Letters: Findings in Gentle Wave LED light study

Great article on the “scientific” gifts on the market that make claim of improved health and reduced aging [“Pie-In-The-Sky Product Claims,” Nov. 22].

In Dr. Peter Rubin’s study of the Gentle Wave LED light that you referenced, there were some interesting findings worth mentioning. A total of 30 skin-care experts reviewed the skin of the 36 women who participated in the eight-week study. The women were rated on seven facial skin characteristics, such as fewer wrinkles, healing of aging spots and skin tone.

The subjective results of the women were very positive: All 36 reported improvements in all seven areas of facial skin quality at the end of the study.

Not one of the 30 skin-care experts, however, who had the advantage of some very sophisticated imaging devices for their use in the study, could detect any improvement whatsoever in the women’s facial skin. The experts looked at 1,025 pairs of “before and after” pictures, and could correctly identify the “after” pictures only 47% of the time, less than what we would expect from random chance.

The researchers said the placebo effect was responsible for the subjective ratings of the women. Dr. Rubin and his team reported in their conclusions that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

Robert Speers

Boulder, Colorado

A word about primal therapy

Regarding your article about me and primal therapy [“Mind Benders, Nov. 15], allow me to reply, since I have spent over 40 years developing a scientific theory and therapy, primal therapy, which you manage to put down in a few lines.

I would think that at least instead of repeating the same old and tired banalities about my work you would have at least interviewed me. We are considered by many scientists as the first major science of psychotherapy, generating hypotheses and testing them over the years. Our research, double-blind studies, done at hospitals and universities throughout the world and appearing in refereed journals, have been done with outsiders and objective scientists for decades. It would not have taken too much effort to have looked into all that, to say nothing of the many books in psychology and neuropsychology that I have written.

I have been elected to the Academic Hall of Fame, Claremont Graduate University, have been on the staff of Los Angeles Childrens Hospital’s psychiatric department and have been asked to lecture at many scientific institutions in the world. My books have been translated into 26 languages and some have been bestsellers in many countries.

It is not for personal pique that I write but for the suffering individuals who could be dissuaded to get help with us. Your kind of offhand reporting does me, patients and your readers looking for answers a great disservice.

Arthur Janov

Director, The Primal Center

Santa Monica

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Although Transcendental Meditation has received a lot of publicity, the cost has typically been high. The benefits of meditation are well known and heavily documented, but TM is not the only avenue of approach. There is a lot of overlap in meditative techniques across cultures and religions.

In Christians circles, Centering Prayer and the traditional Jesus Prayer are among the better-known named methods. The benefits are available, probably within one’s own faith tradition, at comparatively low cost or no cost at all beyond the time invested with experienced guides.

There are also excellent books on the subject that will set a person on the right track, though perhaps more slowly than with a coach. Once one has learned the basics, meditation can be practiced in private for a lifetime of benefit.

Graeme Rosenau

La Mirada

Birth control access and cost

A lie that helped preserve hope

I believe it was author H. Jackson Brown Jr. in “Life’s Little Instruction Book” who wisely cautioned, “Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all they have.”

The “little white lie” in Larry Odell’s essay [“A Little White Lie to a Beloved, Frail Neighbor,” Nov. 15] was a kindness beyond measure — and who knows? Miracles have happened. She could have rallied enough to come home, at least briefly, and died there, in her own bed.

Why deprive her of that hope?

Catherine Cate

Santa Ana

Brief hed

Valerie Ulene argues that women should use contraceptives better if they don’t want to become pregnant [“Pregnant? It’s No ‘Accident,’ ” Nov. 15].

Fair enough. But her call for greater “personal responsibility” downplays the very real challenges faced by the typical American woman who wants only two children and, therefore, must contracept perfectly for some three decades to avoid ever having an unwanted pregnancy.

Two of the biggest challenges involve ready access and cost. Much of birth control provision is over-medicalized, requiring tests and procedures like pelvic exams, which, though important in themselves, are unrelated to safe use of the Pill. And for uninsured or underinsured women, cost presents a considerable barrier, particularly for the most effective, long-acting contraceptives. Hurt most are lower-income women — precisely those among whom unintended pregnancy is increasingly concentrated.

Let’s help women exercise personal responsibility. Birth control use should enjoy much greater social support than it does, and it should be much easier to access and less expensive than it is.

Sharon Camp

President and CEO, Guttmacher Institute

New York, N.Y.

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