Okay, so red light therapy. That is what we're talking about today, and specifically how red light therapy can affect our eyes, including our eye health and our vision, everything. And chances are you've already seen plenty of products sold online for red light therapy for things like your skin health and muscle recovery, things like that.
But while yes, there is some crazy, fascinating research on red light in the eyes that we're about to go over, there are some major safety concerns that you need to know about, especially before you try using any of these red light therapy devices you may have seen online. So in today's video, we're going to break down how red light therapy works, what the research says about red light therapy in the eyes, and then finally, safety with red light. So first, what is red light therapy, and how does it work?
Red light therapy also goes by a few other names, such as low-level light therapy, or even photobiomodulation. It is where we use low-level wavelengths of red light to treat various health conditions. And this is primarily used to promote healing, as well as reduce inflammation and to alleviate pain.
And historically, it's been used in dermatology for some time to promote collagen formation, as well as treat acne and promote hair growth for people with alopecia. But it's also been shown to help promote recovery for athletes, as well. And honestly, if you dig into the research, there is just a ton of research coming out on this and applications in almost every area of medicine.
But in short, how red light therapies believe to work is that it activates cellular mitochondria, which, if you remember from your high school biology class, is known as the powerhouse of the cell. And this red light therapy can help increase the amount of adenosine triphosphate or ATP, which is necessary for cellular function as well as repair. And what's so special about red light is that they find that wavelengths between 600 and about a thousand nanometers of light penetrate deeper into your tissues and get absorbed by the cells without causing too much heat, which is important because too much heat can cause damage to the cell.
And in addition to this ATP production, there's also a coupling of nitric oxide within the cell, which plays a huge role in antioxidant activity and metabolism. And then there's also inflammatory processes, which are further shut down by red light. And both antioxidant activity and inflammation play huge roles within the eye for eye health.
But again, this is just sort of the shortened or abridged version of how red light technology is supposed to work. Okay, so now that we know how red light therapy works, what does the research say about red light and the eyes? First, I want to say there is a ton of research on the subject that I've been digging into, so what I'm about to share is sort of the grand overview of what these publications are showing.
The first big way that red light therapy is being shown to be helpful for the eye has to do with retinal conditions, primarily people who have macular degeneration or diabetes. In fact, red light or low-level light therapy has already been approved and used as a treatment for age-related macular degeneration in both Europe and Latin America, with various publications showing that red light therapy can decrease the size and volume of drusen within the back of the eye, which if you've never heard that term before, drusen is sort of a protein that builds up in the back that's characteristic of macular degeneration. It has also been shown to reduce the progression of geographic atrophy, which is more of the severe end stage of dry macular degeneration, and red light therapy has been shown to improve visual acuity, yes, help restore vision back for these people and help them see further down the vision chart.
And also boost color vision and contrast sensitivity. This is huge because the research is showing that not only can we slow down a disease that often leads to legal blindness, but we can restore eyesight and give good vision back to people, especially considering that with macular generation, we don't really have too many other treatments available. And if someone progresses to the very severe end stage of that disease, the only options we have to treat it are injections with a really expensive medication inside of the eye and nobody wants that.
And then for people with diabetes, diabetes is a huge deal for eye care because diabetes not only can lead to bleeding within the eye, but it can lead to swelling of the retinal tissue that we call diabetic macular edema. And research is showing that red light therapy can help treat and decrease that swelling inside of the eye, which otherwise the only other treatment we really have for that is again similar to injections inside of the eye. So yeah, just based off of this info alone, red light gets me really excited.
And then there's the treatment for dry eye disease, either in isolation on its own or as an adjunct therapy alongside other forms of dry eye treatment, such as intense pulse light or IPL, for example. And the whole idea is that red light being able that it's penetrating deeper into the tissues may be able to help stimulate the oil glands of the eye to produce better oils, but also improve blood circulation and reduce inflammation in those eyelids. In fact, red light therapy has even been evaluated for the treatment of chalazions or eyelid styes that had previously not been responsive to other forms of treatment, with one study reporting a 92% effective treatment for chalazion within just two treatments.
The last really cool area of research on red light in the eyes has to do with slowing down the development of myopia or nearsightedness in children. With a meta-analysis from 2023 reporting a slowing down of myopia by 0. 68 diopters of glasses power within 6 months of daily use.
And that translates to a slowing down of axial length or elongation of the eyeball by about 0. 35 millimeters, which is honestly pretty exciting and fascinating because this is all done with just a desktop red light LED that children can look at at home for three minutes, twice a day. Because myopia development is such a huge topic in the field of eye care right now, there's a lot of eyes looking at this research that's coming out, trying to analyze how effective it is, why it works, and is it safe.
Even more so because again it's red light being used on children's eyes. Unfortunately, we have really no idea of how red light therapy may be in fact working to help slow down myopia. One of the best theories out there is that perhaps there's a lack of oxygen in the back of the eye and that's helping change the formation of collagen within the sclera and that perhaps red light is improving the amount of oxygen and blood flow to the retina in the back of the eye and that may slow down this whole process.
But again, there's a lot of theories but we really just don't know yet. Okay, so that's where the current research is at for red light therapy in the eyes. Now I know it didn't go super deep into the weeds in this video about the specific wavelengths or the specific devices used in these research studies, but I have been putting a ton of time researching this and even creating a CE lecture course for doctors on this subject.
So if you do have questions about a specific disease state, about a specific device or wavelengths of light, anything you want to know, let me know in the comments because I'm happy to make additional videos if people just want to learn more. The final thing I really want to talk about in this video is safety and the current devices available for red light therapy. First thing to understand is that this red light therapy is all still very new science, especially for the eyes.
And we don't really understand the short-term or long-term consequences of this red light exposure. And this goes for not just the eye, but for parts of the brain as well. And remember the retina in the eye is just an extension of your brain.
And we're a little concerned about the possible long-term consequences of what this could be doing to those delicate nerve cells. On top of that, there are many different LED red light devices and masks on the market, which many of, and if not all, are not designed specifically for the eyes. And there's usually a warning on them that says don't shine directly into the eye.
Chances are if even if you do try to use one of those devices and look at it, it's probably not the right wavelength, probably not the right power density or fluence, which is the fancy word we use for dose of light. And there's a possible chance that that red light could cause short or long-term damage to the retina in the back of the eye and again, I don't want anyone to hurt themselves by trying this out. Even recently, a study looking at the light devices used in these red light myopia studies on children found that these devices already breached the safety limit of maximal light exposure, and currently, red light therapy is not FDA approved for the treatment of any eye diseases in the US as of yet, but there is currently at least one red light device going through FDA trials, specifically for the treatment of macular degeneration.
And that's from a company called Lumethora. And honestly, looking at that research, I think it looks really promising and it's a strong likelihood that we're probably gonna see that FDA approved within the next year or so. But again, this is all still very new in the area of eye care.
Okay, so there you have it. That is the lowdown on red light therapy for the eyes. Thank you so much for hanging around here toward the end.
Again, please let me know in the comments if there's another subject on red light you'd like to know more about, such as maybe some of the devices currently on the market, especially the ones used for kind of treating the skin around the eyes, whether it be for dry eyes specifically, chalazions or styes, or even like treating eye bags, for example. There is some interesting stuff going on in that space. But again, let me know in the comments.
Thanks for hanging around. Hit the like button for me and hopefully, we'll see you in that next video. Peace.
