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?
I bought 660nm and 950nm lamps to try it out a few years ago. The dose-response curve of red light therapy is like this, so you need to either have it done properly or calculate the dose yourself in Joules based on the lamp's output, distance, and application time. Too little and it won't do anything, too much and it will have a negative effect.
I haven't noticed any benefit from it myself except a couple of times where it seemed to heal a banged up knee quicker than normal.