Right now, about half of all diabetic wounds fail to heal properly with normal treatments, often leading to a high risk of amputation. To fix this, researchers at the University of Johannesburg are testing a gentle method called "light therapy."
In diabetes, high blood sugar and low oxygen cause skin-repair cells to malfunction, which stalls the healing process.
Current therapies for diabetic wounds only achieve about a 50% healing rate, and there is a 50% chance the wounds will return. Because of the high risk of these wounds not healing and lower limb amputation, there is an urgent need for more effective wound treatments.
A possible answer lies in a therapy being researched at the UJ Laser Research Centre, called photobiomodulation (PBM). PBM is also called “light therapy” or “red light therapy”. It is a safe, gentle method that uses specific colours of light to help the body heal, using red or near-infrared light.
A new study led by Professor Nicolette Houreld tested whether near-infrared light at a wavelength of 830 nanometre (nm) using a dose of 5 Joule per square centimetre could aid healing for wounded diabetic skin cells. The research was done in the laboratory on diabetic cells in an in vitro (out of the body) study. Prof Houreld is a researcher at the Laser Research Centre within the University of Johannesburg’s Faculty of Health Sciences.
