Wark (34:24.451)
Well, if you have a short answer, is yes, it does, would probably be enough.

Ari Whitten (34:31.15)
Yeah, well actually there's a really fascinating discussion to be had on how deep these these wavelengths penetrate into the body But the if you want me to very briefly answer that Yes is the answer But your question is good your thinking is good because bone does block most of the light so

Chris Wark (34:39.243)
I do want to talk about that just in general.

Ari Whitten (34:55.584)
very little light can actually penetrate through skin. First of all, the skin already blocks quite a bit of light. Once you get beneath the skin, oftentimes you might have a layer of fat, you might have a layer of muscle, you might have tendon, you might have bone. Bone is especially effective at blocking light. So it is a wonderful, very smart question to ask, well, can light even get through this skull bone?

And the answer is, and there are actually visuals online of people demonstrating this with skull bones, the answer is yes. And especially with near infrared light as opposed to red, and especially with higher powered devices, and especially when applied directly on the skin with pressure, as opposed to like a light source a distance away. The answer is yes. The light does a small amount. Okay, so let's say if you start with

Just for simple math, let's say you start with 100 units of energy at the surface, the skin surface, maybe only 5%, maybe only 2 % or 1 % or 0.5 % of that light will actually make it into the brain. It does not do what you said, most likely, get all the way through from one side of the brain to the other and out the other side, though there's some interesting research we could talk about that just came out a few months ago that

has shown that small amounts of energy can actually pass through the entire human torso, which is vastly deeper than people have thought prior to that. But the short version is, yes, a small amount of light does penetrate through the skull and directly into the brain cells. Now, what's the other layer to that story that's really important is that the deeper you go into the body,

two principles to understand here. The deeper you go into the body, the cells that are less superficial, that are deep inside, are generally speaking, much more photosensitive, much more sensitive to small amounts of light. The second thing to understand when it comes to that is that cells or organ systems that are extremely rich in mitochondria,

Ari Whitten (37:15.8)
which like the brain is, the muscles are, the heart is, but especially the brain, the more mitochondria rich it is, the more photosensitive it is. Okay, so yes, there is this huge attenuation of the light relative to what it is on the surface, but it is counterbalanced by this principle that deeper tissues and mitochondria rich tissues are also responsive to very minuscule amounts of light.

And so the research is clear that some of these devices, and it's been studied in dozens of studies, some of these devices do get light into the brain and that the brain clearly is responding.

Chris Wark (37:44.451)
which makes it more safe.

Chris Wark (37:58.127)
Hmm. I was, yeah, I said, makes sense because when you're in the sun, obviously your skin gets the most light and your, you know, your kidneys, not, not as much, right. But if they still, uh, if they're more sensitive to light, to the little bit of light that penetrates through. Then, uh, yeah, that's, that's really fascinating. And so you also answered my other question, which was, you know, for like the lower torso, let's say, you know, below your rib cage, right?

Ari Whitten (38:07.403)
Exactly.

Chris Wark (38:25.399)
That's just all flesh, right? That's all flesh. You got your liver, you got your stomach, you got your kidneys, your intestines. There's no bones blocking. And so with a sufficiently powered red light or infrared or both device, theoretically it would saturate that area pretty good, especially, I guess, if you hit it from both sides.

Ari Whitten (38:51.278)
Well, yes and no, a couple other principles. One is near infrared will penetrate much deeper than red as a generalization. Penetrate deeper and have a much higher intensity at a given level of depth. Let's say it's two inches deep into the body. At equivalent, know, equivalently powered lights, the near infrared light will deliver much more light to that depth of tissue. Okay, so that's one aspect of this equation. Now let's say you shine it on your abdomen as you were just getting out there.

