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 or
• Humans

PBM Therapy can improve/enhance how cellular functions and chemical processes occur – even when it seems to the person that ‘nothing has gone wrong’.

PBM Therapy can make unhealthy cells healthier and and health cells even more healthier! So where is the evidence for this statement? 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!

For instance in cancer therapy in humans there is a vast array of evidence showing already that PBM Therapy can treat the horrendous symptoms of the dreadful skin condition Oral Mucositis as well as skin burns – Radiodermatitis from Radiation Therapy.

However even more importantly there is an ever increasing body of evidence that goes one step further. If you have PBM Therapy prior to undergoing radiotherapy or chemotherapy the side effects of Oral Mucositis are hugely reduced to such an extent that:

NICE* – the National Institute for health and Care Excellence recommends PBM Therapy (LLLT) not only for treatment of Oral Mucositis but also PBM Therapy for the prevention of the Oral Mucositis, caused by radiotherapy or chemotherapy.

(*who is NICE? medical ‘think tank’ made up of experts (e.g. Drs, professors, pharmacologists, nurses etc) from all medical treatment fields. They are are tasked with looking at the evidence for treatments, then making recommendations that it should or should not be included and funded by the NHS based on the all evidence available i.e. what is that best practice based on all the research).

Despite this amazing preventative benefit literally just a few NHS trusts out of the 55 use PBM Therapy. Unfortunately a recommendation for best practice is not a mandate.

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/ damage 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
• When exposed to long term whole body PBM Therapy aged rats actually show less cell damage, cell aging and deterioration in their brains than very young rats!

Preconditioning increases stem cells in your blood stream by 378%! Stem cells form a vital part in healing and regeneration of our tissues. restoring function with the corresponding maintenance / improvement in health.

(* 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).

Research is ongoing in this new exiting area of medicine, aiming to unravel exactly what occurs in the cells when preconditioning is applied and how best this can be applied for humans (and animals) for the prevention of cell damage, degeneration and cell death; preserving cell processes, cell life and ultimately the prevention of medical conditions.