Lasers vs LED's
What is the difference?

LED's Produce (non-coherent, monochromatic light; spontaneous emission)

LASER's Produce (coherent, monochromatic light, stimulated emission)

Tiina Karu (1998:   The Science of Low-Power Laser Therapy) states that "...the coherence of light is of no importance in low-power laser clinical effects" and "the primary difference between lasers and LED's is that the laser's coherent beam produces "speckles" of relatively high power density which can cause local heating of inhomogeneous tissues".

There is currently no doubt among researchers and scientists that the light emitted by LED's is effective in generating a biomodulatory response within living tissue, and therefore has a therapeutic role if used correctly.

The majority of published research on photo biomodulation has been conducted using LASER's and not LED's. It has only been in more recent years that LED's have been made with an high enough output power to be beneficial for photo biomodulation.

NASA has produced the best research documentation to date supporting the effectiveness of LED's to stimulate plants and human tissue through photo biomodulation. It is misleading however to misrepresent LED's by suggesting that meaningful information about practical LED therapy can be simply derived from LASER therapy research. Until more research is carried out on the effect of LED's on photo biomodulation, and the mechanisms of photo biomodulation are better understood, this will remain the case.

To summarize, it is sufficient to say that both LED's and LASER's work, but more research is constantly being carried out with LED's in order to determine their best suited role in photo-biomodulation.

There are a number of different parameters that can affect the outcome of irradiation, Especially when using more than 1 kind or type of stimulation method, i.e. (2 or more power densities, different wavelengths, coherent and non-coherent light, laser speckles, pulsing frequencies, etc.). It would be difficult for anyone to say that, at this stage in our understanding of photo biomodulation, they have determined the optimal combination of these numerous and variable parameters.

The debate over which is better, LASER or LED is currently unsettled, and the affect of each particular combination of wavelengths and output power has yet to be fully determined. There is much research pointing toward the best combination for depth of effect and the type of tissue that is affected but no particular combination can be truly labeled as optimal until the effects of every possible combination are fully understood.

Evidence of the effectiveness LASER vs LED is still being determined, until we gain a better understanding of the mechanisms by which each variable (e.g.. coherent vs non-coherent) affects the biological system in vitro and in vivo. Once we fully understand the individual mechanisms, we can look at combining these mechanisms to see how each combination affects the overall biomodulatory response, and how then to apply the various responses for optimal therapeutic benefit.

It will take time, and research funding is always hard to come by, but we are talking about a valid area of scientific investigation and most researches believe the results should be worth the effort.

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