Does Red Light Therapy Work?

red light therapyNow you see red light therapy everywhere- on TV, in doctors’ offices, in med-spas. Despite its growing popularity and glowing reviews, only one questions really matters. Does red light therapy work?

The answer: yes and no. Does red light therapy for pain or skin rejuvenation work? Yes. Does red light therapy work for promoting hair growth? Yes. Red light therapy, a type of Low Level Light Therapy (LLLT) has been found to be effective for many different conditions. Is LLLT effective for everyone? No. Is it some sort of new cure-all? No. So as you can see, the question does red light therapy work doesn’t have a simple answer.

Does Red Light Therapy Work for Pain Relief?

Yes, there is evidence that LLLT, in particular red light therapy, can temporarily relieve pain and speed up the healing process. The initial effect of pain relief usually lasts for several hours.

LLLT is easy to use and may be combined with other treatments (such as pain medication), making it an ideal adjunct treatment. It’s always advisable to consult your doctor before adding any sort of new treatment and LLLT is no exception. If your doctor approves, LLLT can be an excellent addition to your pain management plan.

Does Red Light Therapy Work for Skin Care?

Yes, in most (but not all) cases, LLLT in the form of red light therapy is very helpful for skin issues. Skin rejuvenation, acne, acne scars and stretch marks are some of the most popular uses for LLLT.

Red light therapy usually works for reducing wrinkles and fine lines. You can multiply this benefit by using other types of light therapy, especially near infrared therapy. If you can spend a little time in a near infrared sauna AND you use LLLT, you’ll be golden. Not tan. What I mean to say is that you will look fantastic! Red light therapy and near infrared exposure improves skin elasticity. Red light therapy also increases collagen production.

Red light therapy works on most people to trigger collagen repair, healing and restoration of the skin. Sagging skin tightens and regains some of its plumpness. Under eye circles due to aging may be improved if they are caused by the skin thinning in the under eye area (letting the blue veins show through).

Another effect of LLLT is that it can improve scars, although the degree to which it helps seems to vary from person to person.

What Does Red Light Therapy Work For?

Red light therapy has been used for these skin problems:

  •  Improve fine lines and wrinkles– yes
  •  Heal acne scars- yes, although the effect varies
  •  Make skin look tighter, smoother and plumper- yes
  •  Encourage the production of new collagen– yes, LLLT has been well studied for its effects on collagen
  •  Heal or prevent blemishes- yes, for the majority of people
  •  Reduce skin redness and inflammation- yes
  •  Heal scars from burns or cuts- yes, although the result varies.

Red light therapy works for other conditions as well. In one study published in Photomedicine and Laser Surgery, scientists determined that for angiogenesis (the development of new blood vessels), low level lasers and LED light sources were equally effective.

A study published in Lasers in Medical Science found that LED-based red light therapy was effective for increasing periodontal bone levels and concluded that “collagen matrix deposition and realignment appeared to be accelerated” in rats. (2)

But How Does Red Light Therapy Work?

Scientists have known for a long time that light affects the human body. We produce vitamin D when we are exposed to sunlight. And we wouldn’t be able to see if it wasn’t for the way light affects our eyes. So it isn’t surprising that researchers have discovered that LLLT, including red light therapy, has an effect on our bodies.

Overall, scientists don’t agree on an explanation for how LLLT works. Yet it is clear that light at certain wavelengths gives your skin the energy it needs to repair itself. Placing a powerful source of light of the proper wavelength close to the skin cells transfers to them the energy they need to carry out their repair processes. Cellular energy is the rate-limiting factor in many processes, so this infusion of “free” energy can be put to use right away in most cases.

Dermatologists used to believe that the skin stops repairing itself after a certain age, but this has turned out to be incorrect. We now understand that the skin constantly works to repair itself- it’s just that as we age, it’s not so easy for energy to get to our skin cells anymore. LLLT appears to donate energy to cells, which is increasingly useful the older a person is.

Red light therapy is being used in doctors’ offices and spas with promises that it relieves pain, promotes healing and reverses the signs of aging, among other things. It’s natural to be skeptical that such a simple idea could possibly be effective. The most important thing you need to know before considering whether red light therapy is right for you is: does red light therapy work? And the answer is that for most people, yes, it does.

