[Transcript] – Pain-Killing Without Pharmaceuticals: Is This The Most Powerful Wearable Red Light Therapy That Exists? The Kineon Move+ With Forrest Smith. – Ben Greenfield Life

December 28, 2023

From podcast: https://bengreenfieldlife.com/podcast/forrest-smith-podcast/

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:00:48] Forrest’s background in fitness and transition into technology

[00:03:32] The benefits to living in Mexico

[00:06:54] How Forrest initially became interested in red light therapy

[00:15:33] What Forrest discovered could be changed or optimized with red light therapy

[00:21:36] What are photoacceptors and how do they interact with light?

[00:28:36] The proper dosing of Kineon’s Red Light Therapy devices and the affects

[00:33:47] The proper dosing of Kineon’s Red Light Therapy devices and the affects

[00:38:21] Red Light Therapy in comparison to Cold Therapy

[00:41:58] On Spectroscopy Products

[00:53:39] Kineon as alternative to NSAIDs

[00:58:48] Full-body flush using red light therapy

[01:00:31] Closing the Podcast

[01:03:26] End of Podcast

[01:03:49] Legal Disclaimer

Ben:  My name is Ben Greenfield. And, on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life podcast. 

Forrest:  For photobiomodulation, the key is the dosing. The key is how are we delivering these photons to these photoacceptors. It’s kind of like pharmaceuticals in that way. We are using photons to add energy into molecules where that’s going to trigger a downstream signaling effect. And, to do that, you have to be very specific and direct in how you’re adding these different molecules.

Ben:  Fitness, nutrition, biohacking, longevity, life optimization, spirituality, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Life Show. Are you ready to hack your life? Let’s do this.

Well, folks, I’m pretty stoked about my guests on today’s show. We had dinner on a rooftop in Mexico several months, almost a year ago in San Miguel de Allende, beautiful city. His name is Forrest Smith. And, Forrest is a former pretty extreme athlete, rugby player, CrossFitter, and wound up getting into some pretty interesting technology that he studied up on in China and beyond. And, I’m just going to leave that there as a big mystery that he and I are going to get a chance to talk about later on because I love the stuff that he actually brings to the world in the realm of, what’s called, photobiomodulation. Oh, yeah, photobiomodulation, a mouthful.

Anyways, as you listen in, everything that we talk about, including more information on this Kineon technology that Forrest has brought to the world, you can find at BenGreenfieldLife.com/KineonPodcast. And, Kineon is spelled K-I-N-E-O-N. So, BenGreenfieldLife.com/KineonPodcast. Forrest, welcome to the show, man.

Forrest:  Thank you so much. It’s great to see you again and super excited to talk to you today.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah. It’s been a little while. Do you remember the name of that restaurant we had dinner at in San Miguel de Allende?

Forrest:  I’ll have to look it back up actually, but it was very good. Really good.

Ben:  Excellent. One of the best meals I had there. Yeah, yeah. How long have you lived in Mexico, by the way?

Forrest:  I’ve been in Mexico for about three years now. And, this is going to sound funny, but I typically live in China. I left China. I’ve been in China for almost 20 years building innovative hardware and technology companies and manufacturing, basically because it was the middle of the supply chain and I speak and read and write fluent Chinese. But, when COVID kicked off, it seemed a little bit unsettling, so I took my family. It looked like they were going to lock the country down. And so, before they could, I took my family, my two boys and my wife and started traveling. And, when we did the assumption was we’d be traveling for a couple of months and then come back to China to our normal life and house and dog. And, what happened in reality was the borders were shut, our visas were canceled, the flights were canceled, and we had to find a new place to live almost overnight. And so, having just been in Mexico to visit, we picked out six cities in Mexico to try out and ended up settling down here.

Ben:  Man, I know you have a pretty interesting history of how you got into China in the first place, but how far are you from San Miguel de Allende where we met up for dinner?

Forrest:  Between 45 minutes and an hour depending on traffic.

Ben:  I was talking with a guy who’s actually pretty well known in the health sector. I won’t drop his name right now because I don’t know if he wants to be busted for this or not, but he believes that there is going to be a pretty big recessionary event in America and honestly beyond, and I asked him, we were walking on the beach, I asked him this question, I said, “Well, if you could go anywhere in the world to live in the safest place possible with the most amount of freedom possible, if there were some kind of a global or even national recession, where would you go?” And, he said Mexico. He said it’s just super easy to get a Visa or even an alternate citizenship that it is very, very friendly as far as a place for taxes, for business, et cetera. But, what are your thoughts on that?

Forrest:  I’ve loved it. I was in China for almost 20 years and I spent a lot of time kind of traveling around Asia for work. And, I did not anticipate that getting to Mexico I was going to be able to find a good place to set up and do the same level of business that we were doing from China. The world’s a lot smaller now and Mexico is super friendly. It’s been great for my training. I’m up at Central Mexico. Many of the cities are above 7,000 feet up. So, if you’re doing cardiovascular training, I’ve got my AssaultBike and my Echo Bike here in the house that I do kind of aerobic, anaerobic training on. And so, if you’re training at some level like this, it’s really helpful from the elevation up. 

From a business standpoint, it’s been great. The schools are really good. I’ve got two boys, 8 and 4 and they’re loving the schools here. They actually shifted from fluent Chinese to fluent Spanish now, which is it’s amazing to see those small changes in day-to-day life. But, from a lifestyle and work standpoint, it’s been amazing, and I think it’s going to get more and more. So, because you’re seeing a large shift from China being a huge supply chain center for the world to people finding that there’s a lot of uncertainty around China and Asia right now relative to that and trying to find a space to be able to supplement their supply chain. And, I think Mexico’s benefited by that quite a lot. The dollars been very strong but the currency here is actually outpacing the dollar.

Ben:  No kidding?

Forrest:  And, I think it’s reflective of what’s happening with the growth with the country.

Ben:  Wow, interesting. By the way, you mentioned two bikes, the AssaultBike, which I’m familiar with. Was the other one, you said, the Echo Bike?

Forrest:  That’s right, that’s right. So, the AssaultBike, I started on with my CrossFit training. The Echo Bike is made by Rogue who’s a big kind of barbells and plates and lifting equipment racks, et cetera, manufacturer. And, they made their own heavy-duty, it’s actually a band. So, there’s a chain like a normal bike chain driving the AssaultBike. There’s a belt driving the Echo Bike. And, because of that, it’s a little bit quieter, it’s more difficult from a calorie standpoint. So, if you’re comparing one to one on a calories, I find that it’s a little bit slower to take over those calories, but it’s really a well-constructed bike.

Ben:  Interesting. I also look it up, the Echo Bike, and that’s by Rogue you said?

Forrest:  That’s right.

Ben:  Okay, got it.

Now, you originally, speaking of fitness, were big into to, was it rugby or CrossFit that you got into first?

