Light Therapy for Eye Health: 2025 Science Update

Light therapy and eye health are suprisingly popular topics in our niche. And a new review was just released in 2025, giving not only an update of the current state of the science but also looking in the (bright!) future ahead...

We've also added our latest articles below...

New 2025 Review On Light Therapy For Eye Health

Reviews in medical science aggregate and integrate earlier research on a topic. So this 2025 review looks at recent publications and then comes to an overarching conclusion about the current state of these publications. That process is like aiming to create a puzzle from different puzzle pieces.

Red Light Therapy & Eye Health Basics

Here's what researchers write about the use of red light therapy for eye health:

"This review specifically targets the treatment of retinal diseases including age-related macular degeneration, diabetic macular edema, myopia and acute retinal light injury with photobiomodulation. Red light is used in this therapy since this wavelength has lower frequency and hence minimal chance of causing any damage. Red light has the potential to penetrate cellular structures such as mitochondria and facilitate cellular processes. For ocular diseases, the target wavelength ranges between 630 to 800 nm. In most of the cases the primary target for red light is the cytochrome C oxidase enzyme in mitochondria, which alters the gene expression and promotes cellular energy production. Clinical evidence shows improvement of visual activity and reduction in thickness of retina post treatment."

The retina, here, is the back of your eye socket, a sort of "projector screen" that the light entering your eye through the lens is projected onto. That retina is super-rich in mitochondria, and also prone to degeneration as you age, in part, because people's quality and quantity of mitochondria go down with age.

If you're curious about that aging process and eye health, I recommend the following articles, which we've created in the past.

First, on how red light therapy works - including a mechanism interacting with the mitochondria:

And secondly, my deep dive article on red light therapy for eye health, covering all of the science up until 2024:

Red & NIR Light For Eye Health

But let's go back to the 2025 review. Surprisingly, though, despite the researchers emphasizing red light and not near-infrared (NIR) in the summary or "abstract" of the study, in the full text they do speak about NIR being beneficial:

"For example, a wavelength 600-700 nm is specific and effective in targeting superficial layers within the retina, while on the other side, a higher wavelength of around 800 to 900 nm can deeper penetrate within the eye tissues"

So, the NIR wavelengths have better penetration. I've interviewed scientists on this topic, such as the penetration of red and NIR, if you want more background info, there.

You can see the influence of red and NIR on overall cell health, different eye cells included, in the schematics included in the study I'm covering today:

The review goes on to describe the effects of red and NIR light for different eye conditions, such as age-related macular degeneration (the macula is part of the retina), diabetic retinopathy, myopia, light-induced damaged to the eye (such as too much blue light!), and more.

The Future Of Light Therapy For Eye Health

What's important is that the researchers highlight different important issues with treating eye conditions and eye health with light therapy, for the future. These are:

Better wavelength and dosing parameters - we still don't exactly know which dosing is optimal, for say, age-related macular degeneration or diabetic retinopathy. Many dosing protocols have simply not been tested yet, even though we have found a few that are functioning extremely well so far! But, there are still discussions about the quantity of light, treatment frequency, devices used, etc.
Combining light therapy with other therapies is likely very advantageous - but most studies don't implement this, simply because it's super expensive to do so. I've talked about nutritional and lifestyle strategies in my article on eye health, for instance.
Longer-term studies on eye health. Most studies last a few sessions, up to maybe a dozen weeks max. But often, progress can be made over months and even years in some cases, and research must capture these gains. Hence, we need studies that may last a year or maybe several years - despite the prohibitive costs of doing so!

The researchers end their paper with the following quote on the future of red light therapy for eye health:

"In future, [light therapy] will be used as combinational therapy and will be focused at more specifications such as target-specific treatment, combination of personalized medicine with molecular techniques. Furthermore, longitudinal studies should be carried out to find out the chances of any long-term side effects."

We'll be following these developments in the coming years and keep you updated!

Here Are Our Latest Light Therapy Insiders' Articles:

Every single article that we've published recently - you can find the videos in the article itself:

MitoGlow LED Mask Review: The Best Red Light Therapy Mask I've Ever Tested - Here's the latest Mito Red mask, and apparently, it's one of the best options out there. Check Alex's in-depth review, as always!
Best Valentine’s Day Red Light Therapy Deals (2026) - Here are the lastest Valentine's Day's discounts - some of these are still active, even though the day of love was yesterday! Alex explains all and shows which are still active on Feb 15 and 16 etc...
Lower Anxiety By Up To 50% - New Course Episode By Bart - we just published the next installment of the science course, with a new episode on anxiety, that teaches you the background of the physiology, science, device characteristics and selection, and much more.
BREAKING News: Red Light Therapy At The Winter Olympics 2026 - an exciting news item: one of the red light therapy companies we've reviewed teamed up with the Canadian team at the 2026 Winter Olympics! Find out more and the implications...
Rouge Red Light Therapy Review: Is It Worth the Investment? - Here's Alex's first company review: Rouge! We'll be publishing more of these company reviews in the near future. Alex explores Rouge's rich history and everything you need to know - such as why it's one of the best companies around right now!

Also, Check Out Some Of Our Other Content:

Below you'll find some of our best content that you shouldn't miss:

Light Therapy Advanced Science Course (Just Launched!):

Join Bart's 100% free advanced science light therapy course above, where he takes deep dives into many different topics, such as mechanisms, neurology (Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, etc), exercise recovery, skin beauty & rejuvenation, and much more.

Some of the topics are only published in that course, such as UV light risks and benefits, addiction, anxiety, depression, and more. So join HERE!