Wellness Care

We often get asked:

• Is red light PBM Therapy good for your health (even if you have no obvious symptoms) and
• Is there any benefit having PBM Therapy after a problem has got better?

To try to answer the above questions lets cover what is known about PBM Therapy and look at the available evidence.

An ever increasing body evidence is being showing that when PBM Therapy is applied to healthy tissue cells in the lab, animals and humans can improve/enhance how cellular functions and chemical processes occur – even when it seems to the patient, that ‘nothing has gone wrong’.   So where is the evidence?  At the end of 2020 there were over 583 references in the literature showing studies of PBM Therapy for prophylactic/preventive treatment on healthy cells!  Looking at all the evidence NICE – the National Institute for health and Care Excellence recommend PBM Therapy (LLLT) for the prevention and treating of the dreadful skin condition Oral Mucositis, caused by radiotherapy or chemotherapy.

The scientific term for this improvement/enhancement in cellular health and function is called PRE CONDITIONING, but we simply use the term for patients in the clinic as ‘WELLNESS CARE’.

When PBM Therapy is applied to healthy tissue culture cells (Preconditioning) in the laboratory, they do not seem to look really any different – no ‘incredible hulk’ cell changes appear when compared to control cells which haven’t received PBM Therapy! However researchers globally have proven in many scientific studies that these preconditioned cells are actually astonishingly different. They become:

• ‘Enhanced ‘ e.g. working faster and harder as well as doing so for longer
• More resistant to cell damage and death. When researchers try to kill cells with toxic substances (e.g. X-ray radiation, UV light, methanol, LPS*) the PBM Therapy triggers cell defensive/protective mechanisms in the healthy cells which does not happen in non treated PBM pre conditioned cells.  Read the posts below about how PBM Therapy can protect healthy cells against the nasty side effects of radiotherapy, and how healthy cells are protected from sunburn when skin is exposed to increasing doses of harmful UV light

(* LPS – Lipopolysaccharides are very inflammatory chemicals produced by bacteria when you have an infection, and are powerful causes of systemic inflammation and a cause of septic shock).