Article on Red Light Therapy is below the vid and Dr Berg’s text for it…. Mike Anthony
What are the benefits of red light therapy? Find out how red light therapy can support mitochondrial health, which is crucial for energy production and the health of your cells.
Find the free Essential Guide to Red Light Therapy here: https://drbrg.co/4hGpCiu
Just so you know, my full line of high-quality supplements is available on Amazon — search Dr. Berg Supplements.
0:00 Red light therapy explained
0:10 The Krebs cycle and red light therapy
1:10 Red light therapy benefits
1:43 Red light therapy vs. infrared light therapy
2:24 Red light therapy research
3:36 When to get the most red light from the sun
5:01 Red light therapy for blood sugar
6:00 Red light therapy mistakes and misconceptions
7:30 How to use red light therapy
8:01 Sources of infrared light
Keep watching for more ways to support cellular health, energy, and longevity:
RED LIGHT, TIRED EYES, AND THE $2,000 SUNRISE
What Berg got right about mitochondria, what the retina trials actually measured, and why your LED office is the cheaper villain. Remember, even Joe Rogan reversed his vision problem (he is 57 and needed reading glasses as many of us do at this age – and now he has said MANY times, red-light therapy after just a few months, corrected his vision. He no longer needs reading glasses)
By Michael Anthony, Health Writer
September 30, 2026
Dr. Eric Berg dropped a video (above) this morning that we picked up on Whatfinger Lifehacks, and for once the wellness circuit is circling something a lab can find on a blot. I have been working on this article for some time and have used red-light therapy devices for a few years now, so I speak from direct experience, and can agree with Jor Rogan. EVERYONE can immediately get the benefits of red-light therapy, and even reverse eye issues as I have as well.
Red light hits an enzyme at the last step of the electron transport chain. That enzyme is cytochrome c oxidase — complex IV. The Krebs cycle dumps electrons upstream. Complex IV grabs them, parks them on oxygen, and the cell prints ATP. Berg’s clip walks that staircase in under ten minutes. The rest of the internet spent the last 48 hours turning it into a shopping list. The cell part is real. The shopping list is where people get fleeced. Don’t fall for all the BS out there. I’ve invested the money on the devices and go fleeced with a few in the past. Here’s a strange fact that most red-light companies do not want to tell you. 99% of them are made in China. Seriously – basically all are made in China, even the good ones as I have come to learn.
Let’s dive into it all. The factory on the last step
Mitochondria are not a metaphor. They are the plant. Photoreceptors in the retina pack more of them than almost any other tissue in the body, which is why the eye ages like a high-mileage engine. Published work out of University College London puts the lifetime ATP drop in those cells near 70 percent. Color vision starts slipping after 40 because the cones that read blue are energy hogs, and the hog is running on fumes.
Red and near-infrared photons in the 650–900 nm window land on the copper and heme centers in complex IV. Nitric oxide that was sitting on the enzyme like a parking boot pops off. Electron flow picks up. ATP ticks higher. You get a short ROS burst that tells Nrf2 to turn on the antioxidant genes, then inflammation cools. That is the mechanism the reviews keep reprinting. Call it photobiomodulation if you want the journal word. Call it a jump pack for a tired battery if you want English.
Berg is also right that you do not need a $2,000 wall of LEDs to get red and infrared photons. Sunrise already ships them. A dim incandescent on the desk still throws a pile of near-IR even when it looks barely on. The panels sell a wavelength the window already has.
What the eyes actually did in trials
Glen Jeffery’s group at UCL Institute of Ophthalmology ran the cheap experiment first. Adults looked at a 670 nm LED torch for three minutes. Morning, 8 to 9 a.m. Color contrast improved about 17 percent on average, up to 20 percent in some people over 40, and the bump lasted a week from a single dose. Afternoon light flattened the gain. Younger eyes barely moved. The mitochondria that still worked did not need the jump.
That protocol is a torch, three minutes, morning. It is not an hour under a garage-heater panel with your eyelids peeled. Jeffery has said out loud that some of those panels are too hot and too bright for the job. X is already selling the opposite.
The bigger clinical pile is dry age-related macular degeneration. LIGHTSITE III ran 100 people, 148 eyes, sham-controlled, two years, on the Valeda box that fires 590, 660, and 850 nm. FDA cleared that platform in November 2024. At month 21 the treated eyes were up 6.2 letters. At month 24 the gain was still 5.6. Sixty-one percent of treated eyes picked up at least five letters. New geographic atrophy hit 24 percent of sham eyes and 6.8 percent of treated eyes. Hazard ratio 0.27 — a 73 percent lower risk of new GA versus sham. No phototoxicity signal. Alcon bought LumiThera in September 2025 and now sells the box. Clinic device. Clinic protocol. Nine short sessions, repeat every quarter. It is not your Amazon panel.
Childhood myopia is a different animal. Repeated low-level red light (RLRL) desks in China have beaten 0.01 percent atropine on axial length at six months in at least one head-to-head. Parents on X are already treating that like a permission slip. Dose windows in a growing eye are narrow. A desktop built for that trial is not the same object as a body panel pointed at a sixth-grader. Wait for longer safety data before you play optometrist in the playroom.
