NeuroQuantology | December 2008 | Vol 6 | Issue 4 | Page 464-471

Leager F et al., Biophoton emission of hands and feet

ISSN 1303 5150 www.neuroquantology.com

464

ARTICLE

Year Long Measurement of Biophoton Emission
of Hands and Feet
Frdric Laager, Cheon-Joo Choi, Sang-Hyun Park
Joon-Mo Yang, Kwang-Sup Soh
Abstract
Biophoton emissions from four healthy human subjects were measured for 52
weeks. The patterns appearing on the palm and dorsal side of the hands and the
feet were related to the seasonal influences. By using a Yin & Yang polarisation
formula we plotted the data in X and Y directions, which showed distinct patterns
between each subject. A similar observation was made for frequency count
analysis of the emission rates, differentiating the subjects from each other.
Seasonal variation of the biophoton emission rates showed similar patterns to
other previous data. There might be a relationship between seasonal affective
disorder or serotonin levels and the results. The perspective of traditional
Chinese medicine allowed us a better understanding of our results. For example
the Yin & Yang polarisation theory defines body regions as active or passive and
also classifies people in definite types of yin or yang. These results are an initial
step in the direction of the development of a biophoton diagnosis tool.

Key Words: Biophoton emission, yin and yang, hands, feet, serotonin
NeuroQuantology 2008; 4: 464-471






Introduction
1

The scientist Gurwitsch (1932) claimed that
there was a relationship between mitosis and UV
light, but his research was forgotten with time.
With the development of photomultiplier tubes
researchers Dorbin et al (1975) were able to
prove that ultra weak luminescence does really
exist and that it might be coherent by Popp et al.
(1984).
Since then the relationship between
photon counts and biochemical activity has been
investigated by Takahiro et al. (2005), and an
increasing amount of research has been
conducted in this field very well explained by M.

Corresponding author: Frdric Laager
Address: Biomedical Physics Laboratory, Frontier Physics Research
Department, Seoul National University, South Korea
Phone: 82-2-880-7697
Fax: 82-2-878-9172
e-mail: F.Laager@gmx.ch
Cifra (2006). The team of Musumeci, are now
working on new diagnostic tools using
biophotons as a signal capable of discerning
malignant cells from healthy ones (2005).
Attempts in many directions are being made to
use the biophoton signals from human skin for
medical diagnostic purposes (Inaba et al. 1995;
Van Wijk et at 2005).
On the other hand traditional Chinese
medicine (TCM) is working very well in many
part of Asia for many groups of people; however,
there is still a lot of resistance coming from the
scientific community. Since there is no real
connection between TCM and western medicine,
our research group is trying through biophoton
technology to bring these two sciences a little
closer. In this experiment we measured four
subjects every week during a year and tried to
understand our results by taking the point of
NeuroQuantology | December 2008 | Vol 6 | Issue 4 | Page 464-471
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ISSN 1303 5150 www.neuroquantology.com

465
view of TCM, especially the Yin & Yang theory. In
TCM the eight principles are Yin/Yang,
Interior/Exterior, Cold/Heat, and
Deficiency/Excess. These factors should be in
balance, and are checked by the four diagnostic
means (inspection, listening and smelling,
inquiring, and palpation). Since these methods
are very subjective and not standardized it is
important to create a tool which could allow us
to measure them in more objective way.
By relating the dorsal side and the palm
to Yin & Yang, and also by measuring the upper
and the lower parts, by using hands and feet as a
standard emplacement for biophoton
measurements, we had a solid protocol. We
interpreted our results by using polarisation
formulas, which we borrowed from physics to
investigate about the changes in the
dichotomous variables. This way we could
compare the results from different subjects by
plotting them onto a 2D graph. The two formulas
developed by Dr Yang et al. (2006) we used to
calculate the polarisation were:

BPE from the dorsal side BPE from the palm
X =-------------------------------------------------------------
BPE from the dorsal side +BPE from the palm


BPE from the palm BPE from the sole
Y=----------------------------------------------------------
BPE from the palm +BPE from the sole

According to TCM the yang side is the
dorsal side of the hand, and the yin would be the
inner side of the hand. A healthy person in
perfect balance should have an X-value near
zero, for left and right. Also TCM is using a
similar method for diagnosis as we did by using
the +/ signs of X and Y (e.g. +; ++; - -; +- ; -).
With this method we could mathematically
analyse the biophotonic polarisation of our four
subjects.
Yang and al. measured (X,Y) for ten
subjects (2006) in a period of 15 days, and found
the distribution of data in a 2D graph
characterizable for each individual subject. In the
present work we performed (X, Y) measurement
for a longer period of 52 weeks, in order to
confirm the individual characterized distribution
of data points. We found that such pattern
allowed the classification (++, +-, -+, --) that
persisted for a long period of time.
There had been only two previous long-
term experiments involving biophoton
measurements, due to its practical difficulties:
One was by Cohen and Popp (1997) for a single
subject and another by Jung and al. (2005) for
three subjects. The current work is the third such
experiment and we studied, in addition to the
polarisation, the seasonal variations of
biophoton emission that were consistent with
previous work.

