VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
So this is the mitochondria: it has an outer membrane. it has an inner membrane, and has these complexes along the inner membrane. At the end of the day, we call them the power plant of the cell because they increase ATP.
ATP is energy, this is what you “spend. [When] you need to run, [when] you need to breathe, [and when] you need to digest: they all “cost” ATP. If you don't have any of this—it's not good. The gist of these complexes is: they take electrons and they move them from the inside of the inner membrane to the outside. They fill little complexes, [proteins that sit in the membrane], and their job is to basically shuttle electrons through them into an inner membrane space. Then, what happens is, it creates a gradient—so [this process] creates a higher concentration and then, at the very end, the last one shoves them all back in and spits out ATP.
The cool thing about laser is that it stimulates one of the complexes to just work faster. That's it. So you have eight, ten, nanometer of light […] and all it does is makes this work faster. So it pumps more electrons out, more and more and more, it creates a better, faster gradient, and then you make more ATP. [This can happen in something] like your knee. And the ATP: heals!
[For example, if you have] an injured ligament in your knee, or in cartilage or [some kind of] injured muscle, you have [something called] chondroblasts. These are like cartilage cells and soft tissue cells. They all have mitochondria, so if the cartilage of your knee or the ligament of your knee is damaged, you can bathe it in laser. Those cells are damaged and trying to repair (because your body's always trying to repair itself when it's broken) and [because of the laser treatment] they just have more energy to do it with. So it can help you heal faster. That's why I love it, and that's why I think physics is so exciting. [I think] using light, laser, and electricity is fun because you [can] do this without drugs. You're literally working with [in other words] the dollars and cents of the cell [instead of] a chemical. [You’re working with electrons], and that's so cool! You're working with the body. All you're doing is speeding up a process it already does. There's no drug that does this. [So] the knee hurts, and the drugs decrease the hurt. That’s what they do, and eventually this [ATP process] is working to heal, so the drugs decrease the hurt, while [the cell] is slowly healing [on its own]. It doesn't preclude the place for a drug to reduce the hurt; although, one will argue that things like ibuprofen actually inhibit proper repair…so you can go on a tangent down there, but it's not the best idea.
All the laser does is make [the injury] heal faster. it does have some other mechanisms of reducing pain too, so you can use it in different applications that will allow that, but at the core: this is it. So all the drugs do is reduce the hurt while this [natural process] is happening… hopefully. But the shittier your mitochondria are: the less well they do that. There are other things that stimulate mitochondrial function as well [such as]: ribose, and creatine. There are nutraceuticals that will help speed that up by basically providing nutrients that are going to allow for all this [ATP increase] as well, but at it’s core: this why light therapy is awesome.
And that’s your mitochondria!