Ultraweak photon emission as a non-invasive health assessment: a systematic review

We conducted a systematic review (SR) of the peer reviewed scientific literature on ultraweak photon emissions (UPE) from humans. The question was: Can ultraweak photon emissions from humans be used as a non-invasive health assessment? A systematic search was conducted across eight relevant databases: PubMed/MEDLINE, BIOSIS, CINAHL, PSYCHINFO, All of Cochrane EBM databases, GIDEON, DoD Biomedical Research, and clinicaltrials.gov from database inception to October 2011. Of the 1315 studies captured by the search strategy, 56 met the inclusion criteria, out of which 1 was a RCT, 27 were CCT, and 28 were observational and descriptive studies. There were no systematic reviews/meta-analyses that fit the inclusion criteria. In this report, the authors provide an assessment of the quality of the RCT included; describe the characteristics of all the included studies, the outcomes assessed, and the effectiveness of photon emission as a potential health assessment tool. This report demonstrates that the peer reviewed literature on UPE and human UPE measurement in particular is surprisingly large. Most of the human UPE literature is of good to high quality based on our systematic evaluation. However, an evaluation tool for systematically evaluating this type of "bio-evaluation" methodology is not currently available and would be worth developing. Publications in the peer reviewed literature over the last 50 years demonstrate that the use of "off-the-shelf" technologies and well described methodologies for the detection of human photon emissions are being used on a regular basis in medical and research settings. The overall quality of this literature is good and the use of this approach for determining inflammatory and oxidative states of patients indicate the growing use and value of this approach as both a medical and research tool.