Red light, energy and mitochondria: what the evidence shows

Dose matters. Huang and colleagues (2011) reviewed studies where ATP and mitochondrial membrane potential followed a biphasic pattern: they rose at lower doses and fell back at higher ones. So these effects aren't a simple case of more light, more energy.

Healthy versus stressed cells. Hamblin (2018) notes that healthy and stressed cells can respond in apparently opposite ways to the same light. A lot of lab work uses stressed cells, which may not reflect a healthy person's tissue.

Evidence from animals

Weinrich and colleagues (2017) exposed old fruit flies to 670 nm red light daily for one week. The researchers reported more cytochrome c oxidase activity and more ATP, and mobility improved by 60%. Memory scores also improved.

It's a striking result, and it comes from fruit flies. It's useful for understanding the mechanism. It isn't evidence that a panel will do the same for a person.

Evidence from people

Here the evidence gets thin.

Wang and colleagues (2017) shone a 1064 nm laser on the foreheads of 11 healthy volunteers and used a light-based scanner to measure changes in the tissue underneath. Compared with placebo, they saw a rise in the oxidised form of cytochrome c oxidase, along with changes in blood oxygen. A follow-up by the same group (Wang and colleagues, 2018) recreated the same skin warming with a heat source in 11 people and found that heat alone didn't change cytochrome c oxidase. That suggests the effect came from the light rather than warmth.

That's a careful piece of work. It's also 11 people, a laser at a longer wavelength than most home devices use, and a measurement of chemistry, not of anything people would feel.

Does it translate to "more energy"?

The research on cellular energy is about ATP in cells. How energetic you feel is a different thing. The NHS lists lack of sleep, stress, hormone changes, some illnesses and some medicines among the common causes of tiredness. We didn't find any well-designed trial showing that red light makes healthy people feel more energetic.

The closest evidence comes from exercise studies. Vanin and colleagues (2018) reviewed 39 trials with 861 healthy people and found some effect on measures like time to exhaustion, but rated the evidence quality as very low to moderate. Forsey and colleagues (2023) gave 48 active adults 20 minutes of whole-body light before sprint cycling tests. Power output didn't improve, and people reported no difference in how recovered or stressed they felt. More on this in red light for muscle recovery.

How to read this

There's a consistent, decades-long thread of lab work showing that red and near-infrared light can change mitochondrial activity and ATP in cells and animals, at the right dose. There's a small amount of human evidence that something chemical changes in tissue under certain lasers. There's no good evidence yet that home devices raise ATP in your body, or that anyone feels more energetic as a result.

So when you see "boosts cellular energy" on a product page, read it as "based on cell and animal studies". That's what the evidence supports.

Who should check with a doctor first

If you've felt tired for a few weeks and aren't sure why, or it's affecting your daily life, the NHS advises seeing a GP. A light device isn't the answer to that. Talk to your GP or pharmacist before using any device if you're pregnant, take medicine that makes your skin sensitive to light, have an eye condition, or have epilepsy triggered by flashing lights. See our pages on eye safety and side effects.

What we won't say

We won't say our devices boost energy, support mitochondria or raise ATP. That would go well beyond what the evidence shows for any device, and ours haven't been tested at all.