🔗 Share this article

Phototherapy is clearly enjoying a surge in popularity. You can now buy illuminated devices for everything from skin conditions and wrinkles as well as sore muscles and oral inflammation, recently introduced is a toothbrush equipped with miniature red light sources, promoted by the creators as “a major advance for domestic dental hygiene.” Globally, the sector valued at $1bn last year is expected to increase to $1.8bn within the next decade. Options include full-body infrared sauna sessions, which use infrared light to warm the body directly, the infrared radiation heats your body itself. Based on supporter testimonials, it’s like bathing in one of those LED-lit beauty masks, stimulating skin elasticity, relaxing muscles, alleviating inflammatory responses and chronic health conditions while protecting against dementia.

Understanding the Evidence

“It sounds a bit like witchcraft,” notes Paul Chazot, professor in neuroscience at Durham University and a convert to the value of light therapy. 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. Sunlight regulates our circadian rhythms, additionally, stimulating neurotransmitter and hormone production during daytime, and signaling the body to slow down for nighttime. 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.

Various Phototherapy Approaches

Although mood lamps generally utilize blue-spectrum frequencies, most other light therapy devices deploy red or infrared light. During advanced medical investigations, including research on infrared’s impact on neural cells, determining the precise frequency is essential. Light is a form of electromagnetic radiation, extending from long-wavelength radiation to short-wavelength gamma rays. Therapeutic light application employs mid-spectrum wavelengths, the highest energy of those being invisible ultraviolet, then the visible spectrum we perceive as colors and finally infrared detectable with special equipment.

Ultraviolet treatment has been employed by skin specialists for decades to manage persistent skin disorders including eczema and psoriasis. It modulates intracellular immune mechanisms, “and reduces inflammatory processes,” notes Dr Bernard Ho. “Substantial research supports light therapy.” UVA reaches deeper skin layers compared to UVB, whereas the LEDs we see on consumer light-therapy devices (which generally deliver red, infrared or blue light) “tend to be a bit more superficial.”

Safety Considerations and Medical Oversight

The side-effects of UVB exposure, like erythema or pigmentation, are well known but in medical devices the light is delivered in a “narrow-band” form – signifying focused frequency bands – that reduces potential hazards. “Therapy is overseen by qualified practitioners, so the dosage is monitored,” notes the specialist. And crucially, the lightbulbs are calibrated by medical technicians, “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 we don’t really know what wavelengths are being used.”

Home Devices and Scientific Uncertainty

Colored light diodes, he explains, “aren’t really used in the medical sense, but they may help with certain conditions.” Red LEDs, it is proposed, enhance blood flow, oxygen uptake and cell renewal in the skin, and stimulate collagen production – an important goal for anti-aging. “Studies are available,” comments the expert. “However, it’s limited.” Nevertheless, given the plethora of available tools, “we don’t know whether or not the lights emitted are reflective of the research that has been done. We don’t know the duration, ideal distance from skin surface, if benefits outweigh potential risks. There are lots of questions.”

Treatment Areas and Specialist Views

Initial blue-light devices addressed acne bacteria, microorganisms connected to breakouts. Scientific backing remains inadequate for regular prescription – despite the fact that, notes the dermatologist, “it’s often seen in medical spas or aesthetics practices.” Individuals include it in their skincare practices, he says, though when purchasing home devices, “we just tell them to try it carefully and to make sure it has been assessed for safety. If it’s not medically certified, oversight remains ambiguous.”

Innovative Investigations and Molecular Effects

Meanwhile, in a far-flung field of pioneering medical science, researchers have been testing neural 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 reports. The numerous reported benefits have generated doubt regarding phototherapy – that claims seem exaggerated. However, scientific investigation has altered his perspective.

Chazot mostly works on developing drug treatments for neurodegenerative diseases, but over 20 years ago, 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. This particular frequency was around 1070 nanometers, that many assumed was biologically inert.”

The advantage it possessed, though, was its efficient water penetration, enabling deeper tissue penetration.

Mitochondrial Impact and Cognitive Support

Additional research indicated infrared affected cellular mitochondria. Mitochondria produce ATP for cell function, creating power for cellular operations. “Every cell in your body has mitochondria, even within brain tissue,” explains the neuroscientist, who, as a neuroscientist, decided to focus the research on brain cells. “Studies demonstrate enhanced cerebral circulation with light treatment, which is always very good.”

Using 1070nm wavelength, energy organelles generate minimal reactive oxygen compounds. In limited quantities these molecules, notes the scientist, “stimulates so-called chaperone proteins which look after your mitochondria, preserve cell function and eliminate damaged proteins.”

All of these mechanisms appear promising for treating a brain disease: oxidative protection, anti-inflammatory, and pro-autophagy – autophagy being the process the cell uses to clear unwanted damaging proteins.

Current Research Status and Professional Opinions

Upon examining current studies on light therapy for dementia, he states, several hundred individuals participated in various investigations, incorporating his preliminary American studies