Forrest:  So, I got into CrossFit by way of rugby. I was about 37 or 38 and my neighbor was the president and kind of head of the local rugby club in South China in Guangzhou, the city [00:07:15] _____. And, I’d played American football growing up and I missed the contact, but I hadn’t played a contact sport in 15 or 20 years but he got me back out there with rugby and it just ignited something. It’s a great sport. The social side of it is amazing and it really plugs you in with a lot of people who are doing fun and interesting things. And so, by way of getting back into rugby, I realized I had to get back into better shape. The rugby team was training CrossFit and so I came to CrossFit, both rugby and CrossFit in my late 30s.

Ben:  Oh, wow. But, leading up to that point, you hadn’t been doing a lot besides playing football early on?

Forrest:  That’s right. Actually, I had done some type of almost BroScience, Bro Splits type gym lifting back and biceps one day and kind of legs the next day or something like this. Trying to stay in a little bit of shape, but I hadn’t really done any metabolic conditioning in some time. That was really kind of more down to the fact that I’ve always been building startups. And, as part of that, time is limited. You’re always kind of working seven days a week, and it’s a little bit more stressful. And, what it’s come to find or come to turn into over time has been the metabolic training has become a bit of a stress relief or mitigation strategy for me. And, it’s been introduced by way of CrossFit. 

But now, with different types of training modalities around this, there’s kind of functional bodybuilding and a number of different types of programming that you can find. But, for me, the main thing was keeping the metabolic training has become more and more important to offset kind of age-related injuries and really kind of buy-in for the cognitive benefits of this because I do see a lot of the neurocognitive benefits from this in the literature but also just from a daily basis you feel that much better from an affect and mood standpoint.

Ben:  You mean when you’re doing the metabolic training?

Forrest:  That’s right.

Ben:  Okay. Yeah, I agree, I have a great deal of evolution as far as what I’ve experienced in my own fitness routine. This morning’s workout was about three 15-minute yoga flow sessions in the sauna with a five-minute cold plunge in between each under the red light. So, I basically was just doing red light, heat, and cold. And, for me, that’s actually pretty metabolically stimulating and honestly somewhat demanding workout if you’re holding yoga poses and doing kind of isometrics with an elevated heart rate and then hitting the cold and going back and forth. But, of course, a big part of that for me as far as my longevity in fitness and the way my joints feel is the red light component. And, you and I geeked out on that when we met up in Mexico because you use red light quite a bit, right?

Forrest:  That’s right. That’s right. I have an old MCL and meniscus tear in my left knee, and one of the things that we’ve seen as we’ve been in this kind of red light and laser therapy space for a little bit now with developing products and getting them out for people is that inflammation that you see generated from old injuries that you might trigger, so I might be doing box jumps or doing double unders or something like this as part of my normal training and trigger inflammation in this old injury. This tissue, if you don’t treat it and this inflammation if you don’t treat it, doesn’t stay local. And, it’s really dangerous long term from a cardiovascular standpoint because it does things like decrease the sheer strength that your cardiovascular endothelial tissue can manage. And, that’s really highly correlated with things like severe cardiovascular events and all-cause mortality, being one of those things that’s driven by, just it’s better to deal with these things faster and in the near term as you can. 

We’ve done some measurements actually with NFL players relative to their cardiovascular oxygen delivery for regional impairment as an example. So, if you see a guy who’s had an ACL tear, even eight or 10 years later after he’s gone back to playing full-time competitive impact sports like the NFL, his quad above his injured knee will be 1 to 2 degrees cooler than the healthy.

Ben:  Really?

Forrest:  And, that’s because of the cardiovascular system being impaired. It’s one of those things that’s really coming out in the literature over the past two to five years where this inflammation from that local injury is spreading through the body and it’s not happening overnight, it’s something that takes time but you see the regional impairment being cardiovascular delivery and you’re seeing things like this inflammation mediating stiffening of the cardiovascular endothelial or your blood vessel walls. What they call shear strength is a good measure for this, which is basically you’re measuring how much pressure that the blood flow going through these blood vessels puts on them. There’s a friction kind of shear strength is what they call that for how much pressure it’s putting on it kind of from a perpendicular standpoint. And, that’s substantially stiffened and lowers your sheer strength resistance for your cardiovascular endothelial tissue. When you have chronic inflammation that could be a knee, it could be a shoulder, it could be an old injury in your lower back, it impacts you both, again, kind of locally, regionally but also systemically.

Ben:  This is really interesting. This is actually the first time I’ve ever heard that regional inflammation from something like an injury or a chronic condition could, in a way, spread systemically and affect endothelial tissue or the cardiovascular system in other areas of the body. It’s been in the past year that I’ve become very aware of the endothelial glycocalyx. I interviewed a couple folks from a cardiovascular supplement company called Calroy about this. And, I’ll put a link to that in the shownotes because we geeked out on this endothelial glycocalyx quite a bit in that episode. But, I learned that you can support the endothelial glycocalyx with things red light, minerals and most notably during that interview, sulfur-based compounds: glutathione, n-acetylcysteine, various seaweed derivatives, et cetera. And so, it’s really interesting now that you’re talking about managing the hypoxia, the inflammation and the cytokine production in these areas that might have been injured as a way to support more global endothelial tissue. That’s super interesting.

Now, have you come across, Forrest, any information that might indicate that not properly managing or allowing chronic inflammation to continue in an injured or beat-up area of the body could also result in any type of elevated calcium scan scores, plaque deposition, anything like that in the heart?

Forrest:  Right now, we’re drawing lines from correlations to correlations, but there has recently been a couple of studies digging into these mediating factors. So, we see these really high correlations between local inflammation and this cardiovascular endothelial stiffening. And, with that stiffening, there’s a high correlation to these plaque deposits. And so, you’re kind of making logical leaps to that. So, I don’t want to say that we’ve seen these mediating factors, we have found the mediating factors for inflammation where we found the correlation with the endothelial tissue stiffening. I haven’t seen as far as my research a smoking gun for these mediating factors from that to the plex, but there is a very high correlation between this stiffening and the plaque deposition.

Ben:  Yeah, the mechanism of action would certainly make sense.

Now, stepping back big picture when it comes to this idea of using red light therapy on an injury, like you said, I think you had for your knee, I believe, is this something that you initially got into as a part of your involvement with CrossFit and rugby or were you interested in red light therapy prior to that?

Forrest:  Oddly enough, my mother brought this to my attention. She finds a lot of kind of ahead-of-the-curve-type things. And, in my previous role, I founded a LED lighting and controls business, and we spent a lot of time in the supply chain going to different fabs and kind of upstream providers of these technology pieces of that business, and spent a lot of time in really understanding how the core technology works. And, as an expert in that space, my mother was interested to understand, is this red light therapy something that is real or is this just snake oil that somebody’s out there pedaling. And, my first reaction was, this has got to be snake oil because it’s claiming the ability to treat a number of different pathologies that would be difficult. How do all these pathologies share a similar kind of mechanistic foundation? But, one of the things that we found is that there are a few different signaling molecules that are triggered in the body.

