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Laser smoking/weight loss therapy

Aizen

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My sister is looking into a few companies that're claiming to use lasers to (a) help stop smoking and (b) lose weight. Can anyone verify the validity of these, or is it just more homeopathic quackery?

I tend not to believe anecdotal evidence; for me "a friend of a cousin who had it said it worked wonders" is either irrelevant or potentially a placebo. Is there any known, rational science behind the claims these places are making?

EDIT: While I'm all for dismissing "alternative" medicine (because alternative medicine that works has a name: medicine), the involvement of lasers interests me and I own a small laser device that greatly reduces the symptoms of my allergies (by inserting in the nostrils and emitting lasers for three minutes per "dose"). Therefore, I've more respect for the possibilities of lasers than for the other crap hippi- alternative practicioners - shill.
 
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I can 100% confirm the validity of the Laser smoking/weight loss claims.
unfortunately the only proven means of laser smoking/weight loss is via total laser induced blindness.
You will however be really hot & skinny in a matter of days (as long as no one leads you to any food) + completely smoke free!!!
 
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eh-HERM... what Mr. Blu here means to say is, "yes, it's all psychosomatic nonsense"

Lasers are good for many things. Loosing weight is not one of them.
 

Benm

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Lasers have many uses in medicine and dentistry, but those are all proven technologies and used by actual medical doctors.

Using lasers to quit smoking or stop eating doesnt work. As far as i understand the practise is somewhat comparable to acupuncture, and has no feasible mechanism of action at all.

There probably is lots of anectdotal evidence, but that is to be expected for a treatment for these conditions: both are largely matters of the mind, not of body functions, and people that actually believe the treatment works may very well benefit from its extra motivation.


I have no idea how the nostril device works. A friend of mine uses something similar (i think it has LEDS, not lasers in it), and it does make him look like rudolph the reindeer when using it.
 
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The weight loss industry is a huge money maker, and also filled with so many scams. Lasers being on of them. I do believe in alternative medicine. The drug industry is also very huge as well, and quite a few of those drugs do a lot of harm as well.

There is one tried and true method to lose weight. East less calories than your body burns in a day, and exercise. While this does go into much greater detail, this is a general rule. One is eating too little calories and your body goes into starvation mode, and reduces your metabolism greatly. I highly suggest a book called burn the fat feed the muscle by Tom Venuto. Even though he is a body builder, he teaches the basic principals to lose weight so it does not just apply to body builders.

I am not a smoker, but I used to be a nail biter. I put a rubber band around my wrist. Every time I bit my nails, or wanted to bite my nails I snapped myself with it. I was told this tells your brain to associate pain with nail biting, and it helped me to stop. Maybe it will help for smokers too??
 
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LOL
How about male pattern baldness?
laser_hair_restoration.jpg

http://hairrestorationtalk.com/hair-loss-treatment/cold-laser-hair-restoration
 
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Well it is not nonsense to the believers...
I had a girl friend many years ago that went to a "clinic"
to have Laser therapy to stop smoking..
After many numerous treatments at $50.00 a pop she
finally stopped smoking..

I didn't have the heart to tell her that the <5mW red Laser
they were shining on her forehead and temples would in
reality cause no change in her body chemistry.

Until this day she believes that the Laser treatments helped
her stop smoking.

Jerry
 

Cheech

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^^^ lol That guy has the look on his face like " Crap this is going on the interweb isn't it?"
 
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I saw an episode of Star Trek where they were looking
for Spock's brain and Spock had something like that on
his head...:crackup:

Jerry
 

Benm

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Ah well, enough quacks out there, right?

The hair growing one is pretty funny. In real medicine lasers are used to remove unwanted hair sometimes, certainly not to make it grow.

Still, these therapies can be effective on people that believe in them for things that have a large mental component, such as overeating or nicotine addiction. This does not make them valid or effective, but it yields great amounts of positive anecdotal evidence.
 

Benm

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^^ Probably.

As I understand shining a class-IV laser into each eye for a second or two is also very effective in treating both smoking addiction and obesity. The mechanism of being unable to see cigarettes or food seems perfectly valid, though the side effects will probably prevent FDA approval :D
 
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They would work for losing weight if you ran around chasing the dot.

Or you were being chased by the dot :gun:

And if every time a smoker reached for a cigaratte they got a little :lasergun:

They would probably quit smoking too lol
 

Benm

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Shooting people in the ass with a THEL to keep them running hasn't been FDA approved either :D
 




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