The anti-aging product market was worth roughly 53 BILLION dollars in 2024. One of the latest big trends: red light therapy. Social media is rampant with claims about all sorts of purported health benefits to using directed red light regularly … but does the research really live up to all the hype?

For answers, we turn to cosmetic chemist and science communicator Michelle Wong . Together, she and host Regina G. Barber sift through the thin (albeit growing) research on red light therapy to find out which claims are clearly backed by the literature – and which still need a bit more experimental data.

Interested in more science behind skincare products? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org .

Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at N

See Full Page