The Ultimate Guide to Red Light Therapy: Revised and Updated: The Breakthrough Solution for Anti-Aging, Weight Loss, Muscle Gain, Inflammation Reduction, and Peak Performance

by Ari Whitten M.S.

Genres: Health

384 pages, Hardcover

Published January 13, 2026

Reviews

[Debbie]

This book explains the science behind using red and infrared light for a wide variety of health benefits and how to select a device suited to your end purpose (more surface-level, skin benefits or deeper, like helping joints or muscles). I've previously read the first edition of this book, and this second edition included a lot more information, especially up-to-date, detailed information on the latest scientific research. These sections get technical. However, the book is designed so you can jump over sections that don't interest you. This also means that a lot of information was repeated (in more detail in some places and less detail in others). I ended up skimming sections that got repetitive. Overall, though, this is a good resource if you're interested in using red light therapy, especially in optimizing your red light therapy results. The author didn't specifically recommend very many devices in the book as he felt the market was changing so quickly. He provided a link to go to for the latest recommendations.

I received a free ebook review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.

[Sherri]

***I received an ARC from Net Galley in exchange for my honest review

I have been interested in red light therapy and its uses for awhile now, and now that I have acquired several different red light therapy devices, I wanted to know how best to utilize them. I was hoping for specifics - for a certain type of device, to receive the best result, this is the best option, etc. That wasn't really what I got from this book. I did like that it told me a lot of things about what red light therapy can do, that I had no idea about. What I didn't really like was how dry and technical the writing was, and how, instead of specifics, it gave you math equations to use. No offense, but I hate math, so I had trouble following along after that. If you are interested in the technical side of things, or are interested in reading a chapter or two about all that red light therapy is capable of doing, you should check it out. Otherwise, I would give it a pass.

[Lorena]

This is a complete rewrite of Whitten’s 2018 Ultimate Guide to Red Light Therapy. This new version was co-authored by retired Harvard Medical School professor and photobiomodulation researcher Dr. Michael Hamblin and cites a lot of new research on red light therapy. It also provides more guidance on the devices and doses that Whitten recommends.

There’s a lot of technical information here that is going to be overkill for most readers. It is well written and relatively easy to understand, but I wish he had focused less on all that research and more on practical guidance. I’m a fairly technical person, and this still felt overwhelming to me. It did encourage me to consider using red light therapy, but I still haven’t gotten around to it because of that sense of overwhelm.

The back matter includes references and an index.

I was provided an ARC through NetGalley. I volunteered to provide an honest review.

[Diane Hernandez]

The title of this book, The Ultimate Guide to Red Light Therapy, is a bit of a misnomer.

There are no instructions or even suggestions on how to use red light therapy to fix issues. There is only a two line table towards the rear of the book that briefly touches on clinical use. The rest of the book is just a description of how red light works and how it is great for so many problems. So it isn’t really a guide. It’s more of a college course in the history and benefits of red light therapy. The writing style is best described as advanced college textbook too. There is some math involved. Overall, The Ultimate Guide to Red Light Therapy fails to deliver what I wanted as a red light user. 2.5 stars rounded up to 3 stars.

Thanks to NetGalley and Convergent for providing me with an advanced review copy.