Another factor that influences this is the tissue that it has to go through. So we just talked about bone. Bone is very effective at blocking lots of light, much more effective than soft tissue, as you were just alluding to. However, this is also like if you want to deliver light to internal organs, let's say your intestines or let's say even your ab muscles, something like that.

you wanted to, I don't know, affect a hernia or affect your liver or your kidneys or something. The amount of light that you could deliver to those internal organs is also hugely influenced by your body composition. So if you've got a thick layer of fat there, very hard to deliver a meaningful amount of light through a thick layer of fat to tissue underneath that. So somebody who's very skinny, very lean, low body fat,

might actually be able to take a light, shine it on their abdomen and direct meaningful amounts of light into some of those internal organs. Whereas somebody with more fat underneath the skin might not.

Chris Wark (40:28.089)
How much research has been done with red light and cancer? I know when your first book came out, was a little bit, not a whole lot. Did you find more?

Ari Whitten (40:38.094)
There has been definitely some research done on it. There's a few different contexts. One is sort of this general context of like using it as a supportive tool to boost overall immune health. And actually there's quite robust research showing that red and near infrared light do support immune health. And the research is quite clear that it is supportive of better outcomes in various kinds of cancer to use it in that way.

Now, the question that always comes up is like, should you use it on the tumor or on the cancer? And the general advice is no, you should avoid that. However, that's sort of like being cautious because to my knowledge, there is actually no research that has shown harm from doing that, shown that like the red and near infrared lights caused the tumor to grow faster or something like that.

There is this other context that's interesting called photodynamic therapy. And this is worth exploring for people. I would encourage since your audience might be uniquely interested in cancer, it would be worth exploring the topic of photodynamic therapy because a lot of very interesting research has been done. And I'm aware of some pioneers in this space that have

I can't vouch for this at all, the legitimacy of it, but they claim that they've essentially developed some proper cures for certain types of cancer using photodynamic therapy and that it's been suppressed. It's been actively suppressed and they've been attacked and threatened and things like that. Now, what it is is basically there's an interaction between certain kinds of chemical compounds and red

or near infrared light. And actually, sorry, real quick, I don't know the details of this one off the top of my head, I don't remember it, but just like a year ago, there was a paper that people should look up. You could maybe bring it up right now while we're in conversation, tell us about it as I'm talking. It's on near infrared light as being a quote unquote molecular jackhammer, okay, in eliminating cancer cells.

Ari Whitten (42:59.918)
Okay, and I don't know the specifics of the methodology or the type of cancer, but you could maybe look that up and see what it says. But let me get back to photodynamic therapy. It might be photodynamic therapy that they used in that. So photodynamic therapy is they use like a chemical that absorbs in certain tissues, like methylene blue, for example, is one that interacts specifically with red light at 660 nanometers. And when it...

when the chemical, but there are other chemicals that can be used as well, not just methylene blue. When that chemical absorbs in those cells, so like cancer cells, and then you shine light directly on that area, an oxidative reaction occurs that is damaging to those cells. And so in this way, you can selectively target and kill cancer cells.

I don't want to misrepresent the overall body of evidence. Maybe there's an oncologist who would say, yeah, well, you know, the body of evidence is not impressive or maybe they don't even know about it. I don't know sort of the, haven't done enough research on that specific topic to know sort of the status of acceptance or non-acceptance of photodynamic therapy. But I know that there's emerging research. Maybe you can tell us about this new one on the jackhammer.

Chris Wark (44:20.781)
Yeah, so I pulled it up and okay, here's the gist of it. Basically, they, this is an article basically, it's molecular jackhammers and the coolest new cancer killers. And so what they're doing is they were, using a, they're using a dye, amino cyanines and it's more.

Ari Whitten (44:41.634)
That's another one of the photosensitizers for photodynamic therapy.

Chris Wark (44:45.593)
That's right. So it's a dye that's to mark cancer cells, and it'll bind to cancer cells, and they absorb it. then this emerging research, they figured out that if they use this specific near-infrared light, it'll vibrate the molecules of this dye in the cancer cells, which will, through just violent force, cause the cancer cell to rupture and die.

