It looks like a tanning bed, but every light in the lid and on the couch emits polarized light. According to the manufacturer, this promotes the body’s self-healing capacity, is beneficial for the mind and dispels depressive feelings. Given its success in Hungary, Sensolite now wants to conquer the Dutch market. In Hungary, where the first Sensolite bed appeared in 2009, the therapy is a success. Sensolite has now opened twenty of its own wellness centers in Hungary and has its own location in three hospitals. The most visited is that of the Janos hospital in Budapest. There, five hundred patients were treated a total of 7,200 times. According to Sensolite, the success rate is 80%.
Breathing disorders
“The therapy is particularly popular for breathing disorders,” says David Nagy, director of Sensolite Netherlands. He proudly shows me the first Sensolite wellness center in the Netherlands, which opened in September 2011. Nagy: Asthma patients who were treated here needed less puff afterwards. Some athletes also follow therapy here, because they say it increases their endurance.
The beneficial effect on the lungs is also evident from a recent study published in Inflammation Research into the effect of polarized light on respiratory diseases in children. Twenty of the twenty-five children examined showed a clear improvement. In the other five children, the therapy had little or no effect. The conclusion of the study was: the profile of the lymphocytes, white blood cells of the immune system, indicates an anti-inflammatory effect of polarized light therapy. Sensolite sees an important market in the Netherlands due to poor weather conditions and the large number of diseases that can be treated with polarized light.
Capsule
At Nagy’s invitation, I undergo therapy myself, consisting of six sessions, each lasting twenty minutes. For a moment I feel like a space explorer. Stretched out, I pull the cover of the couch over me. Soon I find myself in a world of light as relaxing music fills the capsule. I fall into a deep sleep until a voice comes over the speaker. I hope you enjoyed your therapy.
The friendly assistant, who welcomed me with lemon tea, advises me to drink a lot. Waste products are released. Apart from a changed color of the urine, I don’t notice much after the first treatment. Only after two treatments do I feel complete relaxation of my body. After six treatments I feel reborn. Even the common cold virus can’t get to me. Many people say I look radiant. A wound on my leg has also healed very nicely.
Cell structure
Thanks to the electromagnetic field of polarized light, we can influence cell membranes (thin tissue layer), says Nagy. Turning the light slowly changes the amount of mucus within the lipids (fatty substances) and the speed at which proteins move within the membrane. This can influence various biochemical processes. This means that red blood cells absorb more oxygen and white blood cells, which, among other things, provide the immune system, become more active. This effect reaches all cells and organs of the body via the blood circulation.
Open legs
Professor Adre Metser discovered that polarized light has a positive effect on the healing process of open legs in the early 1980s in his laboratory in Budapest. Unfortunately, he only had three devices, which created a long waiting list. In order to treat more people with open legs, Marta Fenyõ invented a light source for local treatment in 1981. She named it Evolite. Due to the positive experiences, the Swiss company Bioptron purchased the license for worldwide production. Since then the lamp has been called the Bioptron lamp. It soon turned out to be beneficial not only for scars, sports injuries and other wounds, but also for skin diseases.
In order to cover the entire surface of major skin diseases, the lamp had to be moved back and forth over the body for a long time. That is why Feynõ developed a technology for the entire body. Another discovery played a role in this. Research showed that the treatment increased local immunity. Covering the entire body now would improve overall immunity. In 2004, Fenyõ managed to develop and patent the technology of the current Sensolite product. .
Wound
In the Netherlands, the Wound Information Center for Wound Nurses has noted an increase in treatments with polarized light. First, the use of polarized light was studied for burns and donor sites, but later also for chronic ulcerations of various origins. Concerned doctors and especially paramedics suspect that the light stimulates macrophages (connective tissue) and fibroblasts (young connective tissue cells) to clean up debris (tissue and blood remains after an injury) and new formation of granulation tissue (the so-called scab), respectively. In this way it promotes wound healing. There is also an anti-phlogistic (anti-inflammatory) effect and a promotion of (neo)vascularization (new growth of small blood vessels).
Laser
By the way, polarized light is not a laser. Polarization is the property of light to only vibrate in one specific direction when refraction or reflection from certain crystals. With the Bioptron lamp and the Sensolite light banks, this is done through several layers of ground glass, the so-called Brewster mirror, and achieves a polarization degree of at least 95%. The light spectrum contains the entire visible part of the spectrum (violet blue, yellow, orange, red) and only a fraction of the invisible part (480-3400nm).
Laser can be a source of non-visible (infrared or ultraviolet radiation) and visible radiation. This differs from other light sources, such as the sun, by a high degree of directivity and a high intensity of the emitted radiation. Due to the heat effect, infrared rays are used for rheumatic diseases, neuralgia, sinusitis, etc. Ultraviolet radiation is used for some skin conditions, hair loss and to tan the skin.
Skeptical sounds
The medical world does have confidence in laser, but there are also skeptical voices when it comes to polarized light. For example, Ton van Leeuwen, professor of biomedical physics at the Amsterdam Medical Center, doubts the usefulness of polarized light. Naturally, light is useful, including for the production of vitamin D. But the specific effect of polarized light will be limited. At a depth of 1 mm, the light has largely lost its degree of polarization due to scattering. The effects will therefore not be much different than those of unpolarized light.
Paramedical world
For the time being, the paramedical world in Belgium in particular is positive about polarized light therapy. For example, physiotherapist Bart van Assche achieves good results with the Bioptron lamp for: wound healing, inflammation, skin problems, sports injuries, pain relief (including post-traumatic pain). He uses the different colors of light in a complementary manner for their therapeutic effect in both cosmetic and medical applications. For example, the color red promotes blood circulation, orange stimulates the psyche, yellow strengthens digestion, green strengthens the immune system, blue helps against insomnia, and violet stabilizes the nervous system. These are just a few benefits of light therapies, for the complete list see www.kinepodo.be
Whether the Sensolite beds in the Netherlands will be as successful as in Hungary remains to be seen