The surprising benefits of red light

Oozing mouth ulcers are one of the many possible side-effects of radiation and chemotherapy treatments for cancer.

The ulcers make it hard for patients to eat, worsening their suffering.

Some must be fed by tube. A new way of treating these ulcers could brighten the future, however: light-emitting diodes (LEDs) tuned to the red end of the spectrum and placed into a patient’s mouth improve symptoms in more than half of cases.

Faster wound-healing is just one of the proposed uses of photobiomodulation (PBM), as therapies that use red and infrared light as the agent are known.

Ophthalmologists and dermatologists have been using red light for some time to treat age-related decline in eyes and skin respectively.

But PBM is also showing promise in the treatment of traumatic brain injuries; Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases; and even psychiatric disorders such as anxiety, depression, attention-deficit and hyperactivity, and post-traumatic stress.