Ari Whitten (45:12.984)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Wark (45:13.711)
So that's, yeah, that's what the guys that you've talked to and some people I know as well, the photodynamic therapy, that's what they're doing.

Ari Whitten (45:23.916)
Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, this paper actually received quite a bit of fanfare. It was published in major news outlets and could be a genuine breakthrough, at least in certain types of cancers. I don't know. I don't want to over-speak because it's not that specific topic is not my realm of expertise. But I know that that paper has is sort of very exciting to a lot of people.

Chris Wark (45:47.759)
Well, and you know, I, um, this is sort of a little bit of a tangent, but, um, I published an article, I guess it was last year, um, on hip so Tripsy and, and hip so Tripsy is using ultrasound to destroy cancer cells from outside the body. And so they figured out they can use this really, really high frequency focused ultrasound, and they can literally just go in and line by line.

Ari Whitten (46:05.186)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Wark (46:17.647)
Erase the tumor, essentially.

because it causes micro bubbles inside the cancer cells, tumor cells, and it causes the cells to rupture just by using focused ultrasound, high pulse, high frequency ultrasound. again, this is using electro medicine, frequency medicine, different wavelength, but it's the same principle, which is really exciting because, and by the way, histotripsy is available in multiple states. mean, it's growing in popularity.

you know, slowly the research is well validated. It's not, you know, you don't have to go to Mexico.

They have FDA approval and this and all this kind of stuff. But anyway Yeah, same kind of thing happening and to me that's great because imagine going in for a cancer operation Where you just lay on a table they do this histotripsy device. They don't cut you open. They don't burn you There's no ionizing radiation. You're not at risk of getting more cancer and It basically turns your tumor into it liquefies your tumor

in their body and then your body just processes it and it's gone. So it's pretty cool. Okay, so let's talk about skin because I know a lot of lot of my listeners are women. They want to have healthy youthful skin. They want to age gracefully. I myself also would like to age gracefully and have yet maintain healthy youthful skin without a bunch of injections and you know

Ari Whitten (47:30.86)
Yeah, fascinating stuff.

Ari Whitten (47:48.78)
Me too. Yeah.

Chris Wark (47:55.643)
Whatever's right You know cosmetic procedures. So what exactly is happening? What is red light and infrared light do to your skin? What's the beneficial effect?

Ari Whitten (48:06.636)
Yeah. Well, okay. So let's, let's take big picture context briefly. So I mentioned in the first principles explanation of what this is and sort of the fact that it penetrates in our body and interacts with cells and it's bioactive. does stuff once it interacts with ourselves. What does it do? Well, the, the simp we could talk in detail about the specific mechanisms and the cascades of mechanisms, but this is the very simple version of what it is doing.

painting with broad brushstrokes is it's it's activating repair and regeneration healing mechanisms. Okay, tissue growth, tissue regeneration, tissue repair mechanisms. Okay, and that's true. At the level of the skin, it's true at the level of the muscle, it's true at the level of the bone, it's true at the level of tendons and the brain and organs and glands. And it's true everywhere in the body. And there might be unique mechanisms.

And growth factors involved we have growth unique growth factors that are tissue specific We have growth factors in our blood vessels in our muscles In our brain. We have brain-derived neurotrophic factor. We have IGF 1 insulin like growth factor 1 I don't want to scare people away Because I know that some people are have heard about that in connection with cancer There isn't actually a concern IGF 1 is something that is also boosted from doing exercise for example in muscle tissue

And we have these growth factors that are triggered. TGF beta one is really the big one. TGF beta one is sort of the master growth factor mechanism that is triggered in response to red and near infrared light. And as that is triggered, it then engages a whole cascade of other growth factor responses, some of which go systemic, trigger whole system increase in growth factors and

