🔗 Share this article

Phototherapy is clearly enjoying a wave of attention. There are now available light-emitting tools designed to address skin conditions and wrinkles as well as aching tissues and gum disease, the latest being an oral care tool enhanced with small red light diodes, marketed by the company as “a major advance in personal mouth health.” Internationally, the industry reached $1 billion in 2024 and is forecast to expand to $1.8 billion by 2035. You can even go and sit in an infrared sauna, where instead of hot coals (real or electric) heating the air, your body is warmed directly by infrared light. According to its devotees, the experience resembles using an LED facial mask, stimulating skin elasticity, relaxing muscles, reducing swelling and chronic health conditions as well as supporting brain health.

Understanding the Evidence

“It sounds a bit like witchcraft,” says a neuroscience expert, a scientist who has studied phototherapy extensively. Certainly, we know light influences biological functions. Our bodies produce vitamin D through sun exposure, crucial for strong bones, immune defense, and tissue repair. Natural light synchronizes our biological clocks, additionally, triggering the release of neurochemicals and hormones while we are awake, and signaling the body to slow down for nighttime. Artificial sun lamps are standard treatment for winter mood disorders to elevate spirits during colder months. 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, the majority of phototherapy tools use red or near-infrared wavelengths. During advanced medical investigations, like examinations of infrared influence on cerebral tissue, finding the right frequency is key. Photons represent electromagnetic waves, which runs the spectrum from the lowest-energy, longest wavelengths (radio waves) to the highest-energy (gamma waves). Phototherapy, or light therapy 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 infrared light visible through night vision technology.

Dermatologists have utilized UV therapy for extensive periods to manage persistent skin disorders including eczema and psoriasis. It modulates intracellular immune mechanisms, “and reduces inflammatory processes,” notes a skin specialist. “Substantial research supports light therapy.” UVA penetrates skin more deeply than UVB, whereas the LEDs we see on consumer light-therapy devices (typically emitting red, infrared or blue wavelengths) “typically have shallower penetration.”

Safety Protocols and Medical Guidance

Potential UVB consequences, including sunburn or skin darkening, are understood but clinical devices employ restricted wavelength ranges – indicating limited wavelength spectrum – that reduces potential hazards. “It’s supervised by a healthcare professional, so the dosage is monitored,” explains the dermatologist. And crucially, the light sources are adjusted by technical experts, “to guarantee appropriate wavelength emission – as opposed to commercial tanning facilities, where regulations may be lax, and wavelength accuracy isn’t verified.”

Home Devices and Scientific Uncertainty

Colored light diodes, he notes, “aren’t typically employed clinically, but could assist with specific concerns.” Red LEDs, it is proposed, enhance blood flow, oxygen absorption and skin cell regeneration, and stimulate collagen production – an important goal for anti-aging. “Research exists,” comments the expert. “Although it’s not strong.” Regardless, with numerous products on the market, “it’s unclear if device outputs match study parameters. We don’t know the duration, ideal distance from skin surface, the risk-benefit ratio. Numerous concerns persist.”

Targeted Uses and Expert Opinions

Early blue-light applications focused on skin microbes, bacteria linked to pimples. The evidence for its efficacy isn’t strong enough for it to be routinely prescribed by doctors – although, notes the dermatologist, “it’s commonly used in cosmetic clinics.” Individuals include it in their skincare practices, he mentions, but if they’re buying a device for home use, “we advise cautious experimentation and safety verification. Without proper medical classification, the regulation is a bit grey.”

Advanced Research and Cellular Mechanisms

Meanwhile, in innovative scientific domains, researchers have been testing neural 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 reports. The numerous reported benefits have generated doubt regarding phototherapy – that it’s too good to be true. Yet, experimental evidence has transformed his viewpoint.

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 developed equipment for cellular and insect experiments,” he explains. “I was quite suspicious. The specific wavelength measured approximately 1070nm, that many assumed was biologically inert.”

Its beneficial characteristic, nevertheless, was its efficient water penetration, meaning it could penetrate the body more deeply.

Mitochondrial Effects and Brain Health

Growing data suggested infrared influenced energy-producing organelles. Mitochondria are the powerhouses of cells, creating power for cellular operations. “Every cell in your body has mitochondria, including the brain,” 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, energy organelles generate minimal reactive oxygen compounds. In limited quantities these molecules, explains the expert, “stimulates so-called chaperone proteins which look after your mitochondria, look after your cells and also deal with the unwanted proteins.”

Such mechanisms indicate hope for cognitive disorders: oxidative protection, inflammation reduction, and waste removal – 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