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Light therapy is clearly enjoying a wave of attention. You can now buy illuminated devices designed to address skin conditions and wrinkles to muscle pain and oral inflammation, recently introduced is a toothbrush enhanced with miniature red light sources, marketed by the company as “a major advance in personal mouth health.” Worldwide, the market was worth $1bn in 2024 and is projected to grow to $1.8bn by 2035. You can even go and sit in an infrared sauna, where instead of hot coals (real or electric) heating the air, the thermal energy targets your tissues immediately. Based on supporter testimonials, it’s like bathing in one of those LED-lit beauty masks, stimulating skin elasticity, easing muscle tension, reducing swelling and persistent medical issues while protecting against dementia.

Understanding the Evidence

“It sounds a bit like witchcraft,” observes Paul Chazot, who has researched light therapy for two decades. Naturally, some of light’s effects on our bodies are well established. Sunlight enables vitamin D production, needed for bone health, immunity, muscles and more. Light exposure controls our sleep-wake cycles, additionally, stimulating neurotransmitter and hormone production during daytime, and signaling the body to slow down for nighttime. Artificial sun lamps frequently help individuals with seasonal depression to boost low mood in winter. So there’s no doubt we need light energy to function well.

Different Light Modalities

While Sad lamps tend to use a mixture of light frequencies from the blue end of the spectrum, consumer light therapy products mostly feature red and infrared emissions. In serious clinical research, including research on infrared’s impact on neural cells, finding the right frequency is key. Light constitutes electromagnetic energy, extending from long-wavelength radiation to short-wavelength gamma rays. Light-based treatment uses wavelengths around the middle of this spectrum, including invisible ultraviolet radiation, then the visible spectrum we perceive as colors and then infrared (which we can see with night-vision goggles).

UV light has been used by medical dermatologists for many years for addressing long-term dermatological issues like vitiligo. It modulates intracellular immune mechanisms, “and dampens down inflammation,” explains a skin specialist. “Considerable data validates phototherapy.” UVA reaches deeper skin layers compared to UVB, in contrast to LEDs in commercial products (which generally deliver red, infrared or blue light) “generally affect surface layers.”

Risk Assessment and Professional Supervision

Potential UVB consequences, including sunburn or skin darkening, are recognized but medical equipment uses controlled narrow-band delivery – meaning smaller wavelengths – that reduces potential hazards. “Therapy is overseen by qualified practitioners, so the dosage is monitored,” says Ho. Essentially, the light sources are adjusted by technical experts, “to ensure that the wavelength that’s being delivered is fit for purpose – as opposed to commercial tanning facilities, where oversight might be limited, and wavelength accuracy isn’t verified.”

Home Devices and Scientific Uncertainty

Colored light diodes, he explains, “don’t have strong medical applications, but they may help with certain conditions.” Red LEDs, it is proposed, help boost blood circulation, oxygen uptake and cell renewal in the skin, and activate collagen formation – a key aspiration in anti-ageing effects. “The evidence is there,” states the dermatologist. “But it’s not conclusive.” Regardless, given the plethora of available tools, “it’s unclear if device outputs match study parameters. Appropriate exposure periods aren’t established, proper positioning requirements, if benefits outweigh potential risks. Many uncertainties remain.”

Targeted Uses and Expert Opinions

One of the earliest blue-light products targeted Cutibacterium acnes, bacteria linked to pimples. Scientific backing remains inadequate for regular prescription – despite the fact that, explains the specialist, “it’s commonly used in cosmetic clinics.” Individuals include it in their skincare practices, he mentions, however for consumer products, “we just tell them to try it carefully and to make sure it has been assessed for safety. Unless it’s a medical device, the regulation is a bit grey.”

Innovative Investigations and Molecular Effects

At the same time, in advanced research areas, Chazot has been experimenting with brain cells, identifying a number of ways in which infrared can boost cellular health. “Pretty much everything I did with the light at that particular wavelength was positive and protective,” he says. The numerous reported benefits have generated doubt regarding phototherapy – that it’s too good to be true. However, scientific investigation has altered his perspective.

Chazot mostly works on developing drug treatments for neurodegenerative diseases, however two decades past, a GP who was developing an antiviral light treatment for cold sores sought his expertise as a biologist. “He created some devices so that we could work with them with cells and with fruit flies,” he recalls. “I was pretty sceptical. It was an unusual wavelength of about 1070 nanometres, which most thought had no biological effect.”

What it did have going for it, however, was that it travelled through water easily, enabling deeper tissue penetration.

Cellular Energy and Neurological Benefits

More evidence was emerging at the time that infrared light targeted the mitochondria in cells. Mitochondria produce ATP for cell function, creating power for cellular operations. “Mitochondria exist throughout the body, particularly in neural cells,” notes the researcher, who, as a neuroscientist, decided to focus the research on brain cells. “Research confirms improved brain blood flow with phototherapy, which is consistently beneficial.”

With 1070 treatment, cellular power plants create limited oxidative molecules. At controlled levels these compounds, notes the scientist, “activates protective proteins that safeguard mitochondria, protect cellular integrity and manage defective proteins.”

All of these mechanisms appear promising for treating a brain disease: antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and pro-autophagy – self-digestion mechanisms eliminating harmful elements.

Ongoing Study Progress and Specialist Evaluations

When recently reviewing 1070nm research for cognitive decline, he reports, about 400 people were taking part in four studies, incorporating his preliminary American studies