So, long story short, I went in and I couldn’t find something that proved this was a snake oil, which was annoying to me. And so, I spent more and more time digging back through the medical literature trying to understand what the mechanisms were. And, this was years ago and the medical literature has expanded out since then, but we’ve started and our team contribute to an ongoing database of photobiomodulation or light therapy studies that’s up in the 7000s now, where different studies are tracking different aspects of the treatment, of the different pathologies, of the mechanisms of mediation of these effects, of these outcomes. What we found though is that we trigger a few different photoacceptors in the body. And, those photoacceptors can be triggered by different wavelengths and are optimally triggered at different frequencies and at different powers.

And so, at Kineon, that’s one of the things we spend a lot of our time on in the tens of thousands of hours at this point is modeling how light distributes through tissue. And, I think this is something that’s very unique about our team and our approach is most photobiomodulation companies that we’ve seen have really focused on what we consider engineering dose measurements or metrics. And, as an example, that would be things like joules per centimeter squared. You’re looking at things like your radiance and power density, which is essentially how much light is coming out of a device or an emitter, and how much light is going into a tissue. What we found is a better way to approach this and has allowed us to build a much more effective dosing model is start backwards. Start from the results that you want to implement. And, what we’ve done with that is said, okay, we know these photoacceptors exist within this depth of tissue, in this general volume, how do we model how the light and the photons that we’re delivering reach and optimally trigger these signaling molecules that we’re targeting in the body?

And, there were some existing models. One of them is called a Lambert-Beer that we’ve used from our modeling internally and upgraded, kind of standing on the shoulders of giants as it were. But, these models essentially show how photons distribute through tissue. And, with our understanding that we have now for where these photoacceptors exist and where these reservoirs of them are, and at what scale they exist at these depths of tissue, we’ve now modeled what’s optimal for delivering photons to these.  And, what was important for us to do at the back end of this to be able to make sure that we’re not just kind of doing mathematical models in the building castles, in the clouds as it were, is putting in feedback loops, so positive feedback loops from measuring the physiology in real time. And, there’s some people in this space that I have to mention here that have been doing some great work: Evan Peikon over at NNOXX. We’re using their devices from a serum nitric oxide measurement standpoint to help us baseline. If our model says this is what we should–so, as an example, one of the things that we’re targeting inside the body is hemoglobin.

Ben:  Okay.

Forrest:  When we interact with hemoglobin, with near-infrared light, we reduce the affinity of nitric oxide for that hemoglobin, and it dumps a bunch of nitric oxide in the blood. We can now measure that with devices like the NNOXX. And, that gives us a feedback loop to say we are expecting this level of nitric oxide in the blood. And, here’s what we found, our model is broken somehow. So, our mathematical abstracts that we’ve been building are not reality-based. And so, we use those to baseline, what we were doing from a modeling standpoint. They’ve really helped us dial in a powerful dosing model, again, that we feel is very different from anything we’ve seen either on the clinical or the commercial side with photobiomodulation.

Ben:  Yeah. I haven’t mentioned it yet on this podcast, but this Kineon, that’s your company that you developed is a currently a wraparound red light therapy device that is used on joints. At least that’s the current model that exists. That’s how it’s used. I have a couple of them. I put them on my knees sometimes in the morning, used them on my elbows before a tennis tournament last week. I know that you probably don’t like it when I say this, but I put it around my neck sometimes to radiate all the blood going through my body when I want a full-body red light treatment without actually turning on a full panel.

And so, it’s an interesting device, but in terms of what you learned as far as nitric oxide production from this NNOXX, and you did say there was one other person you’re going to mention so I want to make sure you get a chance to if you still want to. But, as far as what you found in terms of tissue penetration of red light and the activation of these so-called photoacceptors, which I assume is the cytochrome complex, you can correct me if I’m wrong on that, and nitric oxide production, what did you actually find that needed to be altered or changed or optimized as far as the way that people get exposed to red light or the way that people use red light or the form of red light that they use?

Forrest:  What we’ve really tried to do or what we found from these measurements is that targeting internal tissue, there’s a certain amount that you can do with targeting kind of surface level tissue. And so, if you’re finding devices out there with LEDs versus lasers and panels as an example, it’s great for things like increasing type 2 collagen, reducing wrinkles and wound healing, things at the surface level of the tissue. What we found by being able to treat more internally by using lasers and kind of these next-generation VCSEL lasers in specific is that the dosing that you can target for this is much more optimized and you’re working on the 3D version of the treatment model versus kind of this 2D surface version. And, just to kind of give a little bit of context that, lasers emit light in a very direct and what they call columnated manner. LEDs emit in a Lambertian pattern. And, the Lambertian pattern initially means that these LED chips emit in 360 degrees. But, what you’ll see from an electronics part is that those LED chips are packaged in a cup of a surface mount package that usually limits these to about 120 degrees, which is still extremely broad.

Ben:  Okay.

Forrest: For photobiomodulation, the key is the dosing. The key is how are we delivering these photons to these photoacceptors. It’s kind of like pharmaceuticals in that way. With that said, if you can’t measure or you can’t model how you’re delivering that, then you can’t really promise outcomes because the outcomes are basically a sine wave. And so, it’s called the Arndt-Schulz curve or the biphasic dose curve where as it increases, as you increase the dose level, the beneficial outcomes increase until you hit a peak. And then, beyond that point, it goes back down. And so, if you don’t know how you’re delivering or if you can’t measure how you’re delivering these photons effectively, then you don’t know you’re at the top of this peak, you could be anywhere on there. I don’t particularly like to bag other people’s products, but with LED panels as an example–

Ben:  I don’t mind, man. Nobody’s listening except you and me anyways, so go for it.

Forrest:  Alright. It’s extraordinarily hard to model or to understand what your dosing is because if you move 2 inches forward or 2 inches back, there’s the inverse square law, which means that by moving 2 inches forward or back, you’re making a massive dosing difference, particularly for internal tissue.

Ben:  Okay, interesting.

Now, I have a few questions, Forrest. When you say photoacceptors, what are you referring to?

Forrest:  Molecules. We use lasers, we don’t use ablative and we don’t we use nonionizing lasers, which means that we’re not heating up the tissue. Ablative typically is using lasers like you’d see lasers on sharks for doctor. Lasers to cut things typically. But, heating up tissue is what ablative lasers do. Ionizing radiation is something where you’re moving electrons around kind of knocking them out of place. And, that’s what you see with things like UV and kind of these shorter wavelength radiation emissions, gamma radiation, these type of things.

What we’re doing is we are using photons to add energy into molecules where that’s going to trigger a downstream signaling effect. And, to do that, you have to be very specific and direct in how you’re adding that energy into these different molecules. There are certain molecules, so cytochrome c oxidase that you mentioned in the electron transport chain is one of these. Hemoglobin is one of these. Hemoglobin, it’s interesting. I didn’t really know this until we started working on these type of products, and photobiomodulation is a technology, but hemoglobin is really close to chlorophyll and its chemical makeup. But, all that to say, there are these existing molecules that we can target and that we know the specific wavelengths and that we’re dialing in better over time the dosing that they need from a light energy interaction to be able to trigger downstream signaling.