Another mechanism related to this is stem cells. There's also research, and I think this will turn out in five or 10 years, we'll appreciate this more as a main mechanism of how red and near-infrared light therapy works. But it engages stem cells, including local stem cells and stem cells released into circulation to help repair and regenerate tissues. At the level of local level of tissue,

Ari Whitten (50:31.534)
There is an engagement, it changes gene expression in a way that is pro tissue repair and pro tissue growth. Okay. And this is in a regulated way, not a dysregulated way, meaning you don't have to worry like, well, growth sounds like it's a bad thing. Is it going to grow tumors or something? No, it doesn't. is about, know, growth is synonymous with repair and regeneration. If we have

breakdown of tissues. We also need growth mechanisms, which is synonymous with repair and regeneration to help rebuild healthy tissues. And at the level of the skin, the main proteins of importance are collagen and elastin. And we know that red and near infrared light directly interact with collagen. It suppresses enzymes involved in collagen breakdown, and it directly promotes gene expression changes that promote

the building of new collagen. So if skin aging, if you think of it essentially as a story of collagen breakdown, what red and near infrared light are doing is directly counteracting that mechanism by supporting collagen to the collagen networks to stay robust, to stay healthy, to not break down and supporting regeneration and growth of collagen.

Chris Wark (51:51.567)
And those are the hot buttons right there, collagen and elastin. Two words that I think every woman knows about and is concerned about because every body care product, face product is claiming to stimulate collagen and elastin, right? This is like, yeah, it's like to keep you looking youthful. So the big takeaways here is like repair.

Ari Whitten (52:11.79)
Yeah.

Chris Wark (52:18.253)
regeneration, right? And that's not just the face, it's not just the skin. This is like the benefits of red light and infrared light is stimulating repair and regeneration. So whether it's, you know, aging skin or it's a sports injury or it's some kind of, you know, ache and pain, stem cells, stem cell stimulation and production helps heal, right?

Repair and regeneration, that's under the umbrella of healing. And the collagen and elastin, right, that's surface level. I mean, there's benefits in deeper in the body, of course, of those things too, but on the surface of having youthful skin, which I think a lot of us want, yeah. And there's a lot of, again, products that make those claims that are unsubstantiated, whereas with red light therapy, it's been studied quite extensively and proven. But let me segue, it depends on

the type of device, how it's used, and you know, I don't want to go too far over time, but can you touch on briefly, and I know you go way deep in this in the book, but briefly.

What should people look for? Because you know, it's gotten so ridiculous. I was looking at red light devices on Amazon. I even sent one to my team because there's so many like, I don't know if they're all Chinese companies or whatever, but there are these, all these red light devices on Amazon that literally have names that are just a string of letters. They're unpronounceable. The name of the brand is like MP2ZTPZ4. It's like, it's not even a word. You know what saying? And I'm like, what?

Ari Whitten (53:42.114)
They are, yeah.

Ari Whitten (53:50.392)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Chris Wark (53:59.585)
What is this company with this string of letters and this is their brand name, you know?

Ari Whitten (54:04.566)
Yeah, totally. The whole space is like the Wild West right now, meaning there's sort of a gold rush. Lots of companies, lots of shady people are just rushing to take some products from China and throw them up and make claims about them and start selling these devices. I want to warn people very much to the point of the good things that you just said a minute ago. Number one, be aware that

the majority of devices on the market are junk. Okay, and we can talk about the reasons why they're junk. And number two, there's an enormous amount of lying and overt fraud and misrepresentation about the technical specifics of the devices that is taking place. Something I'm very much trying to clean up with my new book and encourage.

Chris Wark (54:58.147)
Because they all know what the science says and they just borrow the science and claim that their device is doing right.

Ari Whitten (55:04.27)
Well, yeah, that's one aspect of things. So you might take, you might take research that was done on different kinds of devices and claim the same benefits for your device. Um, but more egregiously people, there are many companies that are just overtly lying about the actual light intensity of their device, not by small margins, not by 10, 20%, but by a hundred percent or 200 or 500%. Um, so

Chris Wark (55:21.423)
Mm-hmm.

