The Current - Can red light therapy really reverse aging?

Episode Date: April 22, 2026

It was once in NASA laboratories. Now, it's part of your nighttime routine. Red light therapy has become a booming industry, with popular products like face masks and red light panels claiming to have the ability to treat anything from wrinkles to cancer. But does science back this up?

What's the last book you read that you absolutely loved? If you're anything like me, you could probably talk about it for hours. You might be wondering what went into the story or why the author made the choices they did. And on my podcast bookends, I can help you find those answers. Every week, I sit down with authors to get the inside scoop behind your favorite books, like how Louise Penny got through five years of writer's block, or how R.F. Kwong feels about Taylor Swift. Check out bookends with Mateo Roach, wherever you get your podcasts.

This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. Hannibal Lecter. Have you ever wondered how to look more like him? Well, I figured out the way. Do not get scammed to pay $2,300 for a red light therapy mask when you can get this one that has seven different light therapies for a fraction of that price. I went through chemotherapy, and I feel like it helped good hair growth and also to prevent her loss.

I think it also helped improve my eyesight. It can also help with weight loss, with joint pain, with brain function. From face masks and wands to beds and saunas, it can feel like red light therapy is everywhere these days. This technology is reshaping the health and wellness industry, and business is booming. The global red light therapy market is projected to exceed $658 million by 2032. Celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Chrissy Teigen swear by it, but what exactly does the science say about these claims that red light therapy can do everything from correcting blemishes to reversing hair loss and perhaps even treating cancer. Mariana Figuero is director of the Light and Health Research Center at the Icon School

of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. Mariana, good morning. Hi, good morning. What is red light therapy? Well, it's typically a treatment that uses red light and near infrared light, which is, you know, something in the range of 630 to all the way up to maybe 1,000 nanometers. So it does look red. And in some cases, when it gets close to 800, 900,000, it emits a little bit of heat. And one of the advantages of it, and I think that's why people are using for some, of the things they're claiming is it's good, it's because it can penetrate the skin. And what it does, it stimulates some of the cellular activities that helps with boosting energy production in the cells, basically. So that's, in a way, what red light therapy is.

Where did the idea for this come from, that you could use this red light to, yeah, improve your skin, to treat cancer or anything in between? Yeah, I think there's a couple of things. First of all, it's the fact that it's only at that long wavelength range that you can actually go into the skin. So you can actually penetrate the skin that light. Because if it's in the short wavelength, it would be basically scattered and it wouldn't penetrate the skin. There's a lot of research that it's being done looking at how it can basically boost energy production in the cell. So what that does, it helps, for example, with cell regeneration.

So a lot of the work that is actually one of the early work that had been done looking at that was wound healing. So, you know, there were actually studies that were funded by NASA. Think of it of you giving energy to the cells by providing that light, and the cells can regenerate faster because they're now using up that energy. to do the regeneration of the cells and then the wound healing. So, you know, I think that there's science behind it, and I think there's basically an understanding of how it works and what are the mechanisms when you're doing this through research or in lab or where you can control the stimulus

and you know what you're giving, and then you can see the results of it. Can we talk about the masks? We heard at the very beginning of that, someone say you look like Hannibal Lecter, when you strap this thing on your face. For people who haven't seen this, just describe what these masks look like? Well, these are masks that have basically a bunch of LEDs, right?

And what people say is that you need to put them close to your skin, and that will help with a lot of things. And one of the biggest claims, especially on the commercial mask, is that it will help with rejuvenation of the skin. So reduce wrinkles and so on. What is interesting about that is that there are some, some of the big companies that do eye creams, the French companies that are famous for all the

eye creams and so on, they are doing a lot of work and very good science and research, trying to understand what is the dose that you need to be able to have an effect into the skin. And again, it is the same concept that what you're doing is you're penetrating the skin with that wavelength of light, and that's helping with regeneration of the skin. But the problem that I have with these red light masks that are sold everywhere is that we don't really know how much light they're delivering. There's not a lot of information about the dose, because there's things that when you do in a controlled environment in a scientific research, there are doses that you need to give. So in other words, How long do you give it?

