(BlackFitness101.com) Does red light therapy work? This is one of the frequently asked questions. Maybe you have seen some of those widespread before/after pictures on the internet. Or your favorite spa has brought a new machine and they want you to try it. So if you are interested in trying, here we have listed the red light therapy benefits and side effects which you should know.
This is how it started
The Nobel Prize winner Niels Finsen, a Faroese physician is the father of modern phototherapy. He used red light for the treatment of smallpox lesions. One thing you should know about his experiments is that some of them lack scientific evidence.
Today, light therapy is being used by many professional and non-professional healthcare workers around the world. Many devices including big machines to handheld lamps and masks are being sold in almost every part of the world. Most of these red light therapy products including serums and gels claim that they can treat problems related to muscle pain, hair, acne, pimples, psoriasis, and other skin conditions.
Red light therapy benefits
You may have seen blue light and red light therapy advertisements. The red light penetrates your skin deeply, while the blue light, having a shorter wavelength, doesn’t go deeper and it destroys bacteria that cause acne on the skin. The red light helps with inflammation, but there are very fewer evidence about the effectiveness of such treatments.
Some people use red light therapy for anti-aging purposes because many advertisements say so. According to Hooman Khorasani of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, he won’t recommend using these light therapies for anti-aging purposes. There is some evidence showing the effectiveness of light therapy in improving acne and redness, but the majority of the home devices bring very less result than what they claim in advertisements.
To see the red light therapy benefits, people need to wait for a week or longer because it completely depends on their skin and the type of red light therapy they are using and in what conditions. There is a lack of scientific evidence that backs any particular device or therapy program to be effective for all.
Some studies have found that red light therapy can treat pain and it can also be used as a treatment for Achilles tendinitis. Patents of osteoarthritis have also seen some positive results with red light therapy.
Red light therapy side effects
Using light therapy may reduce the size of a gland called sebaceous. These glands produce a lubricating oil to keep skin and hair healthy. So when you use light therapy, the risk of damaging your sebaceous glands becomes unacceptably high. Many people, especially spa and red light therapy product manufacturers, claim that the use of the therapy is completely safe.
It’s true that people don’t die from red light therapy, but it doesn’t mean that it can’t affect their health. People say that red light therapy is safe because there’s no use of drugs or surgery. That’s really a lame defense. A therapy not involving surgery or drugs can also be harmful to health.
Exposing your body to an unsafe amount of red light can damage your skin. If the machine or bulbs are not right, you can face problems such as sleep disturbance, insomnia, burn, rashes, headache, eye strain, and visual side effects.
Calling it “completely” safe is not right because those who have tried red light therapy have mixed feelings about the whole process and its effects. Trying it for a few minutes may not affect your health, but before you do it, remember that if there are some benefits of red light therapy, there are side effects as well.
Staff Writer; Nina Brown
Questions? Feel free to email me at; NinaB@BlackFitness101.com.