Benefits of Sauna Bathing

sauna bathingHere, I’m going to talk about the benefits of sauna treatments (often called sauna bathing) in general, although personally I have a strong preference for near infrared saunas because they take the benefits of sauna bathing and add the benefits of light-based therapy. The benefits of sauna bathing are many-fold.

Biggest Benefit of Sauna Bathing: Sweating

Saunas can be up to 180 degrees, which quickly induces profuse sweating. But what are the benefits of sauna-induced sweating? For starters, sweating is one of the body’s methods for removing toxins. Many people don’t sweat much at all, so this kind of sweating can really make an impact. Of course, your body removes many toxins through the urine and feces. But considering the vast surface area of the skin, sweating in a sauna offers a boost in detoxification. Some toxins/waste products’ primary route of elimination is through the sweat.

Some of those toxins are heavy and toxic metals. In a University of Connecticut School of Medicine study published in Clinical Chemisty, researchers found that “sweating is a demonstrably significant route for excretion of trace metals, and sweating may play a role in trace-metal homeostasis.” The researchers concluded that sauna bathing could “provide a therapeutic method to increase elimination of toxic trace metals.”

Sweating in a sauna helps the body naturally remove toxic metals such as lead and cadmium. This has been documented in numerous studies, including this one, in which researchers found that sauna bathers excreted significant amounts of zinc, lead, copper and cadmium during sauna sweating. As an aside, they also found that among the women in their study, those taking oral contraceptives excreted more copper and lead than women who weren’t.

If you’d like to read more about the arsenic, cadmium, mercury and lead excreted during sweating/sauna bathing, check out this comprehensive review done by Canadian researchers. If you scroll down to Section 3.1, they give a listing of studies done on arsenic, cadmium, mercury and lead excretion.

Other research from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine has shown that when it comes to the body’s regulating of amino acids, sweating plays an important role in the excretory system. Upon analyzing sweat collected from sauna bathers, the evidence showed that some amino acids are eliminated almost entirely through sweat. The scientists of this study concluded that the “mechanisms controlling excretion of amino acids in sweat differ fundamentally from those regulating renal excretion of amino acids.”

study from researchers in Warsaw compared the loss of certain nitrogen compounds in sauna bathers’ sweat to blood concentrations of the same compounds and published the results in the Polish Medical Weekly. They found that in the sweat they collected:

  • Concentrations of ammonia were 77 times higher than blood levels. Interestingly, they also found that after 30 minutes in a sauna, plasma levels of ammonia increased 60%. Sauna bathing appears to trigger a detoxification reaction in the body.
  • Levels of urea in the sweat were 3.5 times higher than plasma levels.
  • Concentrations of creatinine were nearly twice as high as blood concentrations.

Sweating in a sauna has long been associated with beautiful, glowing skin. Sauna treatments make the skin softer and healthier looking.

Second Biggest Benefit of Sauna Bathing: Heat

No matter which type of sauna you choose, it’s going to be hot in there! The temperature itself is a benefit of sauna bathing.

The reason? Heat kills germs. The body’s natural response during an infection is to raise its temperature and cause a fever. The reason it does this is because many germs cannot survive the heat. They also tend to be inhibited the hotter their environment becomes. This gives the immune system a leg up.

For those with infections, this could be a huge benefit of sauna bathing. Personally, whenever I feel an infection coming on, the sauna is the where I head. For me, sinus and airway infections have been particularly helped by sauna heat. And of course, it also helps with the diseases that got me into saunas in the first place- Lyme disease and co-infections.

The heat is well known to relax muscles as well. When you are tired or have a back ache, a sauna bath can help ease tension and make you more comfortable. Sauna heat also helps make stiff joints more flexible.

Heat also causes vasodilation, an increase in blood vessel size. Circulation is greatly enhanced by the heat. Blood flow is generally good. (You know, if you’re alive and all.) In addition to bringing needed nutrients to all parts of the body, it encourages oxygenation and allows for toxins and waste products to be removed.

One thing the sauna heat is not good for is your hair. Wrap your hair up in a towel before using the sauna.

More Benefits of Sauna Bathing: Enhanced Immunity

study from the University of Iowa College of Medicine found that sauna bathing caused the release of Interleukin-1 from the sweat glands. Interleukin-1 is a cell-signaling protein that is vital to the body’s response to infection. It appears that one benefit of sauna bathing could be that it triggers a type of immune system response.

