🛑 Weekly Newsletter: High Blood Pressure & Light Therapy Update: A 15.87-Point Reduction?

Yes, high blood pressure or "hypertension" is one of the biggest topics in overall health. Likely, you know it's bad, just like having a big midsection is bad for health, or insulin sensitivity.

The good news?

Well, the science I discuss below is so promising it's hard to believe sometimes! Last week we talked about blood sugar and showed that light therapy can play a role there, and this week the topic is blood pressure...

The future is bright:

Red Light Therapy For Counteracting Hypertension: 2025 Review

This science review was released in Sept 2025. You can read the full text for free HERE. Reviews aggregate and analyze earlier research on a topic - this time hypertension and light therapy.

Hypertension, as you may know, is one of the most important topics related to heart disease. You can read many of the reviews on the topic for background info, such as THIS, THIS, and THIS ones.

Suffice it to say you don't want to have high blood pressure, to prevent heart disease risk and adverse events such as a stroke or heart attack. Now, the research is somewhat preliminary and we need higher-quality studies, but here's what the researchers write:

"[Red light therapy] treatments have the potential to be an adjunct therapy for the treatment of hypertension, with studies showing a possible reduction in [Systolic Blood Pressure, Diastolic Blood Pressure, Mean Arterial Pressure, and Heart Rate], but the evidence is of very low certainty, coming from RCTs with a high risk of bias and experimental studies with an unclear risk of bias. The current evidence needs to be significantly improved with rigorous, well-designed experimental and clinical studies."

For the uninitiated:

Systolic blood pressure is the pressure inside your blood vessels when your heart is contracting, pushing the blood against the walls
Diastolic blood pressure is the pressure when the heart relaxes
Mean arterial pressure is an average reading, between contracting and a non-contracting heart
And, heart rate, lastly, shouldn't be too high esp. in rest

But, the good thing is that red light therapy seems to help right now, with systolic, diastolic, mean arterial pressure, and heart rate. Yes, included studies aren't perfect, I'll get to that now:

A total of 9 studies were included on blood pressure and red light therapy by the researchers. The "effect sizes" - how strong the effect of treatment is - are huge, though, at first glance, if you see the data in Figure 2:

Here, systolic blood pressure is lowered by 5.60 to 28.40 points, with an average of 15.87 points across studies. That's huge. Diastolic blood pressure, in Figure 3, is lowered by 8.73 points, also huge:

In terms of (resting) heart rate, here's what 1 laser acupuncture study shows, with a 3+ beats per minute decrease:

"Laser acupuncture was compared to a control group (no intervention or drugs) for 4 weeks of treatment and was associated with decreased levels of HR, compared to the control group, with very low-certainty evidence. In the post-treatment analysis, the laser acupuncture group had a mean HR of 76.9 ± 4.50 bpm, while the control group had a mean HR of 80.2 ± 8.30 bpm"

The studies I've discussed above are all "Randomized Controlled Trials" - the Gold Standard in medicine, where there's an intervention group (receiving light therapy) and a control group (often with a sham so the study participants think that they receive the real treatment.

More studies were included though, that aren't RCTs but still had an intervention with light therapy, showing 14.44 point decrease in systolic blood pressure across studies:

There were also other outcomes, such as improvements in Nitric Oxide (which opens your blood vessels) (Listed in Figure 5). None of the studies also showed any side effects or adverse consequences.

So, that's great!

The caveat? Treatment protocols are all over the place, as often is the case. Study setup isn't perfect, so there's some risk of bias in some cases. The researchers are quite strict here though, and here's what they write about the methodology:

"Different frequencies of treatment were also noted to be effective, as both studies that used [red light therapy] for one and three sessions per week had positive results. However, a lack of follow-up does not allow us to evaluate the persistence of the demonstrated effects. Additionally, the results need to be analyzed cautiously considering the studies that only made intra-group comparisons and due to the overall high risk of bias. It is challenging to outline the key [red light therapy] parameters due to the insufficient parameter reporting in several studies."

Then there's another caveat, many of the included studies use laser acupuncture:

"It is worth emphasizing that all included [red light therapy studies] used laser acupuncture. The use of low-power lasers to stimulate acupuncture points is an alternative developed to conventional acupuncture with needles. A study that utilized [red light therapy] treatments without application on acupuncture points compared to laser acupuncture on temporomandibular disorders demonstrated similar results. Thus, laser acupuncture can be considered a method of application of [red light therapy] treatment, as the therapeutic benefits of using lasers is evident."

Yes, this is harder to replicate with your household LED device, but not impossible in my opinion. You'll have to spot treat with a handheld or torch style device, at certain acupuncture points.

Do you necessarily need that treatment style? We don't know for certain until we see studies with LED panels or even red light therapy beds, and hypertension, to be honest.

And that's a bit of a waiting game. But honestly, I would be surprised if somehow LED devices didn't work for hypertension, while lasers at acupuncture points don't. Going over thousands and thousands of studies myself, that's a pattern I never see to be honest.

So, yeah, I do think we'll see a lot more studies on the topic of light therapy and hypertension in the coming years/decades, given how strong the effects are in these preliminary studies.

And, if you're curious to read more, check out the full text of the paper. It's a great read that's not too difficult, and contains many other gems/implications/findings on the topic, if you're curiuos!

For now, I'd probably recommend checking my intravenous light therapy article below, that also has a very strong proven track record on heart disease:

Light Therapy Poll: Does Red Light Therapy Even Work?!?

So I did a quick and simple poll in our Facebook group, about whether red light therapy works for our followers:

Yes, really...

The reason I asked for that info is because there are some non-respoonders to light therapy, very very few but they exist. Of course, I want to troubleshoot here and know why this is happening. Maybe the treatment protocol can be changed for many, and they can end up with results...

The good news? 95% of people respond positively to red light therapy.

And I think I can fix the other 5% by changing their routines. Happy with that...

Want to chime in? Join our Facebook group HERE. Then, participate in the poll HERE.

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:

July 2026 Red Light Therapy News: NEW Devices & Controversial Science - the red light therapy news for July 2026. We've got some great science showing that what we're doing at LTI is really worthwhile. And we've got a few unique new products such as a hair dryer, a PlatinumLED handheld unit (finally!), hair serum, and much more!
Red Light Therapy And Facial Fat Loss: SURPRISING Science - We got tons of questions about this topic in 2024, when the first panels with the 1,060-70 nm range emerged. People were afraid of suddenly losing excess fat on their face, so Bart decided to explore all of the science on this topic...
What LED Mask Should I Buy in 2026? My Top Recommendations - Huge, huge update by Alex, on the best red light therapy mask for 2026. Alex has done a ton of work and reviewed 30+ red light therapy masks in the last year or so, as these are so popular in the industry...
Red Light Therapy For Hearing Loss Science: Why This Approach May Work - We've had some requests about red light therapy for hearing loss in our Facebook group, and therefore Bart decided to look at all of the science on this topic, as well as creating a protocol for you.
SunPowerLED & Brain Light Therapy: 90% Get Dosing WRONG - New article/video out by Bart, the second part of the very-well watched Tom Kerber interview I on penetration/dosing/wavelengths. This second interview mainly concerns brain red light therapy wavelengths, dosing, penetration, etc - check it out HERE.

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:

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!