Tony Wilkinson was in his late 50s when he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. He felt completely helpless as his condition steadily deteriorated over the next seven years – before he stumbled upon a new treatment that changed his life.
Having taken early retirement from a job he loved in fibre optic network planning, he found that his reaction speeds were becoming too slow to drive safely and the chronic symptoms often experienced by people living with Parkinson’s, from constipation to insomnia, muscle spasms, and tremors – which occur due to the steady destruction of dopamine-producing brain cells – were all progressing at an alarming speed.
“I was suffering hugely,” reflects Wilkinson, now 67, who lives in County Cork, Ireland. “I was in pain all the time, and it was just an onslaught. At night, my legs would cramp and my toes were curled tight – the knuckles were white. It was excruciating, while just getting around was becoming harder and harder.”
In the summer of 2022, a local physiotherapist who specialised in helping Parkinson’s patients, told him about a new therapy which aimed to relieve symptoms through delivering daily doses of infrared light to the brain and the gut. Wilkinson and his wife Kate were initially sceptical but agreed to try.
Tony using the infrared light treatment, which targets the gut and brainHe paid for the therapy, called SYMBYX Biome, privately – it costs £1,980 – and was able to do it himself at home, wearing a helmet five times a week and pointing a laser at his gut three times a week, for 20 to 25 minutes at a time.
Within a fortnight of beginning the treatment, they began to notice significant improvements. “We were having breakfast, and my wife said: ‘You slept all night. Do you know that? For the last three nights, you’ve been sleeping through.’”
Today, three years later, Wilkinson describes how his cramps have subsided, his walking has improved and he’s even been able to reduce his medication dosages. “I’ve gone back to driving, and people started saying to me: ‘You look a lot better,’” Wilkinson says. “There’s still a slight tremor in my hands and my head, but I think I’m in a better place than I was in 2021.”
His story is just one of many examples inspiring growing excitement about photobiomodulation, the collective term for medical devices which expose the body to particular forms of light delivered by lasers or LEDs.
Such therapies were initially pioneered in people with skin ailments, muscle injuries or chronic pain, based on research which showed that certain wavelengths of light could improve nerve function, blood flow and boost cellular repair.
Now, in the last five years, researchers in Canada and Australia have begun to find that it may also offer therapeutic benefit for people with Parkinson’s, which affects some 160,000 people in the UK. This degenerative disease is driven by a combination of factors, from a toxin called alpha synuclein which kills dopamine-producing brain cells, to persistent neuroinflammation, and malfunctioning structures called mitochondria, which mean that critical brain cells lack the energy they need to function.
“Photobiomodulation uses light which has longer wavelengths than visible light,” says Katherine Fletcher, research communications lead at the charity Parkinson’s UK. “These wavelengths are thought to be absorbed by mitochondria, the energy-producing structures in cells, potentially boosting energy production and supporting cell repair. Early research suggests that infrared light may help protect brain cells [which become damaged in Parkinson’s], though studies are still in the early stages.”
In August this year, Canadian researchers carried out the largest trial of photobiomodulation in Parkinson’s to date, using SYMBYX Biome devices. It saw a group of patients receive infrared light therapy alongside a vigorous exercise program for just over a year, to see whether it could improve their quality of life. By the end of the study, the results showed that those who followed the program all the way through experienced improved mobility and balance, as well as reduced anxiety.
“Parkinson’s symptoms manifest differently for each individual, so the degree and type of improvement can vary,” says Anita Saltmarche, the Canadian scientist who led that trial, and has been studying photobiomodulation in Parkinson’s patients for several years. “In general, we commonly see gains in gait, balance, and overall mobility. Fine motor function often improves as well, for example handwriting or doing up buttons.”
Now, the NHS is preparing to study photobiomodulation in Parkinson’s patients for the first time. As part of an upcoming clinical trial, which is being carried out in partnership with Newcastle University, more than 80 patients will receive daily treatment with SYMBYX Biome’s devices.
According to Nicola Pavese, professor of clinical neuroscience at Newcastle University, and one of the specialists leading the trial, the study is unique in that it will examine the effects of the treatment in patients with relatively advanced disease, whose condition cannot always be managed with existing drugs.
“These are patients where their response to medication isn’t stable,” says Pavese. “They have ups and downs over the course of 24 hours.”
The patients on the trial will receive infrared light targeted not just at their brain, but at their gut. This is because of research which suggests that in a number of cases, the development of toxic alpha synuclein and the inflammation which ultimately drives the disease, begins in the intestines.
“There is good evidence that at least some forms of Parkinson’s begin in the gut,” says Ann Liebert, a professor at Shepherd University in West Virginia. “[Gut] Dysbiosis can be apparent for many years before diagnosis, and around 80 per cent of patients have gastro symptoms.”
Studies have indicated that infrared light might be capable of beneficially altering the gut microbiome, promoting the growth of useful bacteria and dampening inflammation. According to Sahana Sathyanarayana, an associate clinical researcher at Newcastle University, who is also leading the upcoming trial, this could explain why patients like Wilkinson have seen improvements in constipation following treatment.
She’s keen to understand whether it can improve the absorption of Levodopa – the drug taken by many Parkinson’s patients to manage symptoms – and lead to more consistent medication responses.
At the moment, Parkinson’s UK cautions that research is still in its early stages, and the trials to date have been relatively small. But there is some tentative hope that as well as enabling patients to better manage their symptoms, different forms of photobiomodulation might be capable of slowing disease progression.
The most ambitious attempt is being carried out at a hospital in Grenoble in southeastern France where neurosurgeons have implanted a device deep into the brains of six Parkinson’s patients in order to permanently illuminate a particular region called the substantia nigra – the part of the brain primarily affected by Parkinson’s – with near-infrared light.
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The early data is promising, with the motor function of the treated patients showing unusual improvements after two years.
If current trials yield successful results, Pavese says that it may lead to further studies in other neurodegenerative diseases, for example some dementias. For patients like Wilkinson, the treatment has already changed his life markedly and provided him with a far more optimistic outlook on the future.
“I know that it’s not a cure, but it allows me to manage my symptoms, and that’s very important to me,” he says. “My quality of life is better. My deterioration has definitely slowed.”
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