Red Light Therapy: A Simple Tool With Promising Reach

My Body

May 27

Written By Joy Stephenson-Laws, JD, Founder

(Updated 6/9/2026)

By Joy Stephenson-Laws, JD, Founder

The more I learn about red light therapy, the more I want to talk about it. Not because it is magic, because it isn't, but because it is one of the more interesting tools sitting where wellness and medicine meet, and there is real research behind it. It is not a cure-all. The science is stronger for some uses than others. But it is worth your attention, and I want to walk you through it honestly.

Let me start with what it actually is. Red light therapy, also called photobiomodulation or low-level light therapy, uses red and near-infrared wavelengths of light. These are not ultraviolet, or UV, rays. UV is the part of sunlight most strongly tied to skin damage and skin cancer, and it is what you soak up from the midday sun or a tanning bed. Red light therapy does not use UV at all. That said, this is not a "more is always better" situation. Dose, device quality, and eye protection still matter, and I will come back to that.

The research that caught my attention

The work that pulled me in is in spinal cord injury. This is still an emerging field, so I want to be careful with it, but the early findings are exciting.

Researchers at the University of Birmingham studied red light in models of spinal cord injury. In cell studies, red light at 660 nanometers for one minute a day increased nerve-cell viability by 45% over five days, and it appeared to support nerve-cell growth. In animal models, daily treatment was linked with less scarring at the injury site, fewer cavities in the damaged tissue, and better functional recovery.

Here is the part that matters most, and the part a lot of wellness marketing quietly skips. This is not the same as lying in a red light bed at a spa. For spinal cord injury, researchers are delivering carefully measured light directly to, or right next to, injured cord tissue. The Birmingham team is working toward a device that could one day be implanted during spinal surgery, but that device is still in development. It is not something a patient can get today.

The human evidence is starting to catch up, and it is honest about its own limits. A multicenter randomized trial published in early 2026 tested photobiomodulation as an add-on after decompression surgery in adults with acute incomplete cervical spinal cord injury. It used 810 nanometer light delivered through a fiber placed near the exposed spinal cord for seven days. Patients who received the light had better motor scores at about two weeks and three months. By six and twelve months, that advantage was no longer statistically significant, and walking rates were similar between the groups by the one-year mark. No device-related serious side effects were reported. I read that as a real and early signal worth pursuing, not as proof that red light fixes spinal cord injuries. We are not there yet.

Why this matters

According to the World Health Organization, more than 15 million people worldwide are living with spinal cord injury. WHO also reports that life expectancy after such an injury is strongly connected to neurological impairment and to preventable secondary complications.

I want to be precise here, because it would be easy to overreach. Red light therapy has not been shown to extend life expectancy in people with spinal cord injury. What the research suggests is narrower and still worth caring about. Any therapy that might safely improve neurological recovery or protect tissue in those first critical weeks deserves serious study, and that is exactly where this sits. It may become part of future spinal cord injury care if larger trials show the benefits hold. The direction is promising. We are watching it, not banking on it.

How red light may actually work

Most of the interest comes down to your mitochondria. You may remember these as the powerhouses of the cell. They make ATP, the energy your cells run on.

The leading explanation is that red and near-infrared light is absorbed by a light-sensitive enzyme in your mitochondria called cytochrome c oxidase, which gives energy production a gentle nudge and influences inflammation and repair along the way. I say "leading explanation" on purpose. The mechanism is not fully settled. But mitochondrial signaling is one of the best-studied ideas we have, and it is why the same therapy keeps turning up in research on skin, wound healing, pain, nerve injury, and muscle recovery.

You don't need a spinal cord injury to be interested

Almost nobody using red light therapy is using it for spinal cord injury. Most people come to it for their skin, their hair, sore joints, muscle recovery, or general wellness support. That is the version most of us will ever touch.

The evidence here is mixed but promising, and I want to give it to you straight. The American Academy of Dermatology recognizes red light for skin concerns and hair loss, usually as a complementary therapy rather than a stand-alone cure. Some devices are FDA-cleared for specific uses, though "FDA-cleared" does not mean every claim you read online is proven.

A 2025 umbrella review pulled together fifteen meta-analyses of randomized trials, covering more than 9,000 people. It found real, statistically significant effects for a number of conditions. The strongest of those, rated at moderate certainty, were pain in burning mouth syndrome, disability in knee osteoarthritis, fatigue in fibromyalgia, hair density in androgenetic alopecia, and cognitive function. Other uses, such as diabetic foot ulcers, showed benefit but at lower certainty, and no outcome reached high-certainty evidence. In plain language, red light therapy looks promising across a lot of conditions, the details and the dosing matter a great deal, and we still need better studies.

