Biophotons: The Human Body Emits, Communicates with, and is Made from Light By
Sayer Ji, founder of GreenMedInfo.com
Increasingly science agrees with the poetry of direct human experience: we are more than the atoms and molecules that make up our bodies, but beings of light as well. Biophotons are emitted by the human body, can be released through mental intention, and may modulate fundamental processes within cell-to-cell communication and DNA. Nothing is more amazing than the highly improbable fact that we exist. We often ignore this fact, oblivious to the reality that instead of something there could be nothing at all, i.e. why is there a universe (poignantly aware of itself through us) and not some void completely unconscious of itself? Consider that from light, air, water, basic minerals within the crust of the earth, and the at least 3 billion year old information contained within the nucleus of one diploid zygote cell, the human body is formed, and within that body a soul capable of at least trying to comprehend its bodily and spiritual origins. Given the sheer insanity of our existential condition, and bodily incarnation as a whole, and considering that our earthly existence is partially formed from sunlight and requires the continual consumption of condensed sunlight in the form of food, it may not sound so farfetched that our body emits light. Indeed, the human body emits
biophotons, also known as ultraweak photon emissions (UPE), with a visibility 1,000 times lower than the sensitivity of our naked eye. While not visible to us, these particles of light (or waves, depending on how you are measuring them) are part of the visible electromagnetic spectrum (380-780 nm) and are detectable via sophisticated modern instrumentation.[1],[2]
These light emissions have also been correlated with cerebral energy metabolism and oxidative stress within the mammalian brain.
[5] [6] And yet, biophoton emissions are not necessarily epiphenomenal. Bókkon’s hypothesis suggests that photons released from chemical processes within the brain produce biophysical pictures during visual imagery, and a recent study found that when subjects actively imagined light in a very dark environment their intention produced significant increases in ultraweak photo emissions.[7] This is consistent with an emerging view that biophotons are not solely cellular metabolic by-products, but rather, because biophoton intensity can be considerably higher inside cells than outside, it is possible for the mind to access this energy gradient to create intrinsic biophysical pictures during visual perception and imagery.[8]

Even when we go down to the molecular level of our genome, DNA can be identified to be a source of biophoton emissions as well. One author proposes that DNA is so biophoton dependent that is has
excimer laser-like properties, enabling it to exist in a stable state far from thermal equilibrium at threshold.[10]
Technically speaking a biophoton is an elementary particle or quantum of light of non-thermal origin in the visible and ultraviolet spectrum emitted from a biological system. They are generally believed to be produced as a result of energy metabolism within our cells, or more formally as a “…by-product of biochemical reactions in which excited molecules are produced from bioenergetic processes that involves active oxygen species,”
[11]
Generally, the fluctuation in photon counts over the body was lower in the morning than in the afternoon. The thorax-abdomen region emitted lowest and most constantly. The upper extremities and the head region emitted most and increasingly over the day. Spectral analysis of low, intermediate and high emission from the superior frontal part of the right leg, the forehead and the palms in the sensitivity range of the photomultiplier showed the major spontaneous emission at 470-570 nm. The central palm area of hand emission showed a larger contribution of the 420-470 nm range in the spectrum of spontaneous emission from the hand in autumn/winter. The spectrum of delayed luminescence from the hand showed major emission in the same range as spontaneous emission.
The researchers concluded that “The spectral data suggest that measurements might well provide quantitative data on the individual pattern of peroxidative and anti-oxidative processes in vivo.”
rhodiola, a study published in 2009 in the journal Phytotherapeutic Research found that those who took the herb for 1 week has a significant decrease in photon emission in comparison with the placebo group.[14]Interestingly, an herb well-known for its use in stress reduction (including inducing measurable declines in cortisol), and associated heightened oxidative stress, has been tested clinically in reducing the level of biophotons emitted in human subjects. Known as

In a previous article,
Does Skin Pigment Act Like A Natural Solar-Panel, we explored the role of melanin in converting ultraviolet light into metabolic energy:
melanin-mediated energy production here. Gerald Pollack, PhD, who wrote The 4th Phase of Water has identified water molecules, which constitute 99% of the molecules in our body by number, as capable of storing the energy of sunlight like batteries and driving the majority of processes within our body as a primary, non-ATP-based source of energy. Dr. Pollack wrote a guest article for us on the topic here, Can Humans Harvest The Sun’s Energy Directly Like Plants?Melanin is capable of transforming ultraviolet light energy into heat in a process known as “ultrafast internal conversion”; more than 99.9% of the absorbed UV radiation is transformed from potentially genotoxic (DNA-damaging) ultraviolet light into harmless heat.
If melanin can convert light into heat, could it not also transform UV radiation into other biologically/metabolically useful forms of energy? This may not seem so farfetched when one considers that even gamma radiation, which is highly toxic to most forms of life, is a source of sustenance for certain types of fungi and bacteria. More on
There is also a growing realization that the Sun and Moon affect biophoton emissions through gravitational influences. Recently, biophoton emissions from wheat seedlings in Germany and Brazil were found to be synchronized transcontinentally according to rhythms associated with the lunisolar tide.
