Photobiomodulation, future treatment against infertility?

Usually, the content of this site focuses on emerging therapies that are already available to help with neuroplasticity (repair) of the brain. Photobiomodulation therapy is one of them (if you are not yet familiar with this therapy, before you start, I highly recommend you read this article ).

However, I am making a slight departure from my editorial line because I came across a very interesting research article that may help couples trying to conceive.

"Photobiomodulation for infertility"

Since 2012, a group of 8 clinics located in Norway and Denmark, have been using Photobiomodulation therapy to help women with infertility problems. In this article, it is stated that approximately 400 women have been treated using Photobiomodulation, resulting in a remarkable 260 pregnancies. That is 65% success ( 2 out of 3 women! ) in approximately 1 to 3 months of treatment.

These 400 patients are aged between 34 and 50 and, according to this research article, have tried practically everything to get pregnant (diet, exercise, counseling, hormonal treatments, IVF, ICSI) but without success.

What is the Photobiomodulation treatment followed by these 400 infertile women?

Here is what we can read in the research article:

• From the first day of menstruation, and for a period of 2 weeks, patients perform 6 Photobiomodulation sessions.
• At the time of ovulation, insemination (natural or not) is attempted.
• If a woman does not conceive and menstruation returns, another treatment of 6 sessions is given.

What does a Photobiomodulation session carried out by this group of clinics consist of?

First of all, these clinics use their own Photobiomodulation device called "GigaLaser" which is produced by the company PowerMedic (Denmark).

The goal is to illuminate the abdominal area of ​​these patients in order to expose them to 20,000 Joules of light, i.e. a lighting time of 23 minutes. To do this, the Photobiomodulation device is placed 1 or 2 cm from the bare skin. And that's it! If you didn't know about Photobiomodulation before reading this article, then you might be surprised at how simple the treatment is!

Reproduce this Photobiomodulation treatment at home?

To reproduce this treatment at home, the easiest thing would be to buy the GigaLaser and light up your abs, while sitting comfortably in front of your favorite series.

But I think that for 99.9% of you, the machine is inaccessible because it is much too expensive (at the time of writing this article, I see it at $40,000 on a merchant site). So to achieve your goals, you will have to use a consumer Photobiomodulation device.

But be careful, don't rush to the first LED panel you find. Photobiomodulation therapy is easy to do, but difficult to do correctly.

Without going into technical details, be aware that the marketing departments of manufacturers of Photobiomodulation devices intended for the general public tend to inflate the figures (power, irradiance, etc.). This is therefore problematic for us! We need the real figures to reproduce this treatment. I insist on this point, it is crucial !

Furthermore, with this therapy, lighting too little, or too much, will have no effect (this is called hormesis)! For example, if these 400 women had been exposed to 60,000 Joules of light, instead of the planned 20,000, perhaps it would not have worked. To maximize your chances of success, you must reproduce what has been proven !

Photobiomodulation, future treatment to resolve infertility?

Is it time to include Photobiomodulation as a treatment to solve infertility? It is clearly too early to say. This research article seems to go in that direction, but it must be admitted that it is stingy with details: there are no precise statistics regarding the patients. For example, the age range is from 35 to 50 years old… but how many patients are 50 years old? Are they following secondary therapies at the same time? We do not know if there was a control group or if it is a randomized study.
In short, there is a lot of information missing. But knowing that there are no known side effects for Photobiomodulation, should we put this therapy aside for all that? Everyone has their own answer...