Other research points to this conclusion as well. For instance, a study done by the Shiseido Company found that human sweat contains kininase II and kallikrein, two blood proteins involved in inflammation and pain responses (among other things).

Benefits of Sauna Bathing using Near Infrared Saunas

The benefits of sauna bathing I mention from here on out are specific to near infrared saunas. These are my favorite type of sauna, since they multi-task. You can do infrared light therapy and sauna treatment at the same time.

Near infrared saunas work a bit differently than furnace heated saunas. While they do make you sweat, the temperature of the air in the sauna will be lower than that of other types of saunas. That is because instead of heating the air in an effort to heat you, near infrared saunas use infrared light to heat you up directly. You can compare these two types of heating like this: furnace saunas heat you up the same way an oven would, while near infrared saunas heat you up the way the sun would on a hot day.

While you are sweating (it’s not as uncomfortable as it sounds- sauna heat is so dry) in a near infrared sauna, your body is taking in the infrared waves, which have the benefits of a sauna and more. Infrared light has been shown to temporarily relieve pain and to speed up the body’s own healing process…some experts say infrared light can speed up healing by 60-80%. In animals, infrared light can speed healing by up to 100%.

The benefits of sauna bathing using a near infrared sauna are becoming more well known and as a result, these types of saunas are becoming more popular. Many people are building their own sauna of this type.

Anti-Aging and Red Light Therapy

anti-aging and red light therapyIn studies, red light therapy has been shown to greatly speed up skin healing and repair. It is not clear exactly how it works, but it seems to have multiple effects at the cellular level. It appears to increase the amount of energy available to the cell, and this is key in reversing aging of the skin.

 

The two main culprits of skin sagging, thinning, discoloration and wrinkling are damage from UV rays and a slowing metabolism.

The body does have cells working constantly to repair the skin, but they don’t work as well as we age. This decrease in functioning isn’t from wear and tear on those cells, though. It’s because the cells receive less and less energy due to our slowing metabolism. Over time, not only does our metabolism slow, blood flow to the cell decreases. The slower a person’s metabolism or the worse her circulation, the more signs of aging typically appear.

The skin has cells called fibroblasts that are responsible for producing collagen and elastin. As we get older, not only does a fibroblast’s work load get bigger, but our slowing metabolism deprives it of the energy it needs to function to the best of its ability. So even though the aging fibroblast can produce lots of collagen and elastin, it doesn’t because it doesn’t get enough energy.

Part of the solution, then, is getting adequate energy to skin cells. Enter red light therapy, which is believed to work by increasing the energy available to cells.

Another issue is that aging skin produces larger quantities of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP), an enzyme that destroys the structure that makes the skin look firm, plump and tight. The more MMP the skin produces, the more its collagen and elastin weaken and break down.

To add insult to injury, MMP also degrades dentin, contributing to the natural darkening or yellowing of the teeth that occurs with aging.

Red light therapy, because of its ability to energize cells, can be helpful in reversing aging. It provides the needed energy to repair the damage that occurs in the normal course of aging. Indeed, anti-aging related skin care is one of the most popular uses for light therapy, particularly red light therapy and near infrared light therapy.

 

About

anti-aging and red light therapyI first learned about red light therapy, low level light therapy, and near-infrared saunas researching ways I could help myself deal with Lyme disease and co-infections. As I incorporated my findings into my treatment, I improved a great deal. But back then, these therapies weren’t cheap. Devices for at-home use started at $200. Full-body treatments required $8K and weeks-long stay in Germany. Such high costs put these valuable therapies outside the reach of many people.

I strongly felt that red light therapy and other forms of LLLT should be more affordable and more people should know about them. These beliefs ultimately led me to start a business and to start this website. My hope is that more people will learn how red light therapy, LLLT and near-infrared saunas can help them. And since I know many people believe “pics or it didn’t happen”, I have posted before and after red light therapy photos of various problems LLLT has helped me with.

This site is part of my efforts to spread the word about LLLT and sauna therapy. Everything stated here is strictly my own opinion or the opinion of the article’s author. I am not a medical professional. Nothing mentioned on this site should be taken as medical advice. Instead, I invite you to consider the information you read here as a starting point for your own research and for discussing the matter with your doctor.

I hope you will find this site interesting and helpful.

– Bambi