Is red light therapy real or a scam?

Can shining a red light on your face really improve acne, wrinkles, inflammation, or wound healing, or is red light therapy just an expensive skincare scam involving a slightly alarming mask? How could ordinary visible light affect cells beneath your skin, and should you trust the products filling your social media feed? Melissa and Jam investigate photobiomodulation, mitochondria, collagen, blue light, FDA clearance, and the research behind this increasingly popular wellness trend. The answer is more scientifically interesting, and more complicated, than either of them expected.

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Timestamps

00:00 — Is red light therapy real or a scam? 03:41 — How light transfers energy to molecules 06:24 — Is red light therapy actually infrared? 08:03 — How deeply can visible light penetrate your skin? 09:34 — What red light may do inside your mitochondria 12:00 — Oxygen transport and other possible mechanisms 13:39 — Could red light trigger collagen production and healing? 16:26 — What scientists know—and still don’t understand 20:45 — Red light, blue light, inflammation, and acne 30:03 — The major problems with current red light research 33:20 — What FDA clearance does—and doesn’t—mean 35:20 — How to evaluate a red light therapy device 40:04 — So, should you buy a red light mask? 44:06 — A new series idea: Is it a scam or is it chemistry?

References from the Episode:

1. https://www.monash.edu/student-academic-success/biology/cellular-respiration
2. https://pubs.acs.org/aamick/article-abstract/17/4/5771/3631364/Merged-Red-and-NIR-Light-Sources-for?redirectedFrom=fulltext
3. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5523874/
4. https://www.jaad.org/article/S0190-9622(24)00187-7/fulltext
5. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/lsm.22791
6. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK526105/
7. https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/japplphysiol.00524.2016
8. https://chemed.chem.purdue.edu/genchem/topicreview/bp/1biochem/blood3.html#top
9. https://www.fda.gov/media/90652/download
10. https://www.fda.gov/media/164417/download
11. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13085462/#fn-group2
12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJeiG8r6CyM
13. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knS7rmruf_I