The History of Light Therapy

Until recent times it was believed that humans did not respond to the seasonal change in day-length, as other mammals do. In 1980, Dr. A. J. Lewy and co-workers at the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) demonstrated that high-intensity light affects the natural release of melatonin by the pineal gland in the brain in people. This finding demonstrated that human physiology is influenced by light. Ref.

In 1981 a depressed engineer named Herbert Kern noticed the publication of Dr. Lewy's study in the Journal. He approached Dr. Lewy to see if it be feasible to use light to treat his depression, which appeared at almost the same time each fall and remitted each spring. Dr. Lewy arranged to treat Mr. Kern's depression by extending his day length and creating an artificial summer. Mr Kern was exposed to two extra hours of bright light in the morning and in the evening.

The treatment worked. Within a short period the patient's depression lifted, and the practice of "light therapy" or phototherapy for the treatment of a seasonal pattern depression was born. Dr. Lewy termed this seasonal depression "Seasonal Affective Disorder", and coined the acronym "SAD", which is commonly used to this day. A milder, sub-clinical condition is known as "The Winter Blues" or "Cabin Fever". Refs.

Light therapy is now the recommended treatment of choice for seasonal depression (SAD) by the American Psychiatric Association. Articles recommending its use to general practitioners have been published by leading researchers from the National Institutes of Health in publications such as the Journal of the American Medical Association. Ref

In the early 1990's Sunnex Biotechnologies approached Dr. Lewy to test a new low intensity green light technology based on the precept that wavelength as well as intensity was a fundamental aspect of light therapy. After agreeing that tests conducted by Sunnex Biotechnologies indicated that nocturnal melatonin levels could be dramatically suppressed by low intensity of this green light Dr. Lewy, agreed to test the phase shifting ability of this new low-intensity green light on patients with Seasonal Depression (SAD). Dr. Lewy presented the impressive results of these studies to the Society for Light Treatment and Biological Rhythms and to the annual meetings of the Sleep Research Society and the American Sleep Disorders Association. Refs

There are now over ten studies published in major peer-reviewed journals which have shown that a Lo-LIGHT lamp providing less than 1/10 of the light intensity provided by "bright light" therapy lamp is equally effective for light therapy. Read more. This is in dramatic contrast to the results of studies with blue light and blue-enhanced light therapy lamps, where several recent studies have found that blue light is no more effective or efficient than white light. Read refs 1 and ref2. While there is a great deal of promotion of blue light and blue-enhanced light therapy, a new study, whose authors include by many of those researchers whose earlier work is cited as validating the use of blue light therapy, demonstrates that blue light provides no benefits for light therapy under normal conditions. Read more

Read more on clinical studies usng GreenLIGHT technology.

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The Sunnex Biotechnologies Lo-LIGHT phototherapy lamp comes with a five year warranty. Details