Study of measurement of oxidative stress of living body based on biophoton imaging and spectroscopy

Abstract

Biophoton is ultraweak photon emission from all living organisms, is known to originate in the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), generated in the general metabolic processes and exogenously-induced oxidative stress of living body. On the other hand, living materials show ultraweak light emission after light illumination, known as delayed luminescence (DL), which is long lifetime photon emission continuing several ten minutes. It is also associated with the production of ROS through photosensitization process. We have developed the system for imaging and spectroscopic analysis of these ultraweak photon emission phenomena, based on a highly sensitive cooled CCD and a high throughput lens system. We have measured and compared the properties of biophoton and DL induced by blue LED light using human fingers. The study for elucidation of the mechanism of both photon emission processes and exploration of the feasibility for determination of oxidative stress of living body will be discussed.