LY Med's video: Nobel Prizes Explained: Using Light to Heal

Want to support the channel? Be a patron at: https://www.patreon.com/LYMED Subscribe for future videos in this series! There is something therapeutic about basking in sun rays. But what if I said it could be medically therapeutic. Light therapy, or phototherapy, involves using the sun or ultraviolet light to treat a disease. A relatively new form of medicine, it is now widely used for a variety of medical disorders. Commonly it is used to reduce jaundice in newborns.This jaundice, the yellowing of the skin and eyes, is caused by a buildup of bilirubin, a waste product from the breakdown of red blood cells, and is usually processed by the liver. Babies are especially susceptible to buildup for a multitude of reasons, from possible developing livers , to increase production, or possible disorders that may obstruct outflow. Whatever the case may be, this increase in bilirubin can affect the baby's brain and cause seizure, coma, and death. Photo-therapy reacts with the bilirubin to turn it to a more water soluble isomer, leaving it easier to excrete. Phototherapy can also be used used in psoriasis, eczema, and even certain types of skin cancer. Now these modern uses differ from its historical uses. Lets take a look back in history. Now at this time, tuberculosis was still a major problem .TB mainly affected the lungs, but TB can also spread and basically can affect any organ in the body. It can affect the bones, especially the vertebrae, it can destroy the liver causing hepatitis, and it can affect the skin causing lupus vulgaris. This leaves disfiguring skin ulcers. Long standing scarred lesions can develop into cancer. It was a chronic and progressive form and could last upwards of 20 years and was resistant to many treatments, until a certain discovery. Finsen was an Icelandic physician born in 1860. An average student, he would move to Copenhagen in 1882 to study medicine. His studies would be limited, as he suffered from Niemann-Pick disease, an inherited disorder in which your cells cannot break down fats called sphingomyelin. This builds up in cells and in tissues and organs and causes organ dysfunction. It can accumulate in the brain and nervous system resulting in unsteady gait, dementia seizures. The liver can be affected, causes liver damage and ascites (abnormal buildup of fluid in the abdomen). The bone marrow can also be affected, causing anemia. Finsen would suffer from many of these symptoms. His massive ascites and anemia left him weak and wheel-chair bound. He would find comfort in sunbathing and turned this interest in how sunlight might be beneficial to medical treatments. He hypothesized using sunlight or specific light wavelengths such as ultra-violet, could have beneficial effects.He would try his work on lupus vulgaris, and showed it reduced the symptoms of lupus vulgaris due to its bactericidal and skin stimulating effects. Now too much sun was known at this time to be bad- think sunburns. So he also tried experiments in which he reduced sun exposure in infectious diseases. Small pox was known to cause scarring, and he hypothesized that it may be reduced if patients stayed away from the sun – these experiments proved successful. Using sunlight, or the concentrated form – phototherapy, was not thought of as a medicine until this time. And it would open up a whole new avenue of medicine. For his work on phototherapy in the use of lupus vulgaris and phototherapy in general, he would receive the Nobel Prize in 1903. Disclaimer: These videos do not provide medical advice and are for informational purposes only. The videos are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of a qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read or seen in any LY Med video.