Ultra-weak photon emission as a potential tool for evaluating the therapeutic effect of traditional Chinese medicine in patients with type 2 diabetes

Background: Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been used to prevent and treat type 2 diabetes (T2DM) for thousands of years. The holistic view of TCM and the multitarget char-acteristics of Chinese medicine have unique advantages in the prevention and treatment of T2DM. TCM syndrome differentiation and treatment are effective for T2DM; however, currently, the therapeutic effect of TCM is generally evaluated by asking for patients' subjective feelings, or by checking the changes in relevant indicators. The main problems are that the patient's descriptions are unclear and subjective, and although the self-reported symptoms may have improved significantly, the relevant indicators are sometimes not obvious, which cannot truly reflect the therapeutic effect of TCM. Therefore, it is urgent to develop a novel, sensitive, and noninvasive method to quantitatively evaluate the therapeutic effect of TCM. Methods: In this study, ultra-weak photon emission (UPE) was measured at four sites of hands of T2DM patients with Qi-Yin deficiency before treatment and after 1 and 2 weeks of treatment with TCM. The UPE intensity and spectral distribution were calculated and analyzed using the results measured at these four sites. Spearman's correlation coefficient was used to quantify the corre-lation between the UPE parameters and the syndrome scores of TCM.Results: The UPE intensity of T2DM patients with Qi-Yin deficiency decreased gradually with the course of the treatment and was significantly lower than that before the treatment. The ratio of photon counts between the wavelength ranges of 495-550 nm and 550-610 nm after the treat-ment was higher than that before the treatment and negatively correlated with the corresponding syndrome scores so that the degree of symptoms improvement could be characterized by the ratio (495-550 nm/550-610 nm).

Automated summary

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has unique advantages in the prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes (T2DM), and a novel method using ultra-weak photon emission (UPE) was developed to evaluate the therapeutic effect of TCM. The UPE intensity decreased gradually with the treatment, and the ratio of photon counts between specific wavelength ranges negatively correlated with syndrome scores, indicating the degree of symptom improvement.