There is a recent push for red light therapy as some sort of miracle cure for a lot of ailments. Bad skin, wrinkles, hair loss, muscle soreness, gum problems, allergies, etc. This appears to have been building for some time as I found reddit posts on is it bullshit or not from a couple years back. A couple of local gyms have replaced some of their tanning booths with red light booths, and the house I live in now one of the previous tenants replaced a regular light with a red light for therapeutic purposes.
I have found various articles, scientific (for whatever that means nowadays, I am looking at you COVID, climate change, and "green energy") and otherwise that state various benefits for red light therapy, a few that state some possible negative side effects, some that claim nobody has any real value what red light does, and various articles anf posts in between. Has anyone here dug into this and found anything tangible, truly scientific to back or dispel some of these claims? I sincerely doubt red light therapy is the miracle cure some people claim it to be, but how beneficial is it and what are the possible side effects?
Red lights were used extensively in photography darkrooms as a way of seeing what you were doing when making prints. I would think if they helped with anything that professional photographers would have picked up on it back in the film days.
I know they help with sleep cycles and don't hurt the eyes like blue lights do. That stuff has been proven, and I have every device with a screen possessing a red light filter because of it. Red light therapy gives me pause though.
Yeah I use them as night lights around the house because I know from using them in darkrooms back in the day that they're gentle on the eyes and don't wake you up. But that's different than using them for (eg.) curing bad skin.