4

The home page of Dr Jack Kruse, who claims to be a neurosurgeon and "optimal health educator" contains the following paragraph:

There is a deep connection between thermodynamics in biology and the processing of energy and information. This process begins in the skin and this biophysical process will be explored and examined. In 2016 Jack came to Nourish Vermont and explained how food can only be understood via photosynthesis. Last year he showed us obesity begins in the eye and not with foods of exercise. All of these things tie light, water, and magnetism the computations that mitochondria must make. What stands between the sun and our mitochondria? The skin. Do nature and biology add lipid droplets to our skin to create a laser that changes sunlight into coherent light that activates programs in our subcutaneous fat? Learn how the skin works with the sun and mitochondria in a wireless fashion to build wellness within.

He seems to be part of a network of alternative health gurus who promote radical alternative therapies (including the idea that reducing the bodily load of deuterium cures many modern illnesses as in this question).

Little of that paragraph makes any sense according to the science I know (and he wants $99 for the detail). But the highlighted sentence seems clear enough for a skeptical analysis.

So, to repeat the full claim: Do nature and biology add lipid droplets to our skin to create a laser that changes sunlight into coherent light that activates programs in our subcutaneous fat?

And is anything else he says meaningful enough to deserve analysis?

elliot svensson
  • 2,883
  • 13
  • 38
matt_black
  • 56,186
  • 16
  • 175
  • 373
  • 1
    Kind of a weird way of saying light interacts with the skin. So, yes? Idk, what weird thing to say. –  Dec 16 '18 at 23:36
  • 4
    This seems a lot like meaningless woo. What kind of evidence would you accept?https://skeptics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4266/how-to-confront-meaningless-woo – BobTheAverage Dec 16 '18 at 23:39
  • @BobTheAverage proof that no mechanism can create coherent light in liquid fat droplets on the skin or something like that. – matt_black Dec 16 '18 at 23:46
  • 1
    I don't think I can agree that the sentence is clear enough. What's a lipid droplet? Is it claiming a ral technical laser goes off in the skin, or is that hyperbole? Is there a concept of "coherent light in the body"? Literal light? A lot of it doesn't make sense what it means, but at the same time sounds simple "light interacts with the skin". How that actually works I don't know, but maybe it's better to learn exactly how and see if anything like coherent light and laser are there. –  Dec 16 '18 at 23:50
  • 5
    I'm not seeing any credible claim here -- just a bunch of BS. – Daniel R Hicks Dec 17 '18 at 00:05
  • My first instinct is to get rid of the anthropomorphism as unproveable: "Do lipid droplets in/on our skin to create a laser that changes sunlight into coherent light that activates programs in our subcutaneous fat?" – Oddthinking Dec 17 '18 at 00:26
  • 1
    My second instinct is to throw away the vague part "activates programs", to leave: "Do lipid droplets in/on our skin change sunlight into coherent light, like a laser?" – Oddthinking Dec 17 '18 at 00:27
  • @DanielRHicks mostly I agree. But some parts seemed scientific enough to thoroughly refute. And refutation is needed. – matt_black Dec 17 '18 at 00:48
  • @Oddthinking Yes, the second part of the sentence really is pushing the bullshit limit. I hoped that the first part–which *sounds* like a scientific claim about lasers–could be refuted clearly leaving no need to deal with the later nonsense. – matt_black Dec 17 '18 at 00:58
  • 3
    @matt_black - I'm not seeing any explanation of how a "laser" could be formed, or of what the "programs" are that are "activated". Certainly sunlight interacts with the skin in several ways, but the above is just BS. – Daniel R Hicks Dec 17 '18 at 00:59
  • And can anyone explain what "foods of exercise" is? I thought it was a transcription error, but it's like that on the referenced page. – Daniel R Hicks Dec 17 '18 at 01:01
  • @DanielRHicks I too doubt the whole laser thing. But it sounds sufficiently coherent (no pun intended) to be subject to the sort of refutation that avoids us having to deal with the more severe woo in the rest of the sentence (or paragraph). – matt_black Dec 17 '18 at 01:02
  • @matt_black - I believe the part about sunlight "activating programs", more or less, given that it's been shown repeatedly that sunlight affects fertility in several ways, and this in turn affects skin color. – Daniel R Hicks Dec 17 '18 at 01:04
  • 3
    I suppose my strategy here is to leap onto the claims made in pseudoscientific site that (perhaps accidentally) come closest to real scientific claims and refute them thereby avoiding the need to make sense of the rest of the woo. – matt_black Dec 17 '18 at 01:04
  • On dealing with woo: https://skeptics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4266/how-to-confront-meaningless-woo. – Paul Johnson Dec 17 '18 at 13:58
  • 6
    "Dr." Kruse has framed the most tenuous claim as a question... I bet he thinks he's cleverly avoiding the accusation that he's claiming "skin lasers." Please don't pay him $99. – elliot svensson Dec 17 '18 at 15:12
  • 2
    How about a simpler question: Is there any evidence that lipids can create a "laser", activated by sunlight? – Daniel R Hicks Dec 17 '18 at 22:36
  • @DanielRHicks - Given the context of the rest of that sentence, I'm fairly confident that "foods of exercise" is an editing/proofreading error in the original and is meant to be "foods or exercise", the two things normally considered to be the roots of obesity. – Dave Sherohman Dec 18 '18 at 10:37

