Photobiomodulation: professional healthcare innovation or self-treatment?

While searching for relief from my own health complaints in 2025, I came across red light therapy, which is usually referred to as “photobiomodulation” (PBM) in research. This is atherapy that uses red and near-infrared light to influence biological processes in the body. 

I found it a fascinating technique and read with surprise about the many possible applications and the freely available equipment. How was it possible that I had never heard of this before?

Because I don’t just believe things blindly and didn’t want to waste money, I started looking into how it works and the scientific research behind it. My nursing background has taught me to look critically at health claims, and that critical lens helped me separate fact from fiction. It turned out that a great deal of research has already been done, but large RCTs are still lacking, and for many conditions there remains a lot of uncertainty about its true value as a treatment method. 

During a consultation with a neurologist, I asked him whether he was familiar with it, since I wanted to explore whether it might help with my own condition. Unfortunately, he had no knowledge of it. This made me acutely aware of the gap between the knowledge I had gathered as a layperson about this treatment method and what was known in professional care.

As the neurologist was interested, we agreed that I would send him some information. But what should I choose from the many websites, YouTube videos, and scientific publications out there? How could I effectively convey my basic knowledge of the treatment technique to a doctor who already has so much information to process? On top of that, more healthcare providers around me turned out to be interested, so it seemed better to take a broader approach.

I decided to write a clear and well-organized piece myself, covering the basic principles, possible applications, and the current state of research. Because I wanted my information to be well substantiated, I also decided to add literature references. And before I knew it, it had naturally turned into a kind of white paper or position paper, although there isn’t really a name for a paper written by someone without a job title or professional position in the field. 

I hope this document provides a solid foundation for medical professionals and inspires further exploration of PBM within their own field. I also hope that coordinated research into PBM will emerge in the Netherlands, so that there is more clarity on whether PBM is applicable within medical care, or whether it will remain primarily something for the consumer market.