And so, what do I mean by downstream signaling? When we’re triggering cytochrome c oxidase, for example, in the electron transport chain, there’s a number of impacts with that. So, electron transport chain kind of feeds into oxidative phosphorylation from an energy generation standpoint. And, there’s kind of four phases of this electron transport chain. The cytochrome c oxidase piece of this can be a bottleneck for the amount of energy that your cells can generate essentially. When you can generate more energy, it’s not just the ATP and energy that you’re generating at an increased level, there are–because your cells and the cellular functions are so interlocked, the signaling that happens when you increase that energy production means that you’re also reducing reactive oxygen species and oxidative stress as an example. So, there’s a number of knock-on effects to anything that you do from a molecular level in the signaling in your cells. And, very similar for nitric oxide released both within the cell but also extracellular nitric oxide that really has some beneficial effects for your cardiovascular tissue. And so, that’s kind of what we’re talking about with the interaction with those photoacceptors triggering signaling downstream.

Ben:  And, when you talk about the benefits peaking after a certain treatment time or level of exposure to LED lasers or both, when you say there’s a drop-off or a parabolic curve or inverse you when it comes to the benefits, do you mean that it would be excess stimulation of some of these photoacceptors that would result in almost a spillover free radical production effect with too much nitric oxide, too much ATP produced, et cetera?

Forrest:  That’s right. And so, there’s a cap for how much you can trigger from these signals. But, what we find the other side is hot spotting as an example. And, we get questions quite often, “Why aren’t you guys using class three or class four lasers?” A lot of our job is education, and so we’re using class 1 lasers. We were planning on actually using class 2 lasers in our commercial and home use devices. Those are those are easy enough to get through FDA. And, we actually down the process of getting them through the FDA from a clearance standpoint when we did some internal testing that showed really unequivocally that the dosing that we were providing through one–and, this is going to be kind of rough order of magnitude. So, it won’t be exact. But, roughly one 200 milliwatt part from a laser standpoint was less effective than that same 200 milliwatts broken between five different emitters.

Ben:  Wow.

Forrest:  And so, that triggered us to go back and relook at the model and it makes sense when you actually look at how the light distributes through the tissue. So, what we see a lot is when people have a class three or class four or even the class 2 devices is that a lot of the issue that they’re trying to dose effectively is being overdosed. And, one nice thing about photobiomodulation is there’s not really an overdose where you go back down below zero. Basically, what it does is when you overdose with the light, you just don’t get the results that you’re expecting. It’s not doing anything damaging, you’re not getting the benefits that you would like to. But, what we found is with this light distribution is that there’s a balance we had for the power. It’s not just the most powerful lasers are going to provide the best results, it really is almost a communication mechanism with these molecular-level photoacceptors in the body.

Ben:  Okay, this is interesting.

Now, what about if you have–because I’ve talked about this before on the podcast after reading a fascinating book about melanin in the skin and this pigment that can be in the body and its interaction with photobiomodulation or photons of light. Upon reading that, even though that was focused on a dark blackish compound similar to what you’d find in shilajit, I’ve also seen some evidence that photocyanins like the blue greens that you get from algae like spirulina and chlorella, for example, or even as you’re probably aware of because a lot of people are doing this now, methylene blue could increase the activity of the electron transport chain in response to red light therapy potentially also while reducing endothelial and nitric oxide synthase, so excessive nitric oxide production. Have you messed around with that at all like used your devices in conjunction with methylene blue or shilajit or blue green algae or anything like that that you’d consume orally?

Forrest:  Only with methylene blue to date. And, I think that was, and there have been a couple of studies on that in in the last two years I believe, essentially with light we’re targeting. One of the targets we have from a photoacceptor standpoint is that third phase of the four phases of electron transport chain with methylene blue. And, what you see with that is if we remove this third phase of electron transport chain as a bottleneck, then the bottleneck moves somewhere else. And, often what you’ll see is it moved that fourth phase, and the fourth phase is impacted by methylene blue. So, what you’ll look at is these synergistic impacts that you can have by removing multiple bottleneck from this energy production system.

Ben:  Well, for example, I used a methylene blue product. I think the one I used was called BioBlue this morning before I did red light therapy mixed with cold and I’ve always felt that I have more energy, and even it seems a little bit of a clearer head, and arguably even though this is difficult to measure acutely better mitochondrial response when I’m using one of those compounds or all three of them in conjunction with red light. So, yeah, I would recommend if you get a chance, you should mess around with the shilajit or the blue green algae as well because they seem to produce a similar effect. And, research is a little scant on this idea of humans being able to photosynthesize plants in response to red light, especially with certain nutrients in the body. But, I think it’s just a very interesting area to experiment with and explore.

So, you were talking about this law of diminishing returns and the fact that you reach a certain point where you don’t really get any additional benefit and may get diminished returns. But, what would be a treatment time like with your wraparound device, how long would you put it on to actually get that beneficial dose or that ideal dose?

Forrest:  So, essentially, we’ve dosed this around 15-minute, and you can do that twice a day; morning and evening if you have a very serious tissue damage, some kind of acute issue from an inflammation standpoint, or if you’ve had a long-term kind of tissue damage. So, for me, again, this goes back to my torn meniscus that still generates inflammation in my knees, particularly when it’s triggered from training. And so, whenever it’s triggered, I’ll use it twice a day, 15 minutes. If it’s not triggered, one of the things that the light therapy does very well is helps you grow healthier soft tissue. So, increasing the rate of chondroblast proliferation increasing type 2 collagen and increasing the rate of growth for your soft tissue like cartilage and ligaments. We also get a lot of questions about that. And, the literature is fairly specific about how that operates because it sounds like an incredible claim that we’re going to increase the rate of growth for cartilage. 

But, just to kind of provide a little context for that, typically what we see is there’s a homeostasis in your joints for production of cartilage and then degradation of cartilage. And, when you have increased levels of inflammation, it reduces the cartilage production and increases the degradation rates. And so, you’re just out of balance. This isn’t magically making cartilage appear, what it’s doing is reducing that inflammation so that your degradation rates slow and your proliferation rates for these chondroblasts increase. And, this from an expectation standpoint is a month-scale process. So, it’s something that you’d want to continue doing regardless of how the inflammation and pain have been reduced, continue doing this to help kind of remodeling your soft tissue in the near term.

Ben:  I didn’t know there was a dosing effect. That’s interesting. That’s actually really good to know. I’ve been using mine every day. Of course, I also do some infrared sauna and we’ll use these red light panels in the morning sometimes. But, the Kineon, I’ve been using on at least one joint every day.

When you talk about the inflammation effect though, it might sound kind of paradoxical to people for us because you mentioned the drop in tissue temperature in the quad muscle above the knee that could result from a knee injury or chronic inflammation in the knee. And then, you talk about the use of something that could theoretically heat tissue like LED and perhaps more notably lasers, and that reducing inflammation, but a lot of people think ice to reduce inflammation and then associate inflammation with heated tissue, but it sounds like that’s not the case.

