Light helmet to treat Alzheimer's?

A linkurl:story;http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7208768.stm by the BBC last week reporting that a treatment of infrared light through the scalp could reverse Alzheimer's disease has scientists -- and skeptical science writers -- scratching their heads. Gordon Dougal, director of a UK-based company called Virulite, is leading a study that tests whether infrared light, beamed on the head from a special helmet, might boost cell growth in the brain (Virulite currently sells a product also based in infrared technology that claims to heal cold sores nearly twice as fast as other treatments). ABC linkurl:reported;http://abcnews.go.com/Health/GadgetGuide/Story?id=4202266&page=1 on Monday that University of Sunderland researchers had tested a group of rats they determined were in mental decline with infrared light. Ten of these rats showed improvement in navigating a maze. The group has also performed tests on 10 people with dementia -- nine of whom showed "moderate improvement" -- though they didn't mention how they were measuring "improvement."...