And one of the things that they have shown, too, is that you have to give it for a day. Then you have to let the skin rest, and then you give it again 72 hours later. So there's all these specifications of how to do it that if we don't know that, we may not be getting all the benefits. If what we're buying with these red light masks, we don't have enough light or if not energy, to in fact penetrate the skin, we're not going to see any effect. So I think that there's a disconnect between what the science and the research

is being done in more controlled environment and what's out there being sold to the consumer. What's the last book you read that you absolutely loved? If you're anything like me, you could probably talk about it for hours. You might be wondering what went into the story or why the author made the choices they did. And on my podcast bookends, I can help you find those answers.

Every week, I sit down with authors to get the inside scoop behind your favorite books, like how Louise Penny got through five years of writer's block, or how RF Kwong feels about Taylor Swift. Check out bookends with Mateo Roach, wherever you get your podcasts. Because if you go online, you can buy these masks that one of them says, this is a typical kind of mask that's on sale online. It says it emits 633 nanometers of red light, 830 nanometers of near-infrared, and 1,072 nanometers of deep near-infrared light. I have no idea what any of that means.

What does that mean? Well, what that means is basically it's the part of the spectrum in which these devices are emitting energy. And that means it goes the 630, it's red. And then it starts getting into close to what they say, the end. infrared, which is really almost heat, right? Your ability to see colors, for example, that your photoreceptors in the eye can see or perceive color. It goes probably all the way till maybe 800 and 150 nanometers. Anything above that, you cannot see. You can feel the heat, but you cannot see it. So all it is is where is it that these devices are emitting the energy?

at the different part of the spectrum. Are these things that people, and you've hinted at this, but are these things that people should be able to use on their own? Or should they be in a controlled environment? To be effective, they should be in a controlled environment. You know, one of the things, I work a lot with light, and I work with light in different areas, like how light helps you sleep, for example,

which is not red, is actually blue. I work with light on how light helps you be more alert, like a cup of coffee, which can be red or blue. But one of the things that it's very important is the specification of the stimulus to get that response. And if you're buying something that you don't know what it is in terms of how much light is giving away, you don't know how long you need to be exposed to this light. You don't know how many days or for how many months.

Because a lot of the work, for example, on these red light mask, there, for wrinkles, for example, you're not going to see an effect in two days. It's going to take perhaps even months for you to start seeing an effect with a regimented therapy. So, for example, a lot of the work that it's done, they call a photobiomodulation. They're doing work with Parkinson's disease, for example. These are things that people go to a doctor's office and receive a specific regimented therapy, and then you can see positive results. But if you just buy off online and you don't know how to use it, for example, the distance, some of them are light boxes that you have to sit in front of it. Well, if you are one or two meters from it, you lose the effectiveness because you're

getting less light hitting the skin. If you're too close, you may be getting too much. And then it's known that if you over-stimulate, it actually, it's counterproductive. There's some inhibition of the effect. I honestly don't recommend that you're just getting out and not knowing exactly what you're being exposed to and how you're going to use that. It's probably not wise to be doing it. If it's used correctly, you mentioned Parkinson's disease. Is this something that actually could be used to treat Parkinson's?

