Red Light Therapy For Liver Health: Hoax Or Hard Science?!

It almost sounds unreal: red light therapy for liver health?!

How?

In this article, I explain exactly how, and take you through a journey of a few human studies that do show improvement. Yes, you'll need a specialized treatment protocol for that, and I'll help you with that.

We're slowly seeing research trickle out on this topic, especially regarding animal studies. So it's time for me to give you a science update on the topic.

Let's go:

Red Light Therapy For Liver Summary

Light Therapy Basics

Liver Health Basics

Contrary to popular viewpoint, the liver is not a "filter" - it doesn't store most toxins but processes them instead. The liver has a huge metabolic role (1). The liver is a but a central metabolic hub whose health depends heavily on nutrition, especially choline (eggs, liver), caloric intake, and other factors such as antioxidants and more.

Nowadays, tons of people are affected by "Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease" (NAFLD) (2; 3). The disease is often found in the top-10 of modern chronic health conditions. Metabolic disorders and obesity are closely linked to NAFLD. Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease also exists, and as the name implies, is caused by alcohol consumption (often combined with poor nutrition!)

The liver relies on fat export to prevent fatty liver disease, and choline plays a major role in this process (4). Methylation is another function of the liver - which is summarized as the metabolism of single-carbon metabolism (5; 6). For methylation, you'll need nutrients, such as choline, betaine, folate, vitamin B12, and related nutrient. Methylation, in turn, matters for detoxification, gene regulation/expression, and liver fat metabolism.

The liver is also responsible for nutrient metabolism in general (7). Blood from your intestines flows to the liver, and there, proteins (amino acids), carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, etc, are sorted. The liver itself stores carbohydrates (glucose) and uses that as well. Then there's "bile production". That liver bile helps digest and absorb fats and fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D, E, and K.

Liver health can go wrong at several stages (8; 9; 10). Next to the NAFLD and its alcoholic variant, there are infections ("hepatitis"), autoimmune issues and toxin accumulation pathologies. Eventually, these lead to cirrhosis or liver cancer, leading to the failure of the organ.

So that's a crash course into liver health. The basics for fixing liver diseases holistically, are, up your nutrient intake, especially choline and some B vitamins; cut out alcohol and other toxins, normalize your body fat and metabolism. I don't agree 100% with the literature here, such as on fructose (in fruit), that is deemed very dangerous - I consider it very healing in the right dose (11; 12; 13).

The question, of course, is does red light therapy for liver health work? So if you're already implementing the other holistic strategies above, will red light therapy aid that process?

Let's explore the answer:

Red Light Therapy For Liver

Surprisingly, the best database on red light therapy studies from Vladimir Heiskanen lists 26 studies in total in the "Liver" category (14):

Let's check out these listed studies one by one, giving preference to human studies where available (14). Only 2 human studies exist currently, however.

Red Light Therapy For Fatty Liver: One Human Study

So, first here, a super interesting study using the Mediterranean diet versus the same diet plus light therapy (15).

An LED cluster with 266 LEDs was used at 660 nm. The treatment area is about 20 cm2 and the dose a whopping 127.8 J/cm2 - which is somewhat necessary perhaps due to the liver lying deeper inside the torso:

I've often talked about how penetration becomes less and less, the deeper you go inside the body. The contact method was used in this study, applying the light directly to the torso (16).

Here's the surprising outcome:

"The results at the end of the intervention indicated that the application of [red light therapy] two times per week for 12 weeks in addition to following the MD plan (study group) was better than following MD only (control group) in improving liver function and lipid profile as well as losing weight in older adults with NAFLD. A significant reduction in the levels of liver enzymes (ALT, AST, ALP phosphate), lipid profile [Total Cholesterol, Triglycerides, LDL cholesterol], BMI, and [Waist Circumference] compared to the baseline values was noted. In addition, a significant increase was observed in the HDL levels within the groups, with the study group showing better results." (16)

So, not only did the liver enzymes (a benchmark of liver function) improve, weight loss was also superior again with the light therapy! This study thus shows that 660 nm to the:

"the patients’ abdomen and waist after cleaning the target area " (16)

Makes sense! Next up:

Red Light Therapy For Liver Failure: Another Human Study

The second study uses "intravenous light therapy", which means shining light directly into the bloodstream - for which you normally need a nurse (17). Check my article on intravenous light therapy for more info - you can get roughly the same effect by shining light into an artery.