In my own routine, red light therapy has helped my skin, my hair, and the joint discomfort I have earned from decades of golf. I will be straight with you that this is my personal experience, not proof that you will respond the same way.

There is also early research worth mentioning. A small study in healthy adults found that 670 nanometer red light before a sugary drink lowered the rise in blood sugar afterward. That is interesting, but it does not make red light a diabetes treatment. And a 2024 systematic review on multiple sclerosis found promising early signals while stressing that we need standardized protocols and long-term data before drawing firm conclusions. Promising is the right word for both of these, and proven is not yet.

What NASA actually adds

You have probably heard red light therapy described as "NASA technology," so let me put that in proportion. NASA-supported work with LEDs began with growing plants in space, then expanded into medical research on wound healing and tissue repair. That research did help move the field forward. What it does not do is bless every red light gadget or every wellness claim attached to one. Wavelength, intensity, dose, and what you are actually trying to treat all still matter.

The history is still pretty wonderful. If light was interesting enough to study in the extreme conditions of spaceflight, it makes sense that researchers are still exploring how it can help us heal down here.

A few honest safety notes

Red light therapy is generally considered low-risk when it is used short-term and as directed. It does not use UV, and dermatology sources note it has not been found to cause skin cancer the way UV radiation can. But low-risk is not the same as risk-free, and we do not yet fully understand the long-term effects or the ideal dose for every condition.

So use common sense. Wear the eye protection your device calls for, do not stare into high-output lights, and follow the recommended time and distance. More is not better.

And please check with a qualified healthcare professional first if you are pregnant or nursing, if you take medications that make you sensitive to light, if you have a light-sensitive condition such as lupus, if you have active cancer, or if you have an eye condition or recent eye surgery. The American Academy of Dermatology specifically recommends medical guidance for anyone with light-sensitive conditions or on medications that increase light sensitivity. When in doubt, ask first.

Most important of all, red light therapy is a support tool, not a replacement for real medical care. It does not stand in for diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation, medication, surgery, nutrition, or physical therapy when you need them.

Where to start

At Proactive Health Labs, red light therapy is one of the services we offer at both of our locations, on the TheraLight 360 bed. I want to be transparent about that, because I am enthusiastic about something we provide. I see it as a supportive wellness tool. I do not see it as a miracle, and it is certainly not a spinal cord injury therapy. You can learn more and book a session here: https://www.phdriplab.com/red-light-therapy.

If you are curious, my advice is simple. Learn what it can and cannot do, use it consistently but sensibly, and make it one piece of a bigger plan rather than the whole plan.

Because the bigger plan is still what carries you. Good nutrition, movement, sleep, and stress management do the heavy lifting for healing, inflammation, and long-term prevention, and I always recommend routine nutrient testing so you actually know what your body is working with. If a deficiency or imbalance turns up, that is good news, because now you can do something about it through food, targeted supplementation, and the guidance of a professional you trust.

Enjoy your healthy life.

Sources and Resources

Research cited in this article

University of Birmingham, "Red light therapy for repairing spinal cord injury passes milestone" (2024); cell and animal-model research published in Bioengineering & Translational Medicine. https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2024/red-light-therapy-for-repairing-spinal-cord-injury-passes-milestone — and the Medical Xpress report referenced here: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-05-red-therapy-spinal-cord-injury.html
"Effects of early photobiomodulation therapy on motor recovery in patients with incomplete acute cervical spinal cord injury: A multicenter randomized controlled trial" (2026). The human 810 nm trial. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214031X25002013 (full text: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12988526/). Trial registry ChiCTR2100042296.
World Health Organization, Spinal cord injury fact sheet (15+ million people living with SCI; life-expectancy note). https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/spinal-cord-injury
Son et al., "Effects of photobiomodulation on multiple health outcomes: an umbrella review of randomized clinical trials," Systematic Reviews (2025) 14:160. https://systematicreviewsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13643-025-02902-3 (PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40770824/)
Powner MB, Jeffery G, "Light stimulation of mitochondria reduces blood glucose levels," Journal of Biophotonics (2024). The 670 nm glucose study in healthy adults. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jbio.202300521
Oliveira de Andrade Filho V, et al., "Systematic review of photobiomodulation for multiple sclerosis," Frontiers in Neurology (2024) 15:1465621. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurology/articles/10.3389/fneur.2024.1465621/full (PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39329016/)