Last Updated on 3 years by Francis

How Red Light Therapy Helps with Hair Loss

When your hair starts to fall, it is very normal for you to get paranoid and start a lot of new things to prevent baldness.

While there are multiple good options that might actually help you with hair loss, many people choose the wrong method and harm their hair health even more.

You need to choose only the proven and well-researched methods, like red light therapy. In this article, I am going to describe in detail how red light therapy helps with hair loss.

Scientific Evidence for Red Light Therapy

Before we get to discuss how red light therapy might prevent baldness, you need to understand why hair loss happens at the first place.

The most common reason behind hair loss is aging. According to statistics, over 50% of men above 40 suffer from hair-loss.

This percentage is even higher for women over 65, a rough 75% percent. It is called Androgenetic Alopecia.

Moreover, hair loss can happen due to genetic causes.

If your ancestors have suffered from the issue, you might also be a vulnerable to it as well. Bad hair and scalp health can contribute to hair fall too.

Red light therapy is considered as a natural and safe option to prevent and reverse hair loss.

Quite a few peers reviewed clinical studies, meta-analyses, and trials have provided evidence in favor of red light therapy.

In a meta-analysis from 209, 11 double-blind controlled trials were reviewed, for 8 clinical studies.

In this quantitative analysis, people who received red light therapy for hair loss showed positive results as their hair density increased.

In fact, red light therapy has shown better results than traditional hair fall treatment methods like placebo or sham.

The study has also proven that red light therapy works for both men and women who are looking for a hair loss remedy.

It is effective for both short term and long term results.

And most importantly, there was no reports of side-effects or health complexities. On the other hand, other methods like hair transplant very often comes with acute side effects and health complications.

How it Works

As now you have the scientific evidence proving how effective red light therapy for hair loss is, you might be interested to know how it works.

I will give a brief idea about the process behind red light therapy in this section.

When you apply red light therapy in any of your body parts, that part receives concentrated wavelengths of natural light.

There is no chemical, UV rays, or excessive heat is involved.

These wavelengths of light attempts to stimulate mitochondria of the cells where the therapy is applied. In short words, it replicates natural sunlight and increases circulation.

On the other hand, oxidative stress starts to reduce because of the light, preventing Androgenic Alopecia.

The whole process ensures that your body becomes able to produce more energy by itself, so that effects of aging can be prevented.

Other than keeping Androgenic Alopecia away, red light therapy can also speed up healing process, lower inflammation, reduce pain, and improve physical function.

Red light therapy benefits also include muscle recovery, enhanced endurance, and performance boost.

And lastly, dermal papilla cells are stimulated by the application of red light therapy, regulating hair growth in the process.

Result of Red Light Therapy Application

Almost all the studies conducted on red light therapy and it?s use on hair health have shown positive results.

Another meta-analysis took place back in 2017 which observed 680 patients under 11 studies.

These patients received red light therapy for hair loss problems.

Almost all of these individuals have reported significant improvement in hair density, hair thickness, hair count, and hair strength.

These are the common metrics that are used to determine hair health.

So it can be said that red light therapy improves all the aspects of your hair, and prevents baldness.

The patients were also asked about their personal experiences with red light therapy, and their responses were positive.

Additional Information

Wouldn?t you like to know some more interesting information about red light therapy to understand how effective it is for different cases? You?ll see some in this section!

Red light therapy works very well when used together with topicals.

This is a very common hair treatment pattern for females. Using red light therapy and topicals together has produced 5% more positive results in terms of hair density and hair thickness.

If your hair loss situation is very serious, then you can give this combination a go. It is very likely that you will experience positive results.

Red light therapy is not only effective for dealing with human hair loss, your pets can get the same benefits as well.

At times pets like dogs might also fall victim to alopecia, and their fur starts to go away quite rapidly. Not only this ruins the natural look of the dogs, but also its very dangerous for their overall health.

Red light therapy can help these poor animals by improving coat regrowth. It takes only a few weeks to see the effect.

If you have a dog that is suffering from alopecia, red light therapy can be a good choice to treat the animal.

Other animals can get the benefits from red light therapy too.

Studies have shown that mammals can enjoy 60% hair regrowth when applied red light therapy. In addition, mammals that receive red light therapy tends to have longer hair compared to the ones that receive no treatment.

Red light therapy might also help with hair loss caused due to lichen planopilaris, a scarring hair loss that occurs due to skin disease.

Though not confirmed, red light therapy has shown positive results in participants with the skin condition who took part in a trial back in 2017.

More research and development is needed to make the technology more effective.

Conclusion

The trials and researches have given enough evidence that red light therapy actually helps with hair loss.

And above all, it is totally safe to use as no negative impacts were reported in the mentioned studies. Still, you should consult your doctor before deciding to take red light therapy for hair loss.