But I digress. The study has a quite simple outcome:

"Patients with hepatocellular insufficiency received a course of intravenous laser irradiation of the blood. After the treatment, a positive dynamics of clinical and biochemical indices of the major hepatic syndromes was observed: alleviation of the major clinical symptoms and significant positive changes in biochemical parameters (AST, ALT, bilirubin, alkaline phosphatase, lactate dehydrogenase, and total cholesterol)."

The "hepatocellular insufficiency" here means, that the liver cannot perform essential functions anymore, such as detoxification and excretion of toxins/byproducts.

The study used 7 sessions over 7 days but doesn't describe treatment parameters sufficiently well.

Red Light Therapy For Liver Cirrhosis: Animal Studies

Here, unfortunately, we only have animal studies. I won't go into detail here, but, generally the outcome is very good here, with NIR wavelengths (18; 19; 20)

Red Light Therapy For Liver Injury & Liver Regeneration: More Animal Studies

Again, only animal studies on the topic. The short versions:

• Liver injury, 2 positive and 1 neutral, with NIR/red (21; 22; 23).
• Liver regeneration, related to surgery: 8 different studies (24; 25; 26; 27; 28; 29; 30; 31). These studies are generally positive, but combine red, blue, NIR, and green. The review states:

"Thus, based on the data in the literature, we presented low-power laser irradiation (LPLI) as a quick, simple, and harmless method to improve liver regeneration after major hepatectomies. This article highlights the current evidence about the effects of LPLI on liver regeneration, and also suggests laser therapy as an important tool for regenerative stimulation in clinical practice." (32)

Good stuff but not really too applicable until we have human studies on the topic.

Other Red Light Therapy For Liver Health Studies

A few other studies exist:

• Two diabetes studies with neutral/positive outcomes, using 670 and 850 nm (33; 34)
• A review on hepatitis that's positive on blue light lasers for chronic viral hepatitis (35).
• A liver injury with a loss of blood flow in rats showing positive outcomes (36).
• Some other cases that aren't really actionable for now (37; 38; 39)

Generally the outcome is positive here but not really actionable as I'd like to see human studies on these topics.

How To Use Red Light Therapy For Liver Health

Given the human studies I've listed above, either direct treatment on the abdomen/middle back, near the liver location, or transcutaneous/intravenous are my main recommendations here.

You'll have to treat the upper abdomen here, just under the chest, and at the same height at the middle back. The human studies do show great results with red light, although, animal studies across the board show great NIR outcomes.

For now, I will recommend their combination, as theoretically NIR should work well here, but it's not really tested in humans yet. And either use a higher dose with the contact method, or a regular dose (also under the assumption that it's not described in the study) with intravenous light.

Then:

Best Devices For Red Light Therapy For Liver Health

Bringing me to the following top-3 devices:

1. Tabletop Panels - any of the best/most reputable companies, such as Rojo, Mito Red, Rouge, Block Blue Light, Mito Light EU, PlatinumLED, will do, for only directly treating the gut. Ideally, you'll press the tabletop panel against the abdomen/middle back for maximum penetration. This is the "contact method" used in the human study above.
2. Kineon MOVE+ - Use discount code AFERGUSMOVE - use on the blood flow, transdermally or "intravenously", on the neck. So this is a systemic treatment that's very close to what's being used in the studies. I think here, treating at the neck is better than at the abdomen/middle back, as the arteries aren't superficial in the midsection.
3. Multiple Wall Panels or Body Panel - any of the best/most reputable companies, such as Rojo, Rouge, Block Blue Light, Mito Light EU, PlatinumLED, will do. These allow a higher dose across the entire body to be applied consistently and quickly, and should ideally target the middle abdomen under the chest and middle back too.
4. Chroma Ironforge - code ALEX saves. Great for both local treatment at areas of the midsection. Harder to reach the middle back with this so you'll need their stand. Not the easiest to apply to the midsection but has great other treatment goal benefits too.

Conclusion: Promising But Waiting For More Human Research

Overall, the research is promising on light therapy for liver health. I'll track this topic and do an update in 2027-28 or so, and see whether there's more human research.

The combination of human/animal research is quite promising though. And the human research has quite big effect sizes - the magnitude of the effect - seemingly.

Some topics haven't been investigated at all, yet, however, such as red light therapy for liver cancer or red light therapy for liver detox. Although in case of the latter, you may say that the fatty liver benefits etc, give indirect benefits for detox, etc.

Stay tuned for more!

This is a post by Bart Wolbers. Bart finished degrees in Physical Therapy (B), Philosophy (BA and MA), Philosophy of Science and Technology (MS - with distinction), and Clinical Health Science (MS), has had training in functional medicine, and is currently the head researcher at Lighttherapyinsiders.com

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