Forrest:  Yes. So, inflammation, just to draw a couple of delineation points there, there’s acute inflammation which typically is bringing kind of positive factors to the area to help repair tissue damage. There’s also chronic inflammation, and one of the things that we’ve seen is that although we’ve been kind of told RICE, rest, ice, compression, elevation, we were younger in sports and things like this, it actually doesn’t work. And, the doctor who actually invented or coined the term RICE has kind of recanted it and come out with a lot better data. And, to his credit, he didn’t have that data at the time that they were trying to roll this out as a gold standard treatment. 

But, what you do see is comparing tissue protection for icing something versus using the light and laser therapy to bring additional healing factors to the area. It’s night and day. And, I’ll provide you a link. We have a PDF that we’ve pulled together. I think four or five different clinical trials that had good microscopy work, and you can see in kind of one-to-one comparison the difference in the protective effects from the light therapy and the laser therapy versus the cold treatment, the cryogenic.

Ben:  Now, are you actually saying that cryotherapy, cold water immersion, et cetera, would be almost contraindicated in an inflamed or injured state or are you saying that it’s not as powerful as something like red light therapy or a combination of LED and lasers to reduce inflammation?

Forrest:  So, I would say in general contraindicated. What we do see from cold therapy, and I’ve spent a little bit less time in that than I have in photobiomodulation, is the brain impacts. There’s some kind of nice impacts on your brain from a molecular standpoint that you get from cold therapy, but it does reduce. So, if you’re doing cold therapy after you’re doing hypertrophy or strength training, you’re probably doing yourself a disservice. And, if you’re doing it for injury recovery, you’re probably doing yourself a disservice. If you’re doing it again for kind of the neurological impacts, there are some very powerful neurological impacts that are great for you from a brain standpoint, but that’s the most recent literature that I’ve seen on is, again, from an injury recovery or hypertrophy standpoint is it’s really not very beneficial. Yeah.

Ben:  And, I think there’s some subtle nuances to what you just said. For example, I always get my head under to activate the mammalian dive reflex when I’m in cold water to get some of those neurological and vagus nerve toning benefits that you mentioned. We obviously know about the control of glycemic variability or blood glucose for a long period of time afterwards in response to cold as well as, for example, the reason a lot of people do it, the conversion of metabolically inactive white fat to more metabolically active heat-generating brown fat. 

I would agree with you that you see if you use it post-workout or even in a situation of injury or excessive inflammation. Not the type of effects that you’d want and potentially a deleterious effect in terms of mitochondrial proliferation or satellite cell hypertrophy or something like that, but if you dig into those studies, you’re getting pretty cold for a significant period of time. And, I actually think that light amounts of cold therapy, cold air exposure, some cold-water swimming, staying away from the extreme shivering effect. There’s actually and you can look at some of the literature. For example, I would say most the data I’ve seen on this is in the National Journal of Strength Conditioning Research with CWI or cold water immersion that isn’t excessively cold and doesn’t result in a muscle tissue temperature drop of, I believe, 1.5 Celsius or more, which is pretty significant actually does give you a reduction in inflammatory markers and a reduced rating of perceived exertion. But, we’re talking about the difference between a 10-minute ice bath soak and a quick five-minute cold shower after workout. So, I think the dose is the poison when it comes to cold and whether or not it’d be contraindicated if that makes sense.

Forrest:  No, it makes perfect sense as in most things, the devils and the details. And, for your body, that detail is dosing. And, I think you nailed it there. That’s the same thing for us, the same thing for most things. I also see a lot of pushback on photobiomodulation for people who say, “Hey, look, these early studies from the ’90s showed that it wasn’t effective for this or that.” And, if you go back and look at those relative to what the correct doses are, they just didn’t know at the time. We didn’t have this data available. And, I’d love to see, and this actually kind of brings us to one of the things that we’ll be working on launching over the next 12 to 18 months is what we haven’t seen or what we haven’t had as a species is really this window into what the responses are and our ability to track and make behavioral changes around that. And, I think this is the one of the things that we’re super excited about is we’ve been working on and have just applied for some very prestigious grants for a brain device, which is a near-infrared spectroscopy device, a functional near-infrared spectroscopy device or broadband near-infrared spectroscopy device depending on how specific you go on the technology side. 

But, I think one of the things that we’ve seen in the recent past is emitters and sensor technology from a hardware standpoint have made these huge leaps and bounds over the last 10 years but really over the last two to five years. And, they’re unlocking things from a sensing standpoint where we can start putting better feedback loops around measurements and objective measurements relative to what we’re doing and what we’re triggering in the physiology. And, I think for us, that’s super important.

One of the reasons we’re committing to it is our mission as a company and as a team is to increase the quality of life for the largest number of people we can in the most measurable and substantial way we can. And, when you’re doing things like our first product, the MOVE+, you’re triggering changes physiologically that impact pain and inflammation. Inflammation, you can measure, you can take blood draws. And, we’ve got good data on that. Pain is a very subjective thing. It’s really hard to measure in the body. And, we would love to be held as accountable as possible to our commitment as a mission. That’s why we have two pieces of accountability in there, how many people are we able to impact with this technology, and then how is that technology able to impact them? So, we assume that if we can do both of those in an increasing and improving way over time that we’re doing our jobs correctly. But, if you’re measuring something like pain and it’s subjective scale like a visual assessment score, which is essentially 0 to 10, how do you feel, it makes it more difficult and it gives you a less robust feedback loop. 

And so, we’ve taken the initiative to go out and start developing these spectroscopy products that allow us to measure more effectively hemodynamics, a couple of specific molecules and really most importantly is metabolic dynamics in the body and how those perform. And, I feel like this long-term is really one of the most powerful things that we’ll see in the next 10 years, whether it’s our company or whoever is bringing it to market are these measurements. How do we measure and take objective metrics out of what’s happening in our body relative to these different treatments and behavioral changes?

Ben:  Yeah. A new acquaintance of mine is working on something very similar to magnetic resonance imaging, magnetic resonance spectroscopy, probably similar to what you’ve just described for analyzing blood metabolites non-invasively like glucose, lactic acid, ketones, et cetera. So, I absolutely think that there’s a lot that can be done in the field of non-invasive measurements. But, when you’re talking about near-infrared spectroscopy, are you referring to the ability to say utilize some type of head worn or intranasal device and use that to actually take measurements and deliver appropriate treatment modalities based on the measurements?

Forrest:  That’s right. That’s essentially what we’re developing is we have brain modules that we’re developing on one side and dosing relative to what we’re seeing from other sensors and from blood draws that we have available now. And then, on the other side, we have this kind of array of sensors which actually now that I think of it, you could think of as an array of WHOOP sensors around your head as an example. But, instead of just measuring heart rate and heart rate variability, which are related to a number of different health metrics but are related in a very ancillary and indirect way, we’re measuring things very direct. And, the key one for us from a neurological tissue standpoint is how is this neurological tissue behaving from a metabolic standpoint? Because one of the things that we’ve seen, again, more and more in the medical literature over the last five to ten years is there’s an extremely high correlation. And, we would already argue causation from our team between metabolic dysfunction and metabolic impairment and a number of different neurological behavioral pathologies.