Blood sugar, LEDs, and the office that forgot the sun
Jeffery and Michael Powner put 670 nm on healthy adults before a glucose load and watched the spike fall 27.7 percent, with the peak cut 7.5 percent. Same lab later stuck incandescent desk lamps into a windowless, LED-lit UCL office. Color vision improved and stayed improved for weeks after the lamps came out. A later glucose run in that building is still preprint, so treat it as a lead, not a law. The published point is ugly enough: modern LEDs are blue-heavy and red-starved. We swapped a full-spectrum bulb for a cheap diode and then wondered why the mitochondria look bored. By the way, I only use red lights indoors now. Never use what I call headache lights. If you need to see even more, you can get full spectrum bulbs right on Amazon. I buy this brand, and have tried many. These things last forever it seems.
Berg’s video flags blood sugar and morning sun for a reason. The Lifehacks post is also right that red sits on skin and hair, near-IR goes deeper into muscle and joint, and the literature on hair, knee osteoarthritis, and fibromyalgia fatigue is not empty. It is just smaller and sloppier than the AMD file. Cognitive claims are the sloppiest of the bunch. Do not buy a helmet because a Reel told you so.
What X got right, and what it sold you
The useful posts this week said the same three sentences. Wavelength 630–850. Target is cytochrome c oxidase. Dose is the whole story. BioLight’s Mike Belkowski put it clean: match the light to the mitochondria that are still alive, especially early dry AMD. Metabolic Uncle’s older thread is still the best plain-English map on X — AMD, diabetic retina, dry eye, myopia — and he ended where a serious person should end: the retina does not regenerate, so do not improvise.
The rest of the timeline is mats, codes, and a McDonald’s drive-thru joke. Fine. Laugh. Then remember the dose curve is a hill, not a ramp. Too little does nothing. Too much is a laser you paid for.
Get morning sun on your face. Ten minutes costs nothing and ships red plus infrared plus the clock your sleep wants. If you live under office LEDs, a dim incandescent on the desk is the Jeffery move. If you are chasing aging color vision, the published protocol is 670 nm, three minutes, morning, low irradiance, eyes open on a study-grade torch — not a 300-watt wall. If you have intermediate dry AMD, that conversation belongs with a retina clinic and a cleared device, not a cart.
You can actually stop using your alarm clock if you figure out the time connection and sunlight. What I mean by this is, for instance, in Texas where I am now (North Texas) – if you or anyone gets out into the sun (rain or shine by the way as the important rays needed go right through the clouds) by 7:30 am, if you do this for just 2 days, setting your alarm to make sure you get up, by day 3, you no longer need alarm clocks as your body will wake you up by itself after resetting it’s circadian rhythm. No Bullshit. I had only one person take longer, but they were on medications and had many other factors that can screw with mother nature.
Stay off high-power panels with eyes wide open. Stay off kid protocols you printed from a quote-tweet. If you take photosensitizing drugs or you already have retinal disease, talk to the person who actually looks at your fundus.
Berg’s closer still holds. A lot of sunlight is already red and infrared. The expensive box is optional. The enzyme is not. Get out in the sun more often and you do yourself a world of good. In more ways than science can even tell you, as we are only now just starting to discover the facts about our own mitochondria, that happens to make up about 12% of your own body weight. Seriously – some cells have hundreds of thousands of these little marvels. In anyone’s book then, it is smart to keep them happy and healthy, and they LOVE sunlight, and they love red-light therapy.
– — The Whatfinger News Team: Michael Anthony, with Beth. Grok on edits and graphics
Device I use 3-5 times a week. It is the most expensive item I invested in for red-light therapy, with all others falling short. Belts, lights on the desk, and even some bulbs all failed. This though is a work-horse. CLICK HERE or below for Amazon page
“As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.”
References
- What Red Light Therapy Actually Does Inside Your Cells
- Dr. Eric Berg — What Red Light Therapy Actually Does Inside Your Cells (video)
- Shinhmar et al. — Optically Improved Mitochondrial Function Redeems Aged Human Visual Decline
- Shinhmar et al. — Weeklong Improved Colour Contrast Sensitivity After Single 670 nm Exposures
- UCL News — Morning Exposure to Deep Red Light Improves Declining Eyesight
- Boyer et al. — LIGHTSITE III 13-Month Efficacy and Safety (Retina)
- LIGHTSITE III 24-Month Analysis — Long-Term Efficacy and Safety of PBM in Dry AMD
- ARVO — Photobiomodulation Demonstrates Reduced Risk for Vision Loss and Geographic Atrophy
- Ophthalmology Times — Unpacking Photobiomodulation for Dry AMD (Valeda / LIGHTSITE III)
- Tan et al. — Photobiomodulation: Evidence and Applications in Ophthalmology
- Molecular Mechanisms of Photobiomodulation in Retinal Diseases (IJMS, 2026)
- Powner & Jeffery — Red Light Can Reduce Blood Glucose Levels
- New Scientist — The Shock Revelation That Light Bulbs Are Wrecking Your Metabolism
- Optometry Times — Low-Level Red Light vs 0.01% Atropine in Myopic Children
- Frontiers — Photobiomodulation Use in Ophthalmology, Bench to Bedside
- Dr. Mike Belkowski — Red Light, Retinal Mitochondria, and Early AMD (X)
- Metabolic Uncle — Red Light and Your Eyes: What the Research Actually Shows (X)
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