How does red light therapy affect eyes?
Last Updated: 21.06.2025 14:36
Anecdotally, I just received an AG-plus1485-5s, which is a much more powerful "full body" panel (it's really only 1/2 body, but that's how all of these are marketed).
investigate Prof Glen Jeffery UCL's research on this (he has some interviews/appeared on youtube interviews too). He suggests red light works to improve colour vision and prevent age-related macular degeneration, and slow its progression in AMD patients. The simpler handheld devices work fine, both red light (670 nm, but maybe 630 nm too to a certain extent?) and the invisible NIR (at even lower dosages) 810 nm (or 850? probably both), and 1050 nm (easily the lowest dose).
There is a natural slow decline in contrast sensitivity, which this purports to treat, which has some importance but most patients dont actually complain of this unless its significantly worsened (like in macular degeneration).
You can get these as LED strips to hang above your monitor and leave it on throughout the day. I have a relative suffering from this and she endorses it.
I'd highly recommend it; got it for 420 EUR, about 1000 EUR less than similar competition, but still featuring 5 wavelengths at high power. Just no remote or dimmer, and top mounted power cable, which was absolutely no issue for me.
It has noticeably improved my eyesight among other things. My eyes/brain in general feel like they can focus on objects faster, and it's almost no effort to move them around and refocus on things if that makes sense. It's hard to explain but imagine you're tired and you just want to stare into space and not look around too much, it's the exact of the opposite of that. Some of this could be because the full body panel *dramatically* improved my sleep already because of its effects on melatonin and circadian rhythm, which may or may not happen for you if you just get a smaller torch-like device or LED strips.
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The issue is that the problem this tries to address may not be an important issue. The main reason that people “naturally lose vision” with age is cataracts (not retinal sensitivity), but modern cataract surgery has essentially cured the disease. It is essentially expected for patients older than 80 to have 20/20 vision in both eyes (with with glasses prescription).100 year old patients who are 20/20 thanks to cataract surgery. Patients who get cataracts usually tell me they feel they see better than when they were a young adult.
Interestingly, the time of day at which it's used is critical. No improvement in colour vision was seen with RLT in the evening; only first thing in the morning.
In other words, this sort of feels like a hammer trying to find a nail. Its neat if it works in larger trials, but unless theres something ground breaking that Im not seeing here I wouldnt prescribe this to the average healthy patient (in spite of age). Id hope however that maybe this could be helpful in diseases like macular degeneration where we have very few effective treatments, and may have some mitochondrial roots.