Red Light therapy or low-level laser therapy uses red and/or near-infrared light to treat many skin and health conditions. However, it can also help you lose body fat to reduce weight.
If you’re wondering how red-light therapy works to help you with weight loss and fat reduction, you’ve come to the right place.
How Does Red Light Therapy Work for Weight Loss? Science Behind
The working mechanism of red light therapy to help you lose weight is simple. It improves your metabolism and helps your body burn fat faster. According to a study published in the National Library of Medicine, red light therapy can increase ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate), which is cellular energy.
This enzyme plays a vital role in your metabolism and the fat-burning process. Additionally, red light therapy can also improve blood flow in the part of your body where it’s applied, which results in burning more calories, preventing body weight from increasing.
An NCBI study was conducted on 60 people who underwent red light therapy treatments for six weeks (two sessions per week). The results of this study show that all the participants experience a 0.8-inch reduction in the waist.
Another NCBI study with a control group shows that red light therapy can help people lose fat and reduce the waist by up to 1.1 inches within two weeks.
Using Red Light Therapy to Lose Weight
The best way to reduce weight using red light therapy is to target subcutaneous fat. That’s because about 90 percent of fat in the human body is in the form of this fat. It’s present in your entire body, from legs, muffin tops, and buttocks, to the chest, back, neck, and face.
The following tips will help you with subcutaneous fat loss.
- Use a red-light therapy device that comes with moderate intensity and covers a large area. If you can afford it, consider buying a full-body red light therapy device.
- Keep in mind that red light can’t penetrate the fat cells located under the dermis layer. So, a device with a near-infrared light option will work better.
- The subcutaneous fat layer can be very large and can have different depths. So, combining both red and near-infrared light wavelengths will work better. That’s because they’ll cover different depths of the fat layer effectively.
If you want to burn abdominal fat, you’ll need high near-infrared light intensity so that it can penetrate deeper into the thick abdominal fat layer. In addition, the wavelength must also be highly penetrative, around 730 to 840 nanometers.
Final Words
While red light therapy treatments can help you lose weight, you must not completely rely on this method. According to modern and established scientific research, the best way to lose weight is to follow a healthy lifestyle.
It includes healthy eating habits and exercising regularly. You can add red light therapy to your daily routine to accelerate the process of weight loss.