1 Answers1

5

If we discard the "activates programs" part of the claim as unclear that leaves the claim that lipid droplets in the skin create coherent light when stimulated by the sun.

A laser requires the following components to work:

1: A lasing medium which is optically transparent apart from atoms of some element that will emit light at the desired wavelength. The claim doesn't tell us what wavelength this is, but lipids are hydrocarbons, so unless there is some other atom within these lipids then we are restricted to hydrogen, carbon and oxygen.

2: A "population inversion" in the atoms of the lasing element. Its not just enough to shine a light on the medium; you have to get more than 50% of the atoms or molecules (depending on the medium used) into an "excited state" by getting them to absorb a photon. These photons are then re-emitted in step to produce the laser light. If you don't get 50% excited then more light will be absorbed than is emitted, and lasing won't happen.

3: An "optical cavity", meaning in practice a mirror at either end. Without it you have something that can amplify existing laser light, but won't lase on its own.

The following things suggest that this is unlikely to be happening in liposomes:

  • A Google search hasn't turned up anthing suggesting that liposomes form an optical cavity. Everything with the relevant keywords was about using laser beams to do things to lipids and liposomes.

  • Likewise I couldn't find any suggestion that lipids can be persuaded to lase.

  • Getting a population inversion generally takes a lot of energy concentrated on the lasing medium. Ordinary sunlight isn't intense enough to do this.

None of this is irrefutable evidence that the claim is wrong, but in the absence of any evidence to the contrary I would have to say that I don't believe a word of it.

Paul Johnson
  • 15,814
  • 7
  • 66
  • 81
  • 1
    I did (after 5 minutes of Googling) find one reference claiming (with photo) that lipids artificially embedded in the skin (pig skin was shown) could be made to "laze" when activated with light via fiber optics. The claim was that the lipid blobs were forming an optical cavity. But no suggestion that similar effects could be obtained with sunlight. – Daniel R Hicks Dec 19 '18 at 13:41
  • 2
    @DanielRHicks If you give me a URL I'll add a reference. – Paul Johnson Dec 19 '18 at 15:26
  • I didn't hang onto it. I found it by Googling something like "lipids laser" and working past the first several pages about liposuction or whatever it was. – Daniel R Hicks Dec 19 '18 at 17:41
  • @DanielRHicks - Is this the [post](https://www.technologyreview.com/2015/07/27/72701/making-pig-fat-into-a-laser/)? – Melioratus Jan 19 '21 at 20:06