And so, as an example, major depressive disorder, bipolar, certain types of dementia, cognitive decline. Addiction even has a very high–we don’t know addiction from a causation standpoint, I would say, high levels of correlation there. But, what we’re seeing though is that how your brain generates and distributes and uses energy can be measured to show different patterns, and these patterns correlate to pathologies. And again, with this transcranial methodology that we have for treating those, how do we dose that? How do we dose that on a personal level? And, I think the measurements long term for us, the investments we’re making into the measurements from a spectroscopy standpoint, it turns on the lights in a dark room so that we can dose most effectively. And then, we can also provide people feedback loops relative to their own behavior and different. It’s not just a transcranial photobiomodulation that’s going to be able to impact these dietary exercise-based, other behavioral-based implications are there. And, I think it gives you a steering wheel for the car that we’re kind of just blindly going down the road in now, if that make sense.

Ben:  Yeah, it’s way beyond just this idea of type 3 diabetes or blood glucose being elevated or high amounts of glycemic variability being associated with Alzheimer’s or dementia early onset particularly, but more along the lines of what I believe the guy’s name is Chris Nelson, I think is a guy I’ve heard talk about the link between metabolic dysregulation and psychological dysregulation. And, you’re right, there’s a lot more than just risk of diabetes when it comes to bipolar, ADD, ADHD-like symptoms, schizophrenia, and a lot of things that surprisingly are related to either the metabolism brain axis or the gut-brain axis. And, it sounds like you’re almost kind of creating a scenario in which photobiomodulation marries neurofeedback and has a baby.

Forrest:  Yes. That’s exactly it. That’s exactly it. We want our devices to be the most powerful and effective devices on the market with regards to the physiological impacts. And, I think you’ve nailed it there, the gut-brain. And, we’re also seeing some literature in the gut-brain plus organ. So, gut-brain plus liver as an example is a really well-documented axis for being able to impact a number of these different things. And yeah, the neurology that we’d like to be able to see. Again, for us, it’s about measuring that quality of life change. When you see people with dementia, when you see people with Alzheimer’s and Lewy body syndrome and Parkinson’s, and again, with major depressive disorder and chronic anxiety, these are things that present in a way that indicates that we can positively impact them with therapy, with treatment. And, we want to be able to optimize how we do that so we can optimize the outcomes for people because we really see that as a way to impact their quality of life.

Ben:  Yeah. I own a couple of devices like the Vielight. They have several different alpha and gamma-based photobiomodulation devices, intracranial and internasal. I have actually over here. You can’t see it in the video, but I’ve got this Neuronic helmet on my desk, which uses a slightly higher wavelength. I think it’s up in the 1000s for that one. And then, even though both of those are one-way streets compared to what you’ve just described, the only device I know of that’s currently measuring brain electrical activity and delivering both neurofeedback cues like lights and sounds or I’m sorry sights and sounds on an app that’s gamified very similar to clinical grade neurofeedback where you’d, I don’t know, fly a spaceship with your mind and the spaceship will alter course or ignition will stop coming out the back of it once your brain strays into unfavorable brain wave patterns or brain wave patterns you’re trying to detrain. The device I’ve been messing around with a little bit does that but then combines it with actually a little bit of photobiomodulation. That one’s called the Sensi. Have you come across that one at all?

Forrest:  I have seen the Sensi. I think the ones that we’ve seen that have been, I would say, kind of more as the pro version and we’ve actually been interacting with them and they’re kind of one of their board members, and connecting with their science team is the WAVi, W-A-V-I.

Ben:  Oh, yeah.

Forrest:  I can send you through a link for it. Essentially what you’re saying as well, which is kind of triggering using external, in their case, lights and sounds to trigger subconscious or unconscious responses and measuring the timeframe that those happened between different regions of the brain. And, when you have a baseline for those and you know what they should be, then it allows you to measure things like, is this person in chronic pain and is the therapeutic modality that we’re working with them on impacting that positively? Because a lot of times, again, people been looking for pain measurements for a long time. This is one where you’re actually starting to see it come to fruition. And, I think our experience right now is that electrical sensors for the brain are a much more mature technology, the kind of building block pieces that you needed to get there were available much earlier. And, right now, we’re seeing machine learning applied to those in a more effective way to be able to build a meaningful picture out of the data that’s there. I think what you’re measuring with those holds in, and again this is opinion, not a fact, but holds a little bit less data than we are going to see from what these new building blocks of these new types of lasers and these new types of sensor silicon photomultipliers. And, these avalanche photo multipliers are giving us tools that haven’t been there and unlocking a way for us to apply machine learning in a higher resolution and larger data away than is available with the electrical sensors.

Ben:  Yeah. I’m excited to see what you develop, man. That’s actually super cool. You and I keep in touch, so I’ll stay tuned.

But, back to the Kineon, which obviously already exists, people can obviously already buy it. I have a couple. In terms of how you’ve designed it, you obviously did a pretty good job explaining the combination of LED and lasers being superior to that of like say a full-body red light panel or a spot treatment red light panel using LEDs. But, is there anything else unique that you did when developing the Kineon to scratch your own itch or to satisfy a need in the market that you saw?

Forrest:  Well, really what we were trying to do is offer people a meaningful alternative to pharmaceutical solutions. So, NSAIDs are really not good for your body kind of short or long-term.

Ben:  You mean the nonsteroidals like ibuprofen, Advil, et cetera?

Forrest:  That’s exactly it. If you have to take an ibuprofen once a year, then it’s probably not going to hurt you too bad. If you’re taking ibuprofen regularly for knee pain and shoulder pain and lower back pain, which a lot of our older users are taking this and they’re taking this in very substantial doses very regularly, and they have no idea that there’s a cardiovascular impact and risk increase from this longer term, which is not insubstantial. As best we know now, it’s in the roughly 30-plus percent. Regardless of if you’re six or you’re 60, your increased risk of cardiovascular disease from ongoing ibuprofen or NSAIDs use is increased by over 30%. So, it’s meaningful. But, our assumption in creating these devices was that this technology already works. There’s $15,000 devices in clinics. The reason that people aren’t using them is that they need to use it every day to get the right level of dosing and to get their best optimal outcome.

Ben:  Yeah. Which, by the way, I don’t want to interrupt you too much, but that’s really important. I have not talked about that before nor have I heard about that remodeling effect just because I’m using the Kineon right now to work pretty hard on knee and right elbow. That means a lot to me because I’ve probably been three or four days a week hitting the same joint. I mean, if I learn one thing alone from this show, that daily use, that means a lot. But, go ahead and continue.

Forrest:  No, thank you. It’s a great point. The daily use ongoing whether or not you’re in pain, it really makes a big difference from a tissue remodeling standpoint. But, from a design standpoint, how we came about with the product is we saw $15,000 devices in a clinic and said, “Why aren’t people using this if they can take this instead of pharmaceuticals?” And, the reason is it’s too expensive and it’s not very convenient and you need something that people can use conveniently to be able to commit to this from a long-term use program. And so, our goal was to get it under $500, which what we’ve done for home use and to be able to make it wearable and to be able to still meet the dosing necessary to have clinical-level outcomes. So, regrow your tissue faster, reduce your inflammation, reduce the pain, and stop taking the drugs that can increase your all-cause mortality and also directly increase your cardiovascular disease. And, that’s what our goal was with it. 

