She liked the mask, enjoyed the facial. And so, when she heard there was a full body treatment using LED red light therapy, Eman Bare couldn’t wait to try it out.
Now, the 32-year-old writer and wellness enthusiast is hooked. For several months of this year, she spent about two hours each day walking to and from a wellness spa near Dundas and Bathurst Streets just to get her 15-minute fix of the tepid, cherry-hued portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.
“It’s the best. It makes my skin look better. It calms me down. It also makes me feel better in general,” Bare said. “I always leave feeling rejuvenated.”
Welcome to the red light therapy craze. For the uninitiated, what’s referred to as “red light” is a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum; a seven-region array of radiation that includes radio, micro, infrared, gamma, UV and X-ray waves. Some portions of red light are visible to the human eye; others, including infrared light, are experienced as heat.
Once strictly the domain of medical settings, where a growing body of research shows it has therapeutic benefits, red light therapy (RLT) has beamed its way into gyms and spas all over the city in the name of wellness — at varying and less potent wavelengths and levels.
There are infrared saunas, fitness and Pilates classes held in infrared-heated rooms, and sessions in glowing contraptions that resemble tanning beds; rather than harmful ultraviolet light, they bathe bikinied users in the red kind. But outside the doctor’s office, it’s unclear what, if anything, it is actually doing.
Should you wish to partake in the comfort of your own home, there’s an ever-increasing array of RLT products for sale that you can slip into or aim at any and all parts of the body: hand-held wands, tablets and even full-body blankets that resemble sleeping bags. Red light masks, those Darth Vader-esque face-covering devices, have become all the rage in stay-at-home beauty regimens (and Instagram posts) since COVID.
Now, RLT is being touted as the latest, greatest catch-all cure for almost everything that ails us. On the cosmetic side, proponents claim RLT can decrease the appearance of fine lines and scarring, tighten skin, help clear up acne, stimulate hair growth and treat cellulite. (A 2005 study of about 20 middle-aged women concluded that a device that included infrared light helped rid their thighs of some of this clingy fat.)
On a deeper level, RLT is said to aid with digestion, hasten healing of wounds, reduce inflammation and arthritic pain, increase circulation, ease muscle soreness and treat chronic pain, including from endometriosis, a condition that can wreak havoc on women’s health when cells from the uterus travel to other parts of the body. RLT is also said to help limber up stiff joints, decrease recovery time after exercise and injury, prevent sight loss and relieve nasal congestion.
When RLT is delivered outside a medical setting, it’s impossible to know what, if any, benefits are being delivered, said Vancouver dermatologist Tess Peters. “You’d have to look at what’s being treated, the doses being used, the length of time the light is applied,” she said.
Dermatologists have been using red light therapeutically for more than 40 years, and over that time, the research has blown up. Today, Peters said, there are more than 500 studies and 31 randomized trials looking at how various wavelengths of red light can treat a variety of conditions, including psoriasis and even herpes simplex.
But as yet, she said, there’s no research to support non-medical uses. However, if the esthetic and spa devices are approved by Health Canada, there shouldn’t be cause for any safety concern.
In Peters’ practice, she most often uses RLT to treat skin conditions, including acne and rosacea, and actinic keratosis or precancerous lesions. She hits them with a dose of long, visible red light between 630 and 680 nanometres. Only physicians are permitted to use these wavelengths, she said, because if used improperly, they can cause skin to burn and blister. Used correctly, however, they cause inflammation in the nefarious cells that, in turn, summons the body’s immune response to rush to where they are and obliterate them.
While the surge in light therapy may make it seem like a recent invention, it’s been around for centuries. Sunlight was used to treat diseases such as rickets in ancient civilizations, including in Egypt and China, according to the “Handbook of Photomedicine” (2013). In 1903, a Danish psychologist won the Nobel Prize for creating a lamp to treat patients with tuberculosis. And in the mid 1980s, a NASA-funded scientist experimenting with LED light to grow potatoes on a space shuttle discovered that when he spent time handling the light, wounds on his hands healed faster.
Simply put, red light stimulates our cells to produce more energy, said Toronto dermatologist Sonya Abdulla. Certain wavelengths trigger our mitochondria (a microscopic structure inside each of our cells) to work overtime producing adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. “The more ATP, the better our cells function,” Abdulla said. That function can take many forms.
Like many dermatologists, Abdulla uses RLT in her medical practice at different wavelengths to treat a variety of skin conditions, including psoriasis, eczema and vitiligo, a condition that destroys pigment in skin cells, leaving patchy spots of lighter skin in its wake.
Abdulla, like Peters, said she can’t speak to the efficacy of RLT outside of the medical context. But she understands why people love bathing in it, especially in infrared saunas. The broader set of wavelengths “generate a positive body experience of warmth and comfort,” she said.
She cautioned those taking medication that makes them sensitive to light to stay away from RLT, and noted it’s imperative to wear protective eye masks when under direct red light.
Red light therapy is among the most sought-after services at Nud Body + Wellness spa on Dundas W., where a 20-minute session in the RLT bed costs up to $45, with lower rates for members. Nud was among the city’s first spas to offer non-medical RLT when it opened in early 2024, said co-founder Anne-Marie Tsiolis. “People absolutely love it,” she said. “They can’t stop raving about it.”
Tsiolis described being gobsmacked when a client, a recreational soccer player who’d badly injured his knee, got back on the field after six weeks of daily, full-body RLT. “He got rid of his crutches,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it.”
Bare feels RLT does wonders, too. She believes adding it to her wellness routine has had many, often surprising benefits. When she can’t get to a spa, she uses a small, hand-held device, often on her stomach, which she said aids with her digestion. She’s thrilled she discovered it, no matter how, when or why she uses it. “It’s the best part of my day.”
