Red Light Therapy After 40: Ten Questions Every Man Asks, Answered Honestly
Red light therapy sits in an awkward place. The mechanism is genuinely well documented, the dermatological evidence is genuinely strong — and the marketing around it is genuinely out of control. Below are the ten questions men actually ask, with straight answers. Where the evidence is solid, this says so. Where it is thin, it says that too. 1. What is red light therapy actually doing to my cells? It is displacing one molecule from one enzyme. Mitochondria produce ATP through the electron transport chain, and the final step is handled by cytochrome c oxidase — a protein complex containing two heme groups and two copper centres, all of which absorb light at characteristic wavelengths. Nitric oxide competitively binds to this enzyme and inhibits it, occupying the site where oxygen should go. Under chronic stress, inflammation or ageing, nitric oxide accumulates, the enzyme slows, and cells produce less energy than they are capable of. Red and near-infrared photons disp...