There has been some studies, and the caveat is a lot. lot of the work has been doing in animal models. And obviously, the biggest challenge in science is to translate from what you find in animals to humans, right? And I think that's, in a way, I work with animals. Mostly I work with humans, but I also do research in animals. And I know the difference, right? It's not a thing that it's readily translatable. But it can be done, if done correctly. So a lot of the work in animals did show that there are, is an improvement in motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease, and they are looking now in an improvement in cognition. And a lot of the sort of the mechanisms for that is reducing inflammation,

which it seems like the red light therapy, again, under controlled environments, does reduce inflammation. What about for cancer? What they're doing for cancer, it's interesting. One of the applications that has been most successful, again, in controlled environments, a lot of it with animals, but they're starting to do clinical trials with humans. It's in reducing some of the skin rashes that occur, like with breast cancer therapy and radiotherapy, where you have a lot of damage to the skin. Same thing with the oral mucose, where you have a lot of breakouts with, you know, as a side effect of the therapy, that helps heal better. So there has been actually really good clinical trials, especially with the oral mucose, showing that it does work.

But again, I don't recommend you buy something out of the web and you start using that without really knowing what the impact is or what you're getting by buying these devices off the shelf. And yet a lot of people do that. There was a New York Times article in which the reporter talked about undergoing red light therapy for a month and said that it made her feel exuberant, impulsive. and even a little angry. What do you take from that? You know, it's interesting. I actually believe that, and let me tell you why. I mean, there's another part of the red light, which is a lot of what we work with, is that I call red light in a way a cup of coffee because we have shown that red light, and that's now not through the skin, not through this cold, but through the ice. It has a very strong alerting effect, and you'll react faster to something. And I have a feeling that in doing some research, trying to understand

what the mechanisms of this effect is, you know, red light has a very strong psychological effect on us. It's almost like we associate red light with danger. And I do think that that feeds back into some of the physiological responses that we were measuring in the lab, is that people get anxious with the red light. And I had instances where I had subjects, in the lab where we were exposing them to, think of it, put their heads inside a box that was illuminated with red light. So everything looked red. And some of the sub, and that was in the middle of the night because we were trying to look at the alerting effects of that red light. I had subjects getting to me and saying, boy, I feel angry with that light. So that's very

consistent with that feeling because you may have a psychological effect in response to that color rat. I said in the introduction that this market is projected to exceed something like $658 million by 2032. What sort of regulation is there around these products if, as you're suggesting, people perhaps should be using them under a controlled setting rather than just purchasing them off Amazon and plugging them in? At a minimum, there should be some guidelines on protocol of how to use it. Obviously, A lot of these devices generally should be FDA regulated, but a lot of them are not because some of the claims are more well-being claims, and that sometimes get away without getting. Because the FDA really regulates when you're talking about medical claims, right?

And I experienced that a lot in the lighting industry when people were looking at lighting for improving sleep and circadian rhythms. they would get out of the claims of this is going to improve your health and talk more about this is going to improve your well-being. It's a small distinction, but it seems like it's easier to get away with that. And even, you know, to really get the benefits that you may be able to get with the regulated in the sense that if you have a protocol of what is the dose, how much like you're getting, what's the distance you need to be from the device. How often do you do it a week for how long you can see the effect? So if you can get that specification to the consumer, then I think I would be a little bit more positive about making this more readily available to the consumer.

Can I just ask you finally, you mentioned the wellness industry, and we've done a lot on this program about that, people who are being pitched everything from supplements to, you know, sleeping with your mouth taped shut and what have you, that this is going to make you a better person that's going to improve your life. What is the rise of red light therapy tell you about the moment that we're living in right now as a culture when wellness is everywhere? I think in a way it is the internet that allows us to get access, direct access to people. I mean, I give you a great example of seasonal affective disorder and the light box therapy, right? It's like when you get a drug, your clinician is going to say, take this every day in the morning.

This is the dosage you need to take. And you go back three months later to see if it's working and so on. Seasons of Effective Disorder used to be that way. But I think that with the Internet, with the direct access to the consumer, the consumer feels like they now have the power to do what they want to do without getting the medical advice. So I think what it's saying is that information is probably too widely available without scrutiny of, what goes out. And I think that, you know, that can come back and bite us. Mariana, it's really good to talk to about this. Thank you very much. Yes, thank you.

Marianna Figuero, is director of the Light and Health Research Center at the Ican School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name's Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.