🔗 Share this article

Phototherapy is definitely experiencing a surge in popularity. Consumers can purchase glowing gadgets targeting issues like skin conditions and wrinkles to sore muscles and gum disease, recently introduced is an oral care tool equipped with miniature red light sources, marketed by the company as “a significant discovery in at-home oral care.” Worldwide, the industry reached $1 billion in 2024 and is forecast to expand to $1.8 billion by 2035. Options include full-body infrared sauna sessions, where instead of hot coals (real or electric) heating the air, the infrared radiation heats your body itself. As claimed by enthusiasts, it feels similar to a full-body light therapy session, boosting skin collagen, easing muscle tension, reducing swelling and long-term ailments while protecting against dementia.

Understanding the Evidence

“It sounds a bit like witchcraft,” says Paul Chazot, who has researched light therapy for two decades. Certainly, certain impacts of light on human physiology are proven. Sunlight helps us make vitamin D, crucial for strong bones, immune defense, and tissue repair. Sunlight regulates our circadian rhythms, as well, stimulating neurotransmitter and hormone production during daytime, and winding down bodily functions for sleep as it fades into night. Daylight-simulating devices are a common remedy for people with seasonal affective disorder (Sad) to boost low mood in winter. Undoubtedly, light plays a vital role in human health.

Types of Light Therapy

Whereas seasonal affective disorder devices typically employ blue-range light, most other light therapy devices deploy red or infrared light. In serious clinical research, including research on infrared’s impact on neural cells, finding the right frequency is key. Light is a form of electromagnetic radiation, extending from long-wavelength radiation to short-wavelength gamma rays. Therapeutic light application utilizes intermediate light frequencies, including invisible ultraviolet radiation, then the visible spectrum we perceive as colors and then infrared (which we can see with night-vision goggles).

Ultraviolet treatment has been employed by skin specialists for decades to manage persistent skin disorders including eczema and psoriasis. It affects cellular immune responses, “and dampens down inflammation,” notes a skin specialist. “There’s lots of evidence for phototherapy.” UVA penetrates skin more deeply than UVB, while the LEDs in consumer devices (typically emitting red, infrared or blue wavelengths) “generally affect surface layers.”

Risk Assessment and Professional Supervision

Potential UVB consequences, such as burning or tanning, are understood but clinical devices employ restricted wavelength ranges – indicating limited wavelength spectrum – that reduces potential hazards. “Treatment is monitored by medical staff, thus exposure is controlled,” says Ho. And crucially, the lightbulbs are calibrated by medical technicians, “to confirm suitable light frequency output – different from beauty salons, where regulations may be lax, and we don’t really know what wavelengths are being used.”

Commercial Products and Research Limitations

Colored light diodes, he says, “aren’t typically employed clinically, but they may help with certain conditions.” Red light devices, some suggest, enhance blood flow, oxygen uptake and skin cell regeneration, and stimulate collagen production – a key aspiration in anti-ageing effects. “Studies are available,” comments the expert. “But it’s not conclusive.” In any case, with numerous products on the market, “we’re uncertain whether commercial devices replicate research conditions. Optimal treatment times are unknown, how close the lights should be to the skin, the risk-benefit ratio. There are lots of questions.”

Targeted Uses and Expert Opinions

Initial blue-light devices addressed acne bacteria, a microbe associated with acne. Research support isn’t sufficient for standard medical recommendation – even though, explains the specialist, “it’s often seen in medical spas or aesthetics practices.” Individuals include it in their skincare practices, he mentions, but if they’re buying a device for home use, “we recommend careful testing and security confirmation. Unless it’s a medical device, standards are somewhat unclear.”

Advanced Research and Cellular Mechanisms

At the same time, in a far-flung field of pioneering medical science, Chazot has been experimenting with brain cells, identifying a number of ways in which infrared can boost cellular health. “Virtually all experiments with specific wavelengths showed beneficial and safeguarding effects,” he states. The numerous reported benefits have generated doubt regarding phototherapy – that it’s too good to be true. Yet, experimental evidence has transformed his viewpoint.

The researcher primarily focuses on pharmaceutical solutions for brain disorders, 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 says. “I was quite suspicious. The specific wavelength measured approximately 1070nm, which most thought had no biological effect.”

What it did have going for it, however, was its ability to transmit through aqueous environments, meaning it could penetrate the body more deeply.

Cellular Energy and Neurological Benefits

Growing data suggested infrared influenced energy-producing organelles. These organelles generate cellular energy, producing fuel for biological processes. “Mitochondria exist throughout the body, including the brain,” notes the researcher, who concentrated on cerebral applications. “It has been shown that in humans this light therapy increases blood flow into the brain, which is always very good.”

Using 1070nm wavelength, energy organelles generate minimal reactive oxygen compounds. In low doses this substance, notes the scientist, “activates protective proteins that safeguard mitochondria, preserve cell function and eliminate damaged proteins.”

Such mechanisms indicate hope for cognitive disorders: oxidative protection, swelling control, and cellular cleanup – autophagy representing cellular waste disposal.

Present Investigation Status and Expert Assessments

The last time Chazot checked the literature on using the 1070 wavelength on human dementia patients, he says, several hundred individuals participated in various investigations, comprising his early research projects