Reducing Inflammation with Red Light: How It Actually Works
A note from Andrew, founder of Magma.
Twenty five years ago I had two lower back surgeries. It's not something I talk about often, but it's relevant here and it's still something I have to be mindful of. I don't ignore it and I don't take it for granted. But it doesn't hold me back either. I cycle, I go to the gym, I play squash and tennis, I snowboard, I run - I live about as active a life as anyone I know.
Managing that balance, staying genuinely active while looking after a part of my body that's been through major surgery twice is a big part of why I got interested in red light therapy in the first place and why inflammation specifically became something I wanted to actually understand, not just take on faith. So this post is the one I most wanted to write properly: what inflammation actually is, how red light is thought to affect it and what the evidence really says. No more, no less.
Inflammation Isn't the Enemy. Until It Is
It's worth starting here, because "anti-inflammatory" gets thrown around like inflammation is always bad. It isn't. Inflammation is your body's repair response. When you train hard, strain a muscle, or your body needs to heal after surgery, inflammation is the process that gets repair cells to the site and clears out damaged tissue. Without it, you wouldn't heal at all.
The problem is when it doesn't switch off. Chronic, low-grade inflammation from overtraining, old injuries or repetitive strain, is a different story. That's the kind that leaves joints stiff, muscles slow to recover and old injury sites more reactive than they should be. That's the kind most people actually mean when they talk about wanting to "reduce inflammation."
How Red Light Is Thought to Affect It
Red and near-infrared light is absorbed by mitochondria in your cells and this is believed to influence the inflammatory process in a few specific ways:
- Modulating cytokines. Cytokines are the signalling molecules that drive inflammation. Multiple studies have found that photobiomodulation can reduce pro-inflammatory cytokines (like IL-6 and TNF-α) at the cellular level.
- Reducing oxidative stress. Chronic inflammation and excess reactive oxygen species tend to go hand in hand. Red light exposure has been shown to help regulate this balance.
- Supporting circulation. Better local blood flow means more efficient delivery of repair resources to inflamed tissue, and more efficient clearance of the waste products that prolong inflammation.
None of this means red light "cures" inflammation. The theory is that it helps shift an overactive, prolonged inflammatory response back toward a normal, healthy one, supporting your body's own repair process rather than overriding it.
What the Research Actually Shows
This is the part I care about getting right, because the evidence is genuinely mixed depending on what you're treating and I'd rather tell you that honestly than pretend it's settled.
The strongest evidence sits with specific, well-defined conditions. A comprehensive systematic review combining data from PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library - 53 studies across roughly 2,800 patients, found that photobiomodulation therapy reduced pain scores by an average of 32% across knee osteoarthritis, tendinopathies and postoperative pain. You can read the review here. A separate meta-analysis focused specifically on tendinopathy found similar pain and function improvements. See that meta-analysis here.
Low back pain specifically, though, is more contested and given my own history, I've paid close attention to this. A well-designed, 148-patient, placebo-controlled trial found photobiomodulation was not significantly better than placebo for chronic non-specific low back pain. You can read that trial here. Other reviews are more encouraging. The honest summary: for general joint and tendon inflammation, the kind that comes from an active lifestyle, the evidence is genuinely good. For chronic low back pain specifically, it's still an open question and I wouldn't want to overstate it to you. However, in my own experience, I've been using red light daily on my lower back for more than 12 months now & genuinely feel an improvment in overall stiffness & pain reduction. So for me it's been a great addition to my daily routine active life.
How I Actually Use It
What I use it for is the general wear that comes with staying this active: a knee that's tight after a long ride, shoulders after a hard squash session, general stiffness the day after a workout. Red light has become part of my maintenance routine, alongside things like proper warm-ups, stretching and simply listening to my body, not instead of them.
That's really the honest pitch: it's a tool that supports an active life, not a replacement for taking care of yourself properly. I look at red light therapy as one of the pillars of the foundations of long term health.
A Sensible Way to Use It
If you're managing your own inflammation, from training, an old injury or simply staying active, here's what the evidence-backed approach looks like:
- Target the actual site. Local, direct exposure to the joint, tendon, or muscle involved tends to show better results than general full-body use.
- Be consistent. Most of the positive studies used sessions several times a week over multiple weeks, not one-off use.
- Pair it with the fundamentals. Rest, mobility work and proper training load management still matter more than any single recovery tool.
- Get a real diagnosis first. If you have a persistent or serious issue, like my back, see a professional before assuming red light alone is the answer.
The Bottom Line
Red light therapy has genuinely good evidence behind it for general joint and tendon inflammation, the kind an active lifestyle produces and more mixed evidence for specific chronic conditions like low back pain. I use it because it fits into a life that includes cycling, the gym, squash, tennis and running, alongside a body I've had to stay mindful of for 25 years. It's not a miracle and it's not a replacement for general care. But as part of a sensible routine, it's earned its place in mine.
Curious how red light therapy could support your own active lifestyle? Explore Magma's panels, built around the same wavelengths behind the research in this article.