Ari Whitten (55:32.384)
You really, one of the things that I'm encouraging people to do is only do business with companies that are transparent and provide third party lab data to verify the actual specs of their device. It's very important to get those specs right. If you want, this is the difference between a junk device. That's just a waste of time and money versus actually doing effective photo biomodulation, red and near infrared light therapy and getting results. there are other.

Technical factors that go into a device that most people would not be aware of that are actually extremely important apart from the main thing that people lie about is irradiance, which is the intensity of the device but We are talking about facial anti-aging. Let me give the example of this So there are a million masks on the market from China that look just like this maybe from this side on This side they look wildly different

Okay, and the one I'm holding in my hands is actually an excellent device. There are lots that look the same on the outside as this or very similar, but are nowhere near as good as this in terms of actual efficacy. Now, this is just one example, one context, which is facial anti-aging. I'm going to just explain a couple principles that are important here. One is this device has LEDs actually at the correct irradiance.

to generate efficacy, some 10 at the minimum 10 milliwatts per square centimeter, maybe upwards of 20 or 30 for facial skin anti-aging, that specific context is what you want as far as the light intensity. Most devices on the market might be three or five or nine, okay? They're not in the correct range, first of all. Now there's another important issue.

And they're lying about it also. They might tell you they are 30, but really they're at three. Yeah.

Chris Wark (57:31.993)
Let me interrupt right here. Let's say they are three or nine. Does that mean no benefit or just reduced benefit?

Ari Whitten (57:43.744)
Well, it's not gonna be harmful. I would say massively reduced benefit to the point of like, it's like if a study showed just as a random example that taking a thousand milligrams of vitamin C was beneficial and you took 10 milligrams, you're very likely to not notice any effect and not derive any benefit. So in order for red and near infrared light therapy to work,

Chris Wark (57:48.846)
Got it.

Ari Whitten (58:11.636)
you have to like imagine sparks on a log. Okay, like if you're trying to start a fire to create a reaction and you just put a couple sparks like on a big log, it's not going to catch on fire. Right. And this is partly a bad analogy because we don't want to set our, our, our, our cells on fire. But, the point is you need something you need above a sufficient intensity to actually create an effect and anything below that intensity, could theoretically

Even if you applied the same dose by doing like ten times longer time It's still below the threshold of triggering sort of biological Activation triggering these switches that turn on these effects. You have to have a sufficient intensity to do that. So that's one thing Now the the the other aspect here that most people will not be aware of let me see if I can show this more up close There's I don't know how many here three hundred

Chris Wark (58:59.375)
Great explanation, yeah.

Ari Whitten (59:11.822)
500 something like that LEDs most of these face masks on the market might be 30 or 50 Something like that. Maybe 80. Okay, they have an LED here and then a big space and then another LED here and then a big space and another LED and and what that does is It means that you don't have uniform light coverage over all your skin You have a hot spot of light here and a hot spot of light here

and a hotspot here and a hotspot here, and then in between all of those spaces, you have no light hitting that part of your skin. And so it is very important to have a high enough LED density with minimal space between each LED and the LEDs at the right irradiance in order to get the effect. Most devices on the market have problems in one or both of these areas. So,

And partly this is an engineering problem, by the way, it's cost people skimp on money to try to, you know, create cheaper devices with bigger profit margins. But the other aspect is engineering, which is with real close spacing of LEDs, creates more heat. And, they, most people solve that engineering problem by spacing them apart for heat dissipation. But the end result is that it's less effective for treating your skin. Now, what last thing.

I want to mention on this is from this side of the device, you will not be able to see that. You cannot see any of those technical aspects that I'm referring to. And if anything, just seeing this from the outside, it makes you think that it's covering all of your face. It doesn't really allow you to see that it's 90 % of your face is actually not receiving the light. It's only the specific spots that are getting the light right underneath the LEDs.

