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Light Therapy for Damaged Retinas

Near infra-red light therapy on damaged retinal cells can keep them alive and prevent permanent blindness

Near infra-red light therapy - commonly known as Low Level Laser Therapy- is drawing a lot of attention from research clinicians around the world. For a number of years various research centers in Japan, Britain, and the United States have been conducting clinical trials to measure the efficacy of the application of red and near infra-red light over injuries and lesions healing and give relief for both acute and chronic pain. Many of these trials have proven very successful and clearly verified that light can have a positive effect on damaged cells. So much so that the US Defense Advance Research Projects Agency is funding research into the method and hopes to use it to treat some of their personnel whose eyes have been damaged by lasers during combat.

A recent article by Stephen Leahy of NewScientist.com highlights the remarkable healing properties of Low Level Laser Therapy. "People blinded by light," Leahy reports, "could be treated with more light. Researchers have found that shining near-infrared radiation on damaged retinal cells can keep them alive and prevent permanent blindness."

Says NewScientists.com, "In the late 1990s, lab studies on cells showed that near-infrared wavelengths can boost the activity of mitochondria, the crucial powerhouses in cells. That caught the attention of NASA, which hoped it could use the technique to treat astronauts in space, where injuries heal more slowly than on Earth, possibly because mitochondria do not function properly."

Laser Therapy can be used to increase the speed, quality and tensile strength of tissue repair, give pain relief, resolve inflammation - it is even used as an alternative to needles for acupuncture. Red and near infrared light (600 nanometres -1000 nanometres) can be produced by laser or high intensity LED. The intensity of LLLT lasers and LED's is not high like a surgical laser. There is no heating effect. The effect is photochemical and very closely related to the photosynthesis process in plants. Red light aids the production of ATP thereby providing the cell with more energy which in turn means the cell is in optimum condition to play its part in a natural healing process.

Dr. Harry Whelan speaking at the World Association for Laser Therapy Conference

Leahy reports, "Now Harry Whelan, a neurologist at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, and his colleagues have put the LEDs to the test on eye injuries. In a study that will appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Whelan blinded rats by giving them high doses of methanol, or wood alcohol….Within hours, the rats' energy-hungry retinal cells and optic nerves began to die, and the animals went completely blind within one to two days. But if the rats were treated with LED light with a wavelength of 670 nanometres for 105 seconds at 5, 25 and 50 hours after being dosed with methanol, they recovered 95 per cent of their sight. Remarkably, the retinas of these rats looked indistinguishable from those of normal rats. "There was some tissue regeneration, and neurons, axons and dendrites may also be reconnecting," says Whelan.

President of the North American Association for Laser Therapy, Dr. Juanita Anders has been engaged in low level laser therapy research for many years. Anders and her team at the Uniformed Services University, Maryland, have documented a number of clinical trials which verify the positive effects of laser therapy on neuronal regeneration following injury. Recent studies have shown the ability of laser therapy to inhibit inflammatory cell invasion and activation in the spinal cord. Her current research is focused on further spinal cord research, wound healing in diabetes and the treatment of axotomized facial motor neurons.

Low Level Laser Therapy is already being used extensively throughout the United Kingdom and Europe. THOR Photomedicine, the leading manufacturer of low level laser therapy systems in the UK, anticipate having FDA 'approved' units for sale in the USA by the new year.