Thursday, June 11, 2015

How Red Light Therapy For Wrinkles Works

By Elaine Guthrie


Anyone can buy a boatload of anti-aging beauty and skincare products to fill an entire vanity or medicine closet with lotions, liquids and creams. There's also no dearth of surgical procedures to make aging symptoms like wrinkles vanish for the moment. But red light therapy for wrinkles is a rather innovative technique that is increasingly popular these days.

It is an established science that phototherapy, also known as heliotherapy, is able to help patients suffering from a range of disorders. This includes skin problems like acne and eczema, healing of open wounds, and even cancer. It's also been effectively used for helping people suffering from stress, depression or sleep disorders.

Phototherapies typically come under one of two broad categories. The non-targeted type is where the patient is asked to get more and regular exposure to sunlight, which can be direct or through a lightbox that reflects sunlight. On the other hand, targeted types of therapies focus intense rays of light from sources such as lamps, LEDs and lasers on a particular patch of skin.

Red light therapy is one of the targeted techniques, focused on getting rid of wrinkles below the eyes. One important distinction to remember is that this is different from infrared rays that cannot be seen directly by the human eye. Researchers at Germany's University of Ulm showed how visible rays in the red spectrum are medically beneficial.

The whole thing hinges around a protein called elastin. This is what keeps skin elastic by ensuring a steady flow of collagen. But with the onset of aging, the elastin fibers aren't as effective and the skin starts losing its elasticity due to lack of collagen. Every stretch leaves it baggier, and the end result is what people perceive to be wrinkles.

It happens because water layers surrounding elastin fibers impede functionality with the onset of aging. When a patch of skin is subjected to high-intensity light rays in a visible spectrum, the blood circulation improves suddenly and drastically. The water layers change again and free up the elastin to do their work. Collagen production gets a boost, and the result is more healthy skin.

This is a simple process that is entirely painless and non-invasive. Abnormalities such as wounds and wrinkles will go away quickly. If the skin is already healthy, this procedure will give it a new healthy sheen as the excess collagen makes an impact.

There are many skincare clinics and beauty salons that already use FDA approved phototherapy devices. There are also home-use devices available that can produce the same results. It is usually some kind of head gear that emits the rays around the eyes, with goggles worn to protect the eyes.

Even so, it's important to remember to use it in moderation. It's helpful up to a certain point, but bombarding a specific patch of skin with intense light rays for extended periods will have adverse consequences. The ideal usage is for one minute exposures for no more than three to four times per day, at most. Also note that patients with medical conditions and other skin ailments should talk to a dermatologist first.




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