[18] In fact, the lunisolar tidal force, to which the Sun contributes 30 % and the Moon 60 % of the combined gravitational acceleration, has been found to regulate a number of features of plant growth upon Earth.[19]
[2] Hugo J Niggli, Salvatore Tudisco, Giuseppe Privitera, Lee Ann Applegate, Agata Scordino, Franco Musumeci. Laser-ultraviolet-A-induced ultraweak photon emission in mammalian cells. J Biomed Opt. 2005 Mar-Apr;10(2):024006. PMID: 15910080
[3] Chao Wang, István Bókkon, Jiapei Dai, István Antal. Spontaneous and visible light-induced ultraweak photon emission from rat eyes. Brain Res. 2011 Jan 19 ;1369:1-9. Epub 2010 Oct 26. PMID: 21034725
[4] I Bókkon, R L P Vimal, C Wang, J Dai, V Salari, F Grass, I Antal. Visible light induced ocular delayed bioluminescence as a possible origin of negative afterimage. J Photochem Photobiol B. 2011 May 3 ;103(2):192-9. Epub 2011 Mar 23. PMID: 21463953
[5] M Kobayashi, M Takeda, T Sato, Y Yamazaki, K Kaneko, K Ito, H Kato, H Inaba. In vivo imaging of spontaneous ultraweak photon emission from a rat’s brain correlated with cerebral energy metabolism and oxidative stress. Neurosci Res. 1999 Jul;34(2):103-13. PMID: 10498336
[6] Y Kataoka, Y Cui, A Yamagata, M Niigaki, T Hirohata, N Oishi, Y Watanabe. Activity-dependent neural tissue oxidation emits intrinsic ultraweak photons. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2001 Jul 27;285(4):1007-11. PMID: 11467852
[7] B T Dotta, K S Saroka, M A Persinger. Increased photon emission from the head while imagining light in the dark is correlated with changes in electroencephalographic power: support for Bókkon’s biophoton hypothesis. Neurosci Lett. 2012 Apr 4 ;513(2):151-4. Epub 2012 Feb 17. PMID: 22343311
[8] I Bókkon, V Salari, J A Tuszynski, I Antal. Estimation of the number of biophotons involved in the visual perception of a single-object image: biophoton intensity can be considerably higher inside cells than outside. J Photochem Photobiol B. 2010 Sep 2 ;100(3):160-6. Epub 2010 Jun 10. PMID: 20584615
[9] Yan Sun, Chao Wang, Jiapei Dai. Biophotons as neural communication signals demonstrated by in situ biophoton autography. Photochem Photobiol Sci. 2010 Mar ;9(3):315-22. Epub 2010 Jan 21. PMID: 20221457
[10] F A Popp, W Nagl, K H Li, W Scholz, O Weingärtner, R Wolf. Biophoton emission. New evidence for coherence and DNA as source. Cell Biophys. 1984 Mar;6(1):33-52. PMID: 6204761
[11] Masaki Kobayashi, Daisuke Kikuchi, Hitoshi Okamura. Imaging of ultraweak spontaneous photon emission from human body displaying diurnal rhythm. PLoS One. 2009;4(7):e6256. Epub 2009 Jul 16. PMID: 19606225
[12] Masaki Kobayashi, Daisuke Kikuchi, Hitoshi Okamura. Imaging of ultraweak spontaneous photon emission from human body displaying diurnal rhythm. PLoS One. 2009;4(7):e6256. Epub 2009 Jul 16. PMID: 19606225
[13] Eduard P A Van Wijk, Heike Koch, Saskia Bosman, Roeland Van Wijk. Anatomic characterization of human ultra-weak photon emission in practitioners of transcendental meditation(TM) and control subjects. J Altern Complement Med. 2006 Jan-Feb;12(1):31-8. PMID: 16494566
[14] F W G Schutgens, P Neogi, E P A van Wijk, R van Wijk, G Wikman, F A C Wiegant. The influence of adaptogens on ultraweak biophoton emission: a pilot-experiment. Phytother Res. 2009 Aug;23(8):1103-8. PMID: 19170145
[15] H J Niggli. Artificial sunlight irradiation induces ultraweak photon emission in human skin fibroblasts. J Photochem Photobiol B. 1993 May;18(2-3):281-5. PMID: 8350193
[16] Hugo J Niggli, Salvatore Tudisco, Giuseppe Privitera, Lee Ann Applegate, Agata Scordino, Franco Musumeci. Laser-ultraviolet-A-induced ultraweak photon emission in mammalian cells. J Biomed Opt. 2005 Mar-Apr;10(2):024006. PMID: 15910080
[17] Janusz Slawinski. Photon emission from perturbed and dying organisms: biomedical perspectives. Forsch Komplementarmed Klass Naturheilkd. 2005 Apr;12(2):90-5. PMID: 15947467
[18] Cristiano M Gallep, Thiago A Moraes, Samuel R Dos Santos, Peter W Barlow. Coincidence of biophoton emission by wheat seedlings during simultaneous, transcontinental germination tests. Protoplasma. 2013 Jun ;250(3):793-6. Epub 2012 Sep 26. PMID: 23011402
[19] Peter W Barlow, Joachim Fisahn. Lunisolar tidal force and the growth of plant roots, and some other of its effects on plant movements. Ann Bot. 2012 Jul ;110(2):301-18. Epub 2012 Mar 20. PMID: 22437666
[About the Author] Sayer Ji is founder of
Greenmedinfo.com, a reviewer at the International Journal of Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine, Co-founder and CEO of Systome Biomed, Vice Chairman of the Board of the National Health Federation, Steering Committee Member of the Global Non-GMO Foundation © June 25, 2013 GreenMedInfo LLC. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of GreenMedInfo LLC. Want to learn more from GreenMedInfo? Sign up for the newsletter here http://www.greenmedinfo.com/greenmed/newsletter.