Dr. Glen Jeffery: Using Red Light to Improve Your Health & the Harmful Effects of LEDs

Indigenous Australians (Aborigines) do not get skin cancer.

"And you know, things like Aborigines in Australia don't get skin cancer." (said at 0:11:34)

The claim that Indigenous Australians do not get skin cancer is contradicted by epidemiological and clinical data. While Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have a lower recorded incidence of cutaneous melanoma and other skin cancers compared to non-Indigenous Australians, skin malignancies (including basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, melanoma, and cutaneous sarcoma) do occur in this population. Moreover, Indigenous Australians diagnosed with skin cancers often present with more advanced disease and experience worse survival outcomes.

• partial: Cancer in aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia. (Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention : APJCP 2009) · cited 37x in the literature

  "They have a higher incidence of cancers of the cervix, liver and gallbladder, oesophagus, unknown primary site, mouth and throat, lung and pancreas, but a lower incidence of cancers of the prostate, female breast, colon/rectum and skin (melanoma)." (abstract, results, passage verified)

  pubmed
• contradicts: Cutaneous malignancies in Indigenous Peoples of urban Sydney. (Journal of medical imaging and radiation oncology 2019) · cited 32x in the literature

  "Patients presented with basal cell carcinoma (50%), squamous cell carcinoma (31.8%), melanoma (9.1%) and cutaneous sarcomas (9.1%). The majority (68.2%) presented with stage II or higher disease, and there were high rates of immunosuppression (45.5%). At the time of reporting, 68.2% patients were alive, 18.2% had died from their skin cancers and 13.6% had died from unrelated causes." (abstract, results, passage verified)

  pubmedfull study (doi)

Biological improvements in cellular function resulting from long-wavelength light exposure correlate directly with the light absorption spectrum of water.

"the key point is that improvements in function as a consequence of exposure to longer-wavelengths light correlate tightly with what water absorbs." (said at 0:24:10)

In photobiomodulation and cellular photobiology, biological improvements across red and near-infrared wavelengths (typically ~600–850 nm) have classically been shown to correlate with the absorption spectrum of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase, not water. Water absorption in the primary near-infrared 'optical window' is relatively weak, though water is hypothesized to act as a chromophore at specific longer wavelengths (such as 980 nm or >1000 nm) via microscopic thermal gradients and temperature-gated ion channels. Thus, cellular improvements from long-wavelength light do not generally correlate tightly with the absorption spectrum of water.

• context: Theoretic, experimental, clinical bases of the water oscillator hypothesis in near-infrare… (Photomedicine and laser surgery 2010) · cited 46x in the literature

  "The objective of this review is to propose and document a role for the water oscillator in near-infrared (NIR) photobiomodulation. Greater understanding of the role of the water oscillator may add to a more-coherent description of central effects of NIR light on redox centers and key transmembrane enzymes such as cytochrome c oxidase (CcO)." (abstract, passage verified)

  pubmedfull study (doi)
• contradicts: Photobiomodulation of human adipose-derived stem cells using 810nm and 980nm lasers operat… (Biochimica et biophysica acta. General subjects 2017) · cited 211x in the literature

  "To test the hypothesis that the chromophore for 980nm was intracellular water, which could possibly form a microscopic temperature gradient upon laser irradiation, we added cold medium (4°C) during the light exposure, or pre-incubated the cells at 42°C, both of which abrogated the effect of 980nm but not 810nm. We conclude that 980nm affects temperature-gated calcium ion channels, while 810nm largely affects mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase." (abstract, results)

  pubmedfull study (doi)