Red light therapy could improve eyesight that has declined due to age - New Scientist

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Exposure to deep red or near-infrared light can improve the function of the eye’s mitochondria, the powerhouses in cells, resulting in slight but lasting improvement to declining eyesight

Health 24 November 2021

By Clare Wilson

Extreme Close-Up Of Human Eye — Eyesight naturally fades with age

Eko Agung Wahyudi / EyeEm

An unusual experimental treatment for fading sight involves shining a red light into the eyes for a few minutes to boost the activity of mitochondria, microscopic structures that provide energy inside cells.

In the first small test of the approach in 24 people, one short exposure to the light slightly improved people’s performance in tests of colour vision for several days.

Deep red light and near-infrared light have previously been shown to enhance the function of mitochondria in a range of cell-based and animal experiments. They seem to work by improving the performance of a key molecular structure within mitochondria, called an ATP synthase pump.

These pumps manufacture a molecule called ATP, which cells use for energy, by physically rotating within the watery environment of the mitochondria. Deep red light has just the right wavelength, at 670 nanometres, to be absorbed by water molecules, which gives them more energy.

This makes the water surrounding the pump less viscous, letting the structure rotate faster. “It is like heating up jam to make it easier to stir,” says Glen Jeffery at University College London.

While making cells more energy efficient could affect a wide range of bodily systems, Jeffery’s group has been investigating cells of the retina, a patch of light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye, as they are packed with more mitochondria than any other cell in the body. Impaired mitochondria may contribute to declining eyesight with age and have been implicated in several causes of blindness.

Previous work in flies has suggested that mitochondria make most ATP in the mornings. So Jeffery’s group carried out a trial of red light exposure in people aged 37 to 70, comparing treatment in the morning with that given in the afternoon, as a control group.

The participants had a weak deep red light shone at their eyes for 3 minutes. Three hours later, their colour vision was tested by asking them to try to discriminate letters shown on a similar-coloured background. The team focused on colour vision because the cells in the retina responsible for black and white vision tend to die with age.

When people received one treatment, between 8am and 9am, their performance on the colour contrast tests improved by 12 to 17 per cent, compared with before the treatment. Ten members of the group were also tested one week later and their results were still up to 10 per cent better. But there was no significant change if the treatment was done in the afternoon.

Some individuals said they didn’t notice any improvements to their vision, despite performing better on the tests, says Jeffery.

Louise Gow at UK charity the Royal National Institute of Blind People says the findings are exciting, but a bigger study is needed to see if the approach can bring noticeable benefits to people’s vision. “A larger study would establish the evidence for this type of innovative treatment,” she says.

A US group has found benefits of red light treatment in people with a common cause of blindness called age-related macular degeneration, as well as the worsening eyesight caused by diabetes.

The treatment may help in diverse conditions because boosting mitochondria “turns on all the systems in the cell that make the cell work better”, says Janis Eells at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, who was involved in the work. Eells is working with a firm called LumiThera, which markets a red light device for treating macular degeneration in some countries.

Various groups have also shown that deep red or near-infrared light shone at the head can benefit animals with induced brain injuries, such as stroke and Parkinson’s disease, in lab experiments.

Jeffery’s group has also found that red light irradiation can protect bees exposed to neonicotinoid insecticides, which damage mitochondria. The group proposes that beekeepers put lamps in their hives.

Journal reference: Scientific Reports, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-02311-1

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