🔗 Share this article

Phototherapy is clearly enjoying a moment. There are now available light-emitting tools designed to address dermatological concerns and fine lines to muscle pain and gum disease, the newest innovation is a toothbrush outfitted with miniature red light sources, marketed by the company as “a major advance for domestic dental hygiene.” Worldwide, the sector valued at $1bn last year is expected to increase to $1.8bn within the next decade. There are even infrared saunas available, that employ light waves rather than traditional heat sources, your body is warmed directly by infrared light. As claimed by enthusiasts, the experience resembles using an LED facial mask, stimulating skin elasticity, relaxing muscles, reducing swelling and persistent medical issues while protecting against dementia.

Understanding the Evidence

“It sounds a bit like witchcraft,” notes Paul Chazot, a scientist who has studied phototherapy extensively. Naturally, certain impacts of light on human physiology are proven. Sunlight helps us make vitamin D, essential for skeletal strength, immune function, and muscular health. Light exposure controls our sleep-wake cycles, too, triggering the release of neurochemicals and hormones while we are awake, and winding down bodily functions for sleep as it fades into night. Sunlight-imitating lamps are a common remedy for people with seasonal affective disorder (Sad) to boost low mood in winter. So there’s no doubt we need light energy to function well.

Types of Light Therapy

Although mood lamps generally utilize blue-spectrum frequencies, the majority of phototherapy tools use red or near-infrared wavelengths. During advanced medical investigations, like examinations of infrared influence on cerebral tissue, determining the precise frequency is essential. Light constitutes electromagnetic energy, which runs the spectrum from the lowest-energy, longest wavelengths (radio waves) to the highest-energy (gamma waves). Therapeutic light application utilizes intermediate light frequencies, with ultraviolet representing the higher energy invisible light, then visible light (all the colours we see in a rainbow) and infrared light visible through night vision technology.

UV light has been used by medical dermatologists for many years to treat chronic skin conditions such as eczema, psoriasis and vitiligo. It affects cellular immune responses, “and dampens down inflammation,” notes a skin specialist. “Considerable data validates phototherapy.” UVA penetrates skin more deeply than UVB, while the LEDs in consumer devices (which generally deliver red, infrared or blue light) “typically have shallower penetration.”

Safety Protocols and Medical Guidance

Potential UVB consequences, like erythema or pigmentation, are well known but in medical devices the light is delivered in a “narrow-band” form – indicating limited wavelength spectrum – which decreases danger. “Treatment is monitored by medical staff, so the dosage is monitored,” notes the specialist. And crucially, the lightbulbs are calibrated by medical technicians, “to guarantee appropriate wavelength emission – unlike in tanning salons, where it’s a bit unregulated, and we don’t really know what wavelengths are being used.”

Consumer Devices and Evidence Gaps

Colored light diodes, he notes, “aren’t really used in the medical sense, but could assist with specific concerns.” Red light devices, some suggest, help boost blood circulation, oxygen utilization and skin cell regeneration, and promote collagen synthesis – an important goal for anti-aging. “The evidence is there,” states the dermatologist. “But it’s not conclusive.” Regardless, with numerous products on the market, “it’s unclear if device outputs match study parameters. Optimal treatment times are unknown, proper positioning requirements, if benefits outweigh potential risks. There are lots of questions.”

Treatment Areas and Specialist Views

Initial blue-light devices addressed acne bacteria, bacteria linked to pimples. Research support isn’t sufficient for standard medical recommendation – even though, says Ho, “it’s commonly used in cosmetic clinics.” Some of his patients use it as part of their routine, he mentions, though when purchasing home devices, “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.”

Cutting-Edge Studies and Biological Processes

At the same time, in advanced research areas, researchers have been testing neural cells, discovering multiple mechanisms for infrared’s cellular benefits. “Nearly every test with precise light frequencies demonstrated advantageous outcomes,” 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.

The scientist mainly develops medications for neurological conditions, though twenty years earlier, a GP who was developing an antiviral light treatment for cold sores sought his expertise as a biologist. “He developed equipment for cellular and insect experiments,” he explains. “I was quite suspicious. It was an unusual wavelength of about 1070 nanometres, that many assumed was biologically inert.”

The advantage it possessed, however, was that it travelled through water easily, allowing substantial bodily penetration.

Cellular Energy and Neurological Benefits

More evidence was emerging at the time that infrared light targeted the mitochondria in cells. Mitochondria are the powerhouses of cells, generating energy for them to function. “Mitochondria exist throughout the body, particularly in neural cells,” notes the researcher, 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.”

With 1070 treatment, mitochondria also produce a small amount of a molecule known as reactive oxygen species. In low doses this substance, notes the scientist, “triggers guardian proteins that maintain organelle health, protect cellular integrity and manage defective proteins.”

These processes show potential for neurological conditions: antioxidant, swelling control, and pro-autophagy – self-digestion mechanisms eliminating harmful elements.

Present Investigation Status and Expert Assessments

When recently reviewing 1070nm research for cognitive decline, he says, about 400 people were taking part in four studies, including his own initial clinical trials in the US