So that gives you a sense, hopefully, of like the technical device aspects that go into whether this therapy is effective or not.

Chris Wark (01:01:17.807)
What about distance?

Ari Whitten (01:01:20.546)
Big topic, but the very short version.

Chris Wark (01:01:23.119)
There are some panels that are allegedly are high intensity and they will say, you know, hold this panel 12 inches from your body, right? Or from your face. Like that's obviously a mask. It's designed to be on your face. But then there's other panels that would say, you know, 12 inches, 16 inches away from your face or your body. So what's the difference there?

Ari Whitten (01:01:50.444)
Okay, so it's a complex answer and I'm gonna give you the simple heuristic to understand this first. As a rule of thumb, closer is better, generally speaking. All things being equal, the light being closer to the skin, including directly pressed onto the skin, is going to be better. More of that light will penetrate through the skin to the tissues beneath the skin.

instead of being reflected off the surface of the skin. There's a number of reasons why we could talk about if you want to go into the details, but that's the simple rule of thumb.

Chris Wark (01:02:27.459)
Yeah, well, I think it just makes sense the closer closer it is the deeper it would penetrate right in general.

Ari Whitten (01:02:31.66)
Yeah, okay, including pressing it directly into the skin will allow for the greatest light penetration. Now,

The issue with that sometimes is that certain types of devices that are designed to press into the skin, it's hard to get proper contact like on curved surfaces, let's say your face, let's say your knee joint or something like that. It's hard. The device has to conform to the curvatures of your body to maintain good skin contact. So there's some practical issues there. The other aspect of this

To, you know, with regards to panels and the recommendations to maintain a certain distance away from the panels. The broader story here is actually that most of those recommendations are not in any way evidence-based in terms of. Actually being derived from research on use of panels, showing that using it from a further distance away was more effective for photo bio modulation benefits. Where, and I talk about this in the book where most of these recommendations came from.

was actually just the fact that these devices emit EMFs, emit magnetic and electrical fields, particularly magnetic fields at very close distances to the device, which is true of basically all electronic devices, a computer, which is true of a desk lamp next to your bed, which is true of a blow dryer, which is true of a washing machine and a dishwasher and a blender and blah, blah. All these devices emit magnetic fields, that's electrical devices.

Now, because this is in a health field, the original companies that started making these devices had consumers, potential buyers reaching out to them and saying, you know, I'm really worried about EMFs. I'm concerned about the negative health effects of EMFs. How do I use this device? You know, should I buy your device or, you know, should I not buy it? And what ended up happening, I'm pretty sure as a result of this dynamic is

Ari Whitten (01:04:40.716)
These companies basically just tried to prevent consumers from being too concerned about this EMF issue by just saying, hey, if you move just six inches away from our device, there's no EMFs at that point. The EMFs drop off with distance, and so they're not detectable if you just move a little bit away from the device. So just do that, and then you don't have to worry about EMFs. And this kind of spawned all of this movement and all the companies sort of

Following suit in recommending that people space themselves a certain distance away from the light largely over concern over EMFs and then this became sort of Canonized as as like this is the right way to do To use these panels, but I'll tell you and I I quote dr. Hamblin in the book saying this First of all, he doesn't have any concern over the EMFs. That's that's one interesting thing to note

And I found almost universally, none of the actual photobiomodulation researchers, the scientists who study this, almost none of them are even aware of any kind of issue with EMFs or any concern over it. They all seem like totally oblivious to this sort of consumer level issue of like people raising concerns about EMFs. And the way Dr. Hamlin prefers to use it is directly pressed up against his skin.

you know, that's how he uses it himself. So clearly that tells you number one, he's not concerned with the MS and number two, he thinks that it's more effective using it right on the skin as opposed to a distance away.