And so, we’ve made a wearable device that’s under $500 that you can use at home. And, it works for recovery, it works for reduced inflammation and pain. And, also one of the things, and from a recovery standpoint, that I think as a high achiever and I believe ongoing athlete you’d be interested in is the muscle inflammatory markers that we reduced. There’s two that we track and have seen great impacts for and we work with a number of different kind of top-tier athletes, NFL, NBA, but particularly in CrossFit where they really hammer their bodies intensely and hard and want to get back into training very quickly, C reactive proteins and creatinine kinase are both good markers that we would reduce by 60 and 80% relative to what you would have from these training sessions.

Ben:  Wow. It’s amazing. And, I understand the effect now that you’ve explained these photoacceptors and how they actually work from an inflammatory standpoint and the heating of the tissue. And, would it work through clothing, by the way or does this seem to be against bare skin?

Forrest:  Ideally against bare skin. We’ve dosed it optimally against bare skin. And, there’s one other thing that you get from against bare skin as well, which is they call the blanching effect, which is essentially as you compress the skin, it removes some of the surface level hemoglobin from the area that would be absorbing the way these wavelengths otherwise. And so, it gets it further into the internal tissue.

Ben:  Can I tell you something interesting? And, I realize this is a total off-label use, but like I mentioned, I have a couple Kineons and I love the idea that you could wrap one around left knee joint, right knee joint. Again, I’ve used it on both elbows prior to tennis matches now. But, I’ve wrapped it around my neck. I realized that’s potentially a choking hazard, you probably can’t make those claims as a company. But, based on the idea that it could irradiate blood traveling through the carotid artery and also have an effect on the vagus nerve and on my cervical spine, which frankly gets sore. I have repeated this now. I think I’ve got over 10 times that I have found this effect a full body flushing almost a niacin flush type of response to that. Have you ever heard of such a thing like a full body flush in response to red light therapy targeted to just one area of the body?

Forrest:  I hadn’t, but we also don’t really have people using on their neck. And, there’s a huge volume of blood going through there and you are dumping nitric oxide into this blood very fast as it’s coming through with these lasers. So, it makes sense, it’s just not something we actually heard about. I can check with our team and see if we can keep an eye open for that as well.

Ben:  I find it very interesting. I like it when you take a pre-workout like arginine or citrulline or nitric oxide or even tadalafil or Viagra, and you get this wonderful rush in energy and blood flow. So yeah, you can now market your device as wearable Viagra for us for those who want to experiment off-label, off-label around their neck.

Forrest:  I love it. I love it. I’m sure we’re going to get a knock on the door from that one.

Ben:  Yeah, exactly. Hopefully not from someone’s who’s in trouble having choked themselves with a Kineon.

Well, it’s a very interesting device. How many people are getting more than one and using it simultaneously like I’ve been doing? Is that pretty common? I mean, I know that’s pushing close to $1,000, but I’m just curious if you guys package up a couple or do anything like that.

Forrest:  What we’ve seen is actually a lot of folks working on kind of a Pay It Forward model. And so, we’re just labeling it that. I’ve sent some to my folks. We see a lot of folks kind of working on this for their family members or if you know somebody, your friend has a knee problem or just had a shoulder surgery. So, what we’re doing right now is reducing the price for the season for people who want to gift the devices to people who have problems. Again, our mission is to help move that needle from a quality-of-life standpoint. And, we felt like this was a really good way to do that from an alignment.

Ben:  Yeah, okay. Well, I don’t know if this podcast will come out before Christmas or not, but either way, if you’re listening right now, just go to the shownotes at BenGreenfieldLife.com/KineonPodcast, K-I-N-E-O-N. Awesome pictures there what it looks as well as links to some of the other things that Forrest and I have talked about. But, if you have questions or comments or feedback or you want to get a hold of Forrest or me, just leave your comments over there even if you want to get more than one or get some for a friend or whatever. And, if for some reason that deal doesn’t exist, I’ll make sure you get taken care of because I actually really like this device. I mean, I had one before you and I met up in Mexico for us, but I didn’t really know how to use it or why it was different. I honestly thought it was just a cheapo slap-on LED device. And, now that I understand more about it, even after this interview, I’m very excited. I’m going to start using it even more. I think it’s a fantastic device, man. So, nice job.

Forrest:  Thanks so much. Really appreciate the support. And, we’ll have to get you one of the gut ones. We have the gut and vagal tone ones that are coming out early next year. We’ll get you some of those early as well just to get your feedback on it.

Ben:  I would love to give feedback. Vielight, that other company I mentioned, they have a gut and a vagus. I have it. I’ve used it. And, you know me, I’m the guinea pig. So, I actually like to test and compare a lot of these devices. So, I would be happy to check it out and give you feedback and even I suppose competitive comparison. So, yeah, absolutely.

Well, folks, that’s about all the time we have with Forrest Smith from Kineon. It’s the Kineo Move, the red light that moves with you that does a great job at crushing pain, drug-free. And, you can check out the shownotes and get a Kineon for yourself with a special deal if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/KineonPodcast. That’s BenGreenfieldLife.com/K-I-N-E-O-NPodcast.

Forrest, thanks so much, man. That was amazing.

Forrest:  Thank you. Great to see you.

Ben:  Alright, folks, I’m Ben, Forrest signing out from BenGreenfieldLife.com. Have an amazing week. 

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My guest on this show, Forrest Smith, a dynamic entrepreneur and esteemed leader in the tech hardware industry, brings to the table an impressive 20-year track record of creating and scaling successful startups. His career trajectory at Kineon Labs stands as a testament to his unwavering optimism and innovative approach in the field of health and wellness technology. An avid sports enthusiast, Forrest’s competitive spirit was honed on the fields of Atlanta, where he played various sports and continues to actively participate in rugby matches and CrossFit training. This athletic passion was the catalyst for the conception of the Knee+ enhanced light therapy device, a key offering from Reviiv Light that embodies his commitment to health and fitness.

From the age of 14, Forrest has cultivated a deep fascination for Chinese culture and language, a passion that has grown into fluency and profound professional expertise in the Asian market. His 18 years of experience in startup creation and executive management in Asia have been marked by considerable success.In 2000, Forrest embarked on his first entrepreneurial journey in China with a fabric sourcing company, which was later acquired in 2002. Over the next decade, he demonstrated his exceptional aptitude for business development and leadership, founding and directing a series of companies, including Source Pro Asia, August Vale, and Illumitron. Each venture flourished under his guidance, leading to acquisition by larger corporations, such as Wilway Holdings and Cooper Lighting.

In addition to his remarkable entrepreneurial journey, Forrest has demonstrated his versatility and expertise through various roles, from Director of Asian Operations for a Fortune 500 company to Director of Business Development. His educational background is as diverse and robust as his professional experience, with an International Baccalaureate focused on Chinese, further studies at the prestigious Nanjing University/Johns Hopkins Center, and undergraduate studies at Georgia Tech.

