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Brenda Hildreth is trying her best not to sound like a commercial. She’s failing badly.

“I spent 15 minutes in the chair and I’m still smoke-free,” she says. The time in the chair occurred March 8, when she decided to be something of a guinea pig for an employee wellness program at Des Moines Water Works, where she is a customer service representative.

Hildreth, 44 and a longtime smoker, had been appointed as the stop-smoking leader of the Water Works’ Health Improvement Planning team, which was formed to help improve workers’ health and, hopefully, reduce health insurance premiums.

She had no desire to stop smoking, she said, but she also wanted to set an example.

“I thought, ‘How hypocritical of me to be on the team and be a smoker,'” Hildreth said.

She looked through the various programs advocated by the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association. She spotted Life Laser in Clive on a stop smoking Web site. She checked out the company and its procedure, which is a form of high-tech acupuncture using a low-intensity laser, with the American Medical Association. On all counts she received the equivalent of a “not recommended.”

“They said there just wasn’t enough research to back it,” Hildreth said.

However, Hildreth had done enough research to know she didn’t have the willpower to go through an endorsed stop-smoking program involving counseling and possibly the use of patches, gums, inhalers and pharmaceuticals approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

So, she decided to give Life Laser a try.

At Life Laser, a technician places a pencil-size probe on acupuncture points on the face, ears and hands. As with acupuncture, the procedure purports to release endorphins, the body’s pleasure chemicals, which mask the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal. In other words, the procedure makes you happy.

According to the FDA, cold-laser procedures are relatively safe and have few, if any, side effects. It does not endorse cold-laser procedures for smoking cessation.

Of course, the FDA hasn’t met Hildreth.

” I had a happy attitude,” she said. “I was pretty darn happy. It’s kind of sappy.”

Then, realizing what she has said, Hildreth cautions that, “I hate to sound like a commercial.”

Dave Lappin, who opened Life Laser last December at 8816 Swanson Blvd., is pleased with Hildreth’s endorsement. He relies on similar firsthand testimonials as he fights for legitimacy among the established medical community.

Lappin plans a meeting with the American Lung Association of Iowa, and he met recently with public health officials in Marion County in an attempt to show that his treatment is not just a spoonful of old-fashioned snake oil.

“My opinion is if somebody believes that laser is going to work for them, then I say ‘go get lasered,'” said Dan Ramsey of the American Lung Association of Iowa, who also cautioned that there currently is no clinical evidence that the procedure works.

Lappin would like to meet with any business, large or small, that will hear him out. He does, after all, recommend that his clients contact Quitline Iowa, the state-supported hotline that offers over-the-phone counseling and free nicotine-reduction patches and gum to people struggling to stop smoking.

At Life Laser, the treatment costs $299 and includes six “booster” sessions. Lappin said business would benefit in the long term if they helped defray their employees’ pay for their treatments.

Correction: Life Laser, 8816 Swanson Blvd., Clive, offers cold-laser treatments for smoking cessation, weight loss and pain control. The company name was incorrect in an April 14 article in the Business Record.