Scientists Claim Infrared Helmet Could Reverse Alzheimer's Symptoms

penguin_dance writes "Ready to put on your thinking cap? There's a report out of the UK regarding an 'experimental helmet which scientists say could reverse the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease within weeks of being used'. The helmet is to be worn for ten minutes every day and stimulates the growth of brain cells using infra-red light. The article explains, 'Low level infra-red red is thought to stimulate the growth of cells of all types of tissue and encourage their repair. It is able to penetrate the skin and even get through the skull.' Human trials are due to start this summer." I wont make any nomad-based predictions, but I'll remain on the skeptic side of the fence for now.

Comments

Sunlight?

[teeleton]

So how is this helmet different from just walking around in the sunshine? It's not like there isn't any infra-red light in ordinary sunlight.

So... the next logical question is...

[NotQuiteReal]

Won't it work even better on those of us who don't have the Alzheimer's, yet?

Skeptical and yet...

[SquierStrat]

My father has Alzheimer's. Most Alzheimer's patients are very kind and sweet but my father is so bitter that he is always angry because at 55 he realizes his brain is slowly killing him. His short term memory is nil. He walks especially slow and his communication is getting poorer. He was diagnosed in October 2005 and he was showing symptoms before that.

Frankly, This is an illustration of why our process of developing medications is ridiculous. This may not work (though I resent that "wontwork" tag) but frankly there are at least 3 very promising treatments for Alzheimer's Disease in early trials. But because of the length and the way trials work, if they are successful none of them will emerge from trials early enough to help my father. And frankly, he and my family would be willing to try anything to help him. And in the end the worse outcome is that he doesn't get better. But we will never know. 10 years from now Alzheimer's may be no worse than severe diabetes, MS, Crohn's Disease or what have you: controllable, not curable with a quality of life equivalent to most other people. But because we would rather not kill a dying person to find out if we'll kill them or save them, my father will never get benefit of this.

Re:Skeptical and yet...

[ilikepi314]

Oh come on; if one of your family members was given a vaccine and a weekly later developed some severe disease and died (even if they were already dying!), you would again go with the "deliberate malevolence" argument and probably sue someone.

Sorry, didn't mean to direct that toward you, this was actually meant to be a more general societal thing. Until people get over their sue-happy kick lately, all government entities are going to tread softly, I imagine, particularly those directly related to public health. People have sued for much less than rushing a medicine to market (coffee being hot comes to mind), so can you really blame them? Legal battles drain money from what could have funded more medicine research, etc.

However, a serious question to the parent especially: do you know how to sign up for the trials, is it too late? Someone somewhere has to be taking it or it wouldn't be a trial. I've never signed up for something like that, so I don't know what the process is and am partially asking out of curiosity myself.

Re:Skeptical and yet...

[oncehour]

The McDonalds Coffee incident != Frivilous. Quit eating the dogfood and research the actual facts. The coffee was knowingly and neglectfully above safe levels for hours.

I will grant that we are a sue happy society, but there's a reason for that. Being an American who's lived in Canada for a couple years I'm noticing there's a lot more government support and government agencies here. The government regulates the corporations so the average Canadian doesn't even need to think of suing. In the US on the other hand, the government tends to be a bit more laissez-faire except when they want to increase barriers of entry for their friends in the industry, and as such the people are the ones that regulate the industry.

Lawsuits are a form of regulation. Lawyers suing companies for being dickheads is actually noble behavior. I think too many people buy into the "sue-happy" stereotype without considering why it exists. Given the power of lobbying, lawsuits are the only thing that really keeps industry in check by the people.

Re:Not a scientist but ...

[FleaPlus]

Does infrared light have the ability to pass through the skull ?... sounds like snake oil to me... I'll stick with my pyramid hat.

Yes, infrared light can pass through the skull. In fact, there's a technique called fNIR (functional near-infrared spectroscopy) which uses a system of IR emitters and detectors to measure brain activity. Some links:

http://www.lab-times.org/methods/m_07_03.html

http://www.biomed.drexel.edu/fnir/Contents/brain_imaging/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FNIR

Re:Selection pressure for baldness

[MichaelSmith]

Maybe hair BLOCKS infra-red light in sunlight

Apparently the white hair on polar bears acts like optic fibre. It collects light over a larger surface than the bare skin of the animal and channels it to the body to keep it warm.

a lot harder than it sounds

[alizard]

from one of the company's press releases:

I have spent the last 10 years working with Dr Gordon Dougal, medical doctor and scientist, exploring the effects of infra red light on living cells. We started off using cold sores (herpes simplex) as a clinical model to search for a therapeutic waveband of light within the infrared spectrum. After treating many hundreds of cold sores, and utilising basic scientific principles with the help of Durham University, we were successful in identifying 1072nm wavelength light to be therapeutic with properties antagonistic to harmful ultra-violet light.

Tried finding 1072nm near-IR emitters lately?

I just spent 10 minutes searching, the stuff I've seen tops out at about 880 nm.