His profound dedication to his work, coupled with his extensive experience and knowledge, positions Forrest as a thought leader in his industry, driving the intersection of health, wellness, and advanced technology.

During our discussion, you’ll discover:

– Forrest’s background in fitness and transition into technology…6:12

• Former extreme athlete, rugby player, and CrossFitter
• Delved into studying technology in China
  • Paved the way for photo biomodulation
• Lived in China for almost 20 years
• Relocated his family to Mexico during the COVID-19 pandemic
  • Left China just before lockdown
  • Didn’t intend to stay in Mexico

-The benefits to living in Mexico…10:33

• Lives in San Miguel de Allende
• Great quality of schools for his boys
• Most places are above 7000 ft altitude
  • Great location for altitude training
• Ease of doing business in Mexico
  • Overall growth as a business hub
  • Strengthening currency dollar
• Evolving global landscape
  • Promising future for Mexico
• Trainer bikes in Forrest’s home:

-How Forrest initially became interested in red light therapy…16:12

• Playing rugby in South China reignited his passion for contact sports
• Had been involved in gym lifting
  • Lacked metabolic conditioning
• High stress work life in
• Entrepreneurial pursuits and startup
  • High-stress, seven-day work week
  • Used metabolic training metabolic training as a stress relief strategy
• Metabolic training became vital for offsetting age-related injuries and harnessing cognitive benefits
  • Observed in both scientific literature and daily personal experiences
  • Forrest uses metabolic training for overall well-being
• The impact of inflammation from injuries and overuse
  • Exercise can trigger inflammation in old injuries
  • Can impede cardiovascular functions and affect overall health
  • Injuries on endothelial tissue
    • Stiffening of blood vessel walls
    • Decreased cardiovascular strength
    • Potential for severe events or mortality
• Red light therapy and its beneficial effects on inflammation
  • Inflammation management in old injuries
  • Forrest was initially skeptical about its efficacy
    • Dispelled after delving into medical literature
• Calroy (20% discount auto-applied at checkout)
• Podcast with Dr. Jack Wolfson:
• Developed Kineon Health – Targeted Red Light Therapy (use code BGLIFE to save 10%)
  • Triggers specific photo acceptors within the body
    • Uses different wavelengths and powers
    • Optimal light distribution through tissue

-What Forrest discovered could be changed or optimized with red light therapy…28:15

• The Kineon team focused extensively on modeling light distribution (use code BGLIFE to save 10%)
  • Started with the intended results and works backward
  • Identified the depth of photo acceptors in tissue
    • Modeled how light and photons optimally activate targeted signaling molecules within the body
    • Lambert-Beer model for understanding photon distribution through tissue
  • Other companies focus on engineering dose measurements or metrics
  • Upgraded internal models using existing ones
    • Able to pinpoint photo acceptor locations and reservoirs within tissue depths
  • Avoided building abstract mathematical models detached from reality
  • Leveraged devices like NNOX for serum nitric oxide measurement
    • Evan Peikon, co-founder of NNOX
    • Baselining and verification of expected outcomes
  • Able to verify model accuracy by comparing expected physiological responses to actual measurements
• Kineon‘s optimized dosing model and treatment methods (use code BGLIFE to save 10%)
  • Differences between surface and internal tissue treatment
  • Differences between LED and laser use
  • Direct and broad emission patterns of lasers and LEDs
• Kineon’s approach to photobiomodulation
  • Precise dosing for effective outcomes

-What are photo acceptors and how do they interact with light?…31:16

• Molecules within tissues targeted by light energy for downstream signaling
  • Photons trigger downstream signaling
• Increased energy production
  • Positively affects cellular functions
  • Reduces oxidative stress
  • Benefits cardiovascular tissue through nitric oxide release
• Discoveries indicate that distributing the same power across multiple emitters can be more effective than concentrating it through a single source
  • Overdosing with light doesn’t cause damage but diminishes therapeutic benefits
  • Could lead to an overflow of free radical production, excessive nitric oxide, and ATP production
  • The most powerful lasers might not necessarily yield the best results
    • Communication with molecular-level photo-acceptors in the body is crucial
• VCSEL lasers
• Removing bottlenecks in the electron transport chain with compounds like methylene blue
  • Enhanced energy production

-The proper dosing of Kineon’s Red Light Therapy devices and the affects…38:32

• Device uses both Class One and Class Two lasers in their devices
  • Class two lasers found to be more effective
  • How the light is distributed affects dosing
• Arndt-Schulz curve
• Lasers emit light in a very direct manner, what they call columnated manner
• LEDs emit in a Lambertian pattern – 360 degrees
• Powerful lasers might not necessarily yield the best results
  • Communication with molecular-level photoacceptors in the body is crucial
• Recommended treatment time:
  • 15 minutes, twice a day for serious tissue damage, acute inflammation, or long-term tissue damage
• Helps in growing healthier soft tissues
  • Increases chondroblast proliferation and type two cartilage in response to inflammation

-Red Light Therapy in comparison to Cold Therapy…46:17

• Cold therapy might not be as effective as perceived, especially post-injury or inflammation
  • The RICE protocol (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) may not be good advice
• Clinical trial-based evidence for the efficacy of light therapy over cryogenic treatment
• Cold therapy’s impacts on the brain
  • Potential neurological impacts might not directly aid in injury recovery or hypertrophy
• Cold therapy benefits
  • Glycemic variability
  • Conversion of white fat to brown fat
  • Reduced inflammatory markers
• Dosing and variabilities in results
  • Shorter, milder exposures to cold may be favorable to prolonged, extreme cold exposures

-Kineon’s products in development that involve transcranial/intranasal photobiomodulation…55:17

• Brain modules and correlating dosing models
  • Biomarkers such as heart rate and HRV
  • Measuring behaviour of neurological tissue from a metabolic standpoint
• High correlation between metabolic dysfunction and psychological disorders
  • Bipolar disorder
  • Schizophrenia
• Kineon is using photobiomodulation with neurofeedback to create more impactful devices
• Potential therapy and treatment on conditions like:
  • Dementia
  • Alzheimer’s
  • Parkinson’s
  • Major Depressive Disorder
  • Chronic anxiety
• Optimizing devices to enhance outcomes and quality of life
• WAVi device
• SENSEI® device
• Electrical sensors for brain activity and machine learning for data interpretation
  • Compares data collection between electrical sensors and new laser/sensor technologies
• Emerging tools, like silicon photomultipliers for higher-resolution machine learning
  • More extensive machine learning applications than electrical sensors

-Kineon therapy devices are a good alternative to NSAIDs…1:03:55

• Negative effects of NSAIDs on health
• Tissue recovery, inflammation reduction, and pain relief
• Daily Kineon use for
  • Tissue remodeling
  • Inflammation reduction
  • Pain relief
    • Best when used on bare skin
    • Blanching effect to improve wavelength penetration
• Reduction in muscle inflammatory markers among athletes for recovery
  • Decrease in C-reactive proteins and creatinine kinase levels
• Cost-effective design
  • Accessible home use
  • Convenient
  • Wearable