Chris Wark (01:06:23.139)
Well, it's almost sort of laughable irony that this scenario of companies saying, hold it 12 inches away, thinking they're protecting people from EMFs when essentially they're reducing the benefits of the device substantially, maybe completely.

Ari Whitten (01:06:48.664)
Exactly right. Exactly right. Probably not completely, but definitely reducing the efficacy over.

Chris Wark (01:06:52.271)
How do people use it out here?

Ari Whitten (01:07:00.57)
Not, you know, what I make the case for in the book is, I go through the data on actually the safety of this kind of magnetic field and, and, what the doses are that have been indicated in harm. The doses are like, I don't want to get the number wrong, but I want to say at least a hundred fold, if not more like 500 or a thousand fold higher in terms of intensity and pro duration of dose.

like working in environments where you're exposed for eight hours a day to very high magnetic fields. Even in most of those contexts, they don't show harm to health, where we're talking about eight hours, 40 hours a week of being exposed to extremely high magnetic fields. So what I make the case for in the book is basically that a 10 or 20 or 30 minute use of a red light panel with a much more minuscule.

amount of magnetic fields is something akin to using a blow dryer or Standing next to a blender or something like that you know, I would actually be much more concerned with using a laptop on your lap for hours or even sleeping next to the magnetic fields that are emitted from Your bedside plug your your desk lamp or a cell phone. Yeah, exactly these are much bigger concerns for me than

20 minutes of a photo by a modulation session. So your conclusion is exactly right that you should not compromise the efficacy of the photo by a modulation session over fears of this potential harm where we don't even have good evidence to support there is actual harm.

Chris Wark (01:08:40.653)
And it sounds like the benefits far outweigh the risks anyway.

Ari Whitten (01:08:43.564)
That's the right conclusion. Yeah, I agree.

Chris Wark (01:08:47.191)
Okay, well, we've gone on, we've gone longer than I know we planned. And I'm so thankful for you being generous with your time. and we could talk for another six hours on red light therapy. And I really want to, but, but I w but more importantly, I want people to get your book because every question that you have listener and viewer, I'm sure is answered in the book and,

And so get ours, but you can get it on Amazon, the ultimate guide to red light therapy. And I want to make sure people know where they can connect you, connect with you and, you know, online and learn more from you and, and, get into your, you know, into your, sphere because you, you are not just a red light guy.

All right, are some, mean, obviously we've known each other for probably 10 years-ish, and I followed you for that long. And I think you're just a great beacon of light and sanity and helpful information on health and wellness. And especially during COVID, you know, there was a small, there was a very small, our circle got very small. Let's just put it that way.

Ari Whitten (01:10:01.962)
Indeed.

Chris Wark (01:10:03.823)
The circle of logical thinkers.

Ari Whitten (01:10:07.916)
Yes, yeah, indeed. And science over panic.

Chris Wark (01:10:13.195)
And, and yeah, actual science over follow the science, which was, yeah, just fictitious.

Ari Whitten (01:10:17.28)
Yes, exactly. Yeah. Over authority masquerading as science. Yeah.

Chris Wark (01:10:24.845)
Yeah, I called what I liked, I feel like I coined the term because I'd never heard anyone say it before. But I called it science-flavored information.

Ari Whitten (01:10:39.532)
Yeah, I like that. like that. That's perfect.

Chris Wark (01:10:43.479)
because that's what it was. It was science flavored, but it was not actually based on any real science. anyway, so I just want to say that I appreciate you so much and just give you my strongest endorsement as a human, as a good man. Yes, thank you. So again, yeah, get Ari's book, The Ultimate God-Dewed Light Therapy, and then work when they connect with you online.

Ari Whitten (01:10:50.955)
Agreed. Agreed.

Ari Whitten (01:11:01.57)
Thank you, brother. really appreciate it. The feeling is very mutual.

