🔗 Share this article

Light-based treatment is certainly having a wave of attention. You can now buy light-emitting tools targeting issues like dermatological concerns and fine lines to aching tissues and gum disease, recently introduced is a dental hygiene device outfitted with small red light diodes, promoted by the creators as “a significant discovery for domestic dental hygiene.” Internationally, the market was worth $1bn in 2024 and is projected to grow to $1.8bn by 2035. Options include full-body infrared sauna sessions, which use infrared light to warm the body directly, the thermal energy targets your tissues immediately. Based on supporter testimonials, it feels similar to a full-body light therapy session, stimulating skin elasticity, easing muscle tension, alleviating inflammatory responses and chronic health conditions as well as supporting brain health.

Understanding the Evidence

“It feels almost magical,” says a neuroscience expert, who has researched light therapy for two decades. Naturally, we know light influences biological functions. Sunlight enables vitamin D production, essential for skeletal strength, immune function, and muscular health. Light exposure controls our sleep-wake cycles, additionally, stimulating neurotransmitter and hormone production during daytime, and winding down bodily functions for sleep as it fades into night. Daylight-simulating devices are standard treatment for winter mood disorders to combat seasonal emotional slumps. So there’s no doubt we need light energy to function well.

Types of Light Therapy

While Sad lamps tend to use a mixture of light frequencies from the blue end of the spectrum, most other light therapy devices deploy red or infrared light. In rigorous scientific studies, like examinations of infrared influence on cerebral tissue, determining the precise frequency is essential. Photons represent electromagnetic waves, which runs the spectrum from the lowest-energy, longest wavelengths (radio waves) to short-wavelength gamma rays. Light-based treatment uses wavelengths around the middle of this spectrum, the highest energy of those being invisible ultraviolet, then the visible spectrum we perceive as colors and finally infrared detectable with special equipment.

Dermatologists have utilized UV therapy for extensive periods to treat chronic skin conditions such as eczema, psoriasis and vitiligo. It works on the immune system within cells, “and reduces inflammatory processes,” explains Dr Bernard Ho. “There’s lots of evidence for phototherapy.” UVA reaches deeper skin layers compared to UVB, in contrast to LEDs in commercial products (typically emitting red, infrared or blue wavelengths) “tend to be a bit more superficial.”

Safety Considerations and Medical Oversight

UVB radiation effects, including sunburn or skin darkening, are recognized but medical equipment uses controlled narrow-band delivery – meaning smaller wavelengths – which decreases danger. “Therapy is overseen by qualified practitioners, thus exposure is controlled,” notes the specialist. Most importantly, the lightbulbs are calibrated by medical technicians, “to guarantee appropriate wavelength emission – different from beauty salons, where oversight might be limited, and we don’t really know what wavelengths are being used.”

Commercial Products and Research Limitations

Red and blue LEDs, he explains, “aren’t really used in the medical sense, though they might benefit some issues.” Red LEDs, it is proposed, help boost blood circulation, oxygen absorption and dermal rejuvenation, and stimulate collagen production – a key aspiration in anti-ageing effects. “Research exists,” states the dermatologist. “But it’s not conclusive.” Nevertheless, with numerous products on the market, “it’s unclear if device outputs match study parameters. Appropriate exposure periods aren’t established, how close the lights should be to the skin, whether or not that will increase the risk versus the benefit. Numerous concerns persist.”

Treatment Areas and Specialist Views

Early blue-light applications focused on skin microbes, microorganisms connected to breakouts. The evidence for its efficacy isn’t strong enough for it to be routinely prescribed by doctors – despite the fact that, says Ho, “it’s commonly used in cosmetic clinics.” Certain patients incorporate it into their regimen, he observes, though when purchasing home devices, “we advise cautious experimentation and safety verification. If it’s not medically certified, oversight remains ambiguous.”

Innovative Investigations and Molecular Effects

Simultaneously, in innovative scientific domains, researchers have been testing neural cells, revealing various pathways for light-enhanced cell function. “Nearly every test with precise light frequencies demonstrated advantageous outcomes,” he says. Multiple claimed advantages have created skepticism toward light treatment – that it’s too good to be true. However, scientific investigation has altered his perspective.

The scientist mainly develops medications for neurological conditions, however two decades past, a physician creating light-based cold sore therapy requested his biological knowledge. “He created some devices so that we could work with them with cells and with fruit flies,” he says. “I remained doubtful. The specific wavelength measured approximately 1070nm, that many assumed was biologically inert.”

Its beneficial characteristic, though, was that it travelled through water easily, allowing substantial bodily penetration.

Cellular Energy and Neurological Benefits

Growing data suggested infrared influenced energy-producing organelles. Mitochondria are the powerhouses of cells, generating energy for them to function. “Every cell in your body has mitochondria, particularly in neural cells,” explains the neuroscientist, who, as a neuroscientist, decided to focus the research on brain cells. “Research confirms improved brain blood flow with phototherapy, which is always very good.”

With 1070 treatment, energy organelles generate minimal reactive oxygen compounds. In low doses this substance, says Chazot, “triggers guardian proteins that maintain organelle health, look after your cells and also deal with the unwanted proteins.”

Such mechanisms indicate hope for cognitive disorders: free radical neutralization, inflammation reduction, and pro-autophagy – autophagy representing cellular waste disposal.

Ongoing Study Progress and Specialist Evaluations

The last time Chazot checked the literature on using the 1070 wavelength on human dementia patients, he says, approximately 400 participants enrolled in multiple trials, comprising his early research projects