LightTherapy
Latest
Dr. Samsung tried to fix my face
No, I'm not holding a phone. The thing I'm holding in my hand above is analyzing my skin for its hydration levels, redness and melanin. Even better, it's going to try and fix any issues with a combination of light therapy and "micro-needle" patches filled with skin goodness. Make me beautiful, Samsung.
Light therapy now treats even the deepest cancer
Light therapy is a safe, easy way to kill cancer and treat other diseases, but it's normally limited by its nature to illnesses that are skin-deep. Washington University researchers aren't daunted, however. They've developed a phototherapy method that brings light directly to tumor cells, no matter how deep they are. The technique has you ingesting sugar combined with radioactive fluorine and light-sensitive, cancer-fighting nanoparticles. When you go through a PET scan, the sugar lights up and promptly kicks the nanoparticles into high gear. Effectively, this is a Trojan horse -- since tumors eagerly absorb sugar, they're sowing the seeds of their own demise.
Philips' new LED light strap lets you treat skin disease at home
A skin disease like psoriasis is bad enough by itself, but it's made worse by the frequent need to visit your physician just to alleviate the pain and all-too-visible symptoms. Thankfully, Philips has just unveiled a wearable device that will let most psoriasis sufferers treat themselves. Its new BlueControl strap uses its namesake blue LED lights to slow down cell division (and thus painful inflammation) on your arms and legs; in tests, it cut the severity of symptoms in half without any side effects. The light therapy equipment will require a prescription when it reaches Germany, the Netherlands and the UK this October, but it will likely be worth the effort if it helps you avoid the doctor's office and get on with your life.
Philips tech enables wearable light therapy device
When Philips was looking for medical applications for their flexible Ledfoil disks, they were probably hoping to find a market of more than 200 people, but luckily for sufferers of the rare Crigler-Najjar syndrome, they happened to come across Dutch student Philomeen Engels. Engels, a recent graduate of the Delft University of Technology, had the idea of creating a wearable light therapy device using the Philips tech, which would free Crigler-Najjar patients -- whose bodies cannot break down the potentially lethal red blood cell by-product called bilirubine -- from the 12 hours they must spend inside converted sunbeds each day. The device, known as the Ledwrap, contains twelve Ledfoils between two layers of cloth and can act as either a sleeping bag or a rather bulky bodysuit for more freedom of movement -- well, as much movement as an extension cord allows, since the LEDs require too much juice to run on batteries. Engels hopes to have the first Ledwraps on the market within a year, although that may be a bit optimistic, as the prototype has yet to undergo the rather non-trivial task of actual medical testing.