Ari Whitten (01:11:11.726)
My website is the energy blueprint calm. I have another website that is specifically to help people with device selection. It's called red light Device guide calm. It's a new website that I put together to be to work in tandem with this book To just direct people to the right device selection and like I have this goal. What's what's the device I should use? but the science the mechanisms

the practical how-to of all the principles to use this technology for maximizing your health, your longevity, disease prevention, even aesthetic things like facial anti-aging. I use it a lot for, you know, I like the face mask. I like to keep myself young and beautiful. I like the hair helmets. I use a lot of deep tissue stuff like this guy for...

these wires for orthopedic issues. I'm an athlete, so I always have little strains and aches and stuff like that. other devices to maximize health benefits in other ways or for other specific contexts. All that how-to information, the practical guide, the science behind it, how to actually avoid junk devices and how to use this technology.

How to not waste your money and your time and actually use this technology to derive real meaningful benefits. All of that information is in the book. So I highly recommend people go on Amazon and grab it. The ultimate guide to red light therapy. thank you so much, Chris, for having me on the show. I really enjoyed this discussion. And I have to say, I'm very impressed with your level of questioning and the logic.

The way that you're thinking through these questions, I think speaks to your intelligence and I'm very impressed.

Chris Wark (01:13:11.055)
Thank you. Thanks Ari, man. I appreciate that a lot. Meet your elaboration society for sure. And yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm waiting for my copy. Amazon has delayed my copy. And then we had a big blizzard, know, massive snowpocalypse in Memphis. And I thought I would have it and be able to read the new version by the time we did the interview. I was like, ah, still waiting for it. But anyway.

Ari Whitten (01:13:23.967)
I know.

Ari Whitten (01:13:36.406)
It's coming and I promise you it's 10 times better than the last version. It's also way denser. It's like more like a textbook. It's like it's dense, it's technical. People can skip over the technical parts, but it's like it's 10 times the book that the original version was.

Chris Wark (01:13:50.799)
I'm excited. love that stuff. Love to geek out on it. so yeah, and I appreciate, I really appreciate the fact that you're helping guide people, you know, to make good decisions on devices because yeah, there's a lot of expensive ones. There's a lot of cheap ones and you know,

I would hate for anybody to go waste their money on an expensive one that didn't work well or waste their money on a cheap one that didn't work well, right? You just want to get one that works.

Ari Whitten (01:14:20.366)
I was at somebody's house a few days ago that they've got a $75,000 whole body pod in their house. Now granted they're extremely wealthy people, so it's not that significant of an investment for them. But yeah, it is possible to spend a lot of money. I'm not necessarily saying that I advise doing that, but it is possible to spend tens or even more than $100,000 on a device if you really want to.

Chris Wark (01:14:26.965)
my gosh.

Yeah

Chris Wark (01:14:49.583)
Well, and for their sake, hope the $75,000 bond is effective.

Ari Whitten (01:14:54.614)
Me too. I agree. There's been no research done on that particular one. If it was me personally, I would choose a specific device that has actually been studied and found to have benefits.

Chris Wark (01:15:08.3)
But there, can we at least just say this? There are quality devices for a few hundred dollars, right? Yeah. And, people can learn more about those, I'm sure through your book and stuff, but yeah. So don't, don't, don't get scared folks. You don't have to spend thousands, few hundred bucks. You can get a few different devices for different, you know, different purposes or whatever. so anyway, okay. Thanks Ari. This has been great folks. over to Ari's links, theenergyblueprint.com. We'll put links in the show notes below this video.

Ari Whitten (01:15:13.239)
Absolutely, yeah.

Ari Whitten (01:15:21.294)
you

Ari Whitten (01:15:26.924)
Yep.

Yeah, thank you so much, Chris.

Chris Wark (01:15:36.887)
So you can make sure to his book and connect with him and learn more about red light, get some devices, put them on your face, your hair, wherever, and get some benefits. All the places you need them. Thanks for watching. See you on the next one.

Ari Whitten (01:15:45.548)
All the places.