Table 1. Average values in counts per seconds (cps) for the 52 weeks of measurements, with their standard deviation.
Subject Left Palm Right Palm Left Dorsal Right Dorsal Left Foot Right Foot
1 122.0024.10 133.8534.76 106.0045.33 139.0956.76 105.5636.78 100.6826.48
2 128.7241.42 137.4942.01 111.1651.09 110.5552.35 175.0954.00 193.4160.73
3 158.1556.90 171.9468.99 97.0040.20 97.9046.13 107.0333.58 113.6335.45
4 146.2344.28 143.8444.03 123.5548.33 149.4159.98 187.7776.01 205.4277.92

Table 2. Average values of the X and Y values, with their standard deviation.
Subject Average Left (X;Y) Average Right (X;Y)
1 (-0.09;0.08)(0.14;0.15) (-9E-04;0.13)(0.14;0.11)
2 (-0.09;-0.14)(0.17;0.17) (-0.13;-0.16)(0.17;0.16)
3 (-0.24;0.18)(0.15;0.12) (-0.27;0.18)(0.17; 0.14)
4 (-0.09; -0.10)(0.13;0.18) (7E-03;-0.15)(0.14;0.19)

Materials and Methods
Every week, according to when the subjects had
time, we measured the biophoton emission from
four male subjects. The ages of subjects 1, 2, 3
and 4 were 62, 29, 31 and 25 respectively. Their
heights were 162, 176, 178 and 190 cm, and
their weights were 55, 84, 75 and 84 kg in the
same order. All the subjects were healthy males
without any history of disease. They were kept
away from sunlight for few minutes before the
NeuroQuantology | December 2008 | Vol 6 | Issue 4 | Page 464-471
Leager F et al., Biophoton emission of hands and feet
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466
measurement to avoid delayed luminescence.
The measured surfaces were the soles of the
feet and the palm and dorsum of the hands. All
these surfaces were cleaned with pure ethanol-
soaked cotton before the measurements to
avoid any noise from other organisms or dirt. All
metal belongings were removed from the
subjects before performing the measurements.
All the experiments were conducted
between 10 am and 7 pm. The first
measurements were done in the first week of
September 2006, and the last ones were done
one year later.

Biophoton detection system
We used two PMTs to measure the biophoton
emission of the left and right locations (palm,
dorsal, feet) simultaneously of the 4 subjects.
The experiments were conducted in a darkroom,
and to avoid any other noise two dark wooden
boxes (240mm x 320mm x 300mm) with interior
black thin styrene foam and holes were used.
The room temperature was kept around 21C 5
with humidity about 40% 15 on a constant
basis. The experimental setup was initially used
to measure only the left and right hands by C.
Choi et al (2006). The two head-on type PMTs
(R331-05S, Hamamatsu Photonics, Japan) have
an effective measuring area of 51mm diameter
and a spectral range from UV to visible light
(300nm 650 nm). Each PMT is enclosed by a
magnetic shielding case (E989-62) and a housing
case (E1341). The distance between the sensor
and the wrist was around 40mm. A specific
description and diagram of the measurement
system have been presented elsewhere by Choi
et al (2003 a&b). The PMTs were calibrated
using a light standard by adjusting two high
voltage power supplies (C3350). Photon
counting units (C6465) amplified the signals from
the PMTs and converted them into 5V square
pulses. Photon counting boards (M8784) were
synchronised by coordinating their time gate of
100ms for simultaneous counting and installed
inside an IBM PC. The counting units and the
PMTs were in the darkroom and the other
devices in the operator room. Dark counts of
1.06 0.38 were not subtracted.

Palm
-5
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Cps
F
r
e
q
e
n
c
y

c
o
u
n
t
s

(
%
)
Subject 1 Subject 2 Subject 3 Subject 4

Figure 1a. Frequency counts distribution for the four subjects. A) averages for the palms, B) averages for the dorsal side, C)
averages for the Feet.

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467
Dorsal
-5
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Cps
F
r
e
q
e
n
c
y

c
o
u
n
t
s

(
%
)
Subject 1 Subject 2 Subject 3 Subject 4
Figure 1b
Feet
-5
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Cps
F
r
e
q
e
n
c
y

c
o
u
n
t
s

(
%
)
Subject 1 Subject 2 Subject 3 Subject 4
Figure 1c

Averages
75
100
125
150
175
200
9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Month
C
P
S
Average Palm Average Dorsal Average Feet
Figure 2. Average biophoton emission for the 3 locations (palm, dorsal, feet), of the four subjects.
NeuroQuantology | December 2008 | Vol 6 | Issue 4 | Page 464-471
Leager F et al., Biophoton emission of hands and feet
ISSN 1303 5150 www.neuroquantology.com

468
Figure 3. Yin/Yang distribution averages with the circles are standard deviations of the four subjects.

0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Month
a
v
e
r
a
g
e

d
i
s
t
a
n
c
e

f
r
o
m

l
e
f
t

t
o

r
i
g
h
t
Figure 4. Average distances between left and right of the four subjects. Averages of the Y value differences of the four
subjects.

Results
The average values with standard deviations of
biophoton emission for the 52 weeks of
measurements are presented in table 1. The
standard deviations of the dorsal side are larger
than those of the palm. The standard deviations
of the feet are sometimes comparable to those
of the hands. Subjects 1 and 3 show higher
emission from the hands than from the feet,
while subjects 2 and 4 show the opposite
behaviour.
From Figure 1 the frequency
distributions of the subjects and the differences
from subject to subject can be seen. Frequencies
are normalised to percentage, since each subject
has been measured a different number of times.
The pattern is more or less similar in subjects 1
and 3, and again in 2 and 4. Although the
differences cannot always be clearly seen,
especially for the feet differences between the
two groups are observable. These kinds of
observations have been demonstrated in the
NeuroQuantology | December 2008 | Vol 6 | Issue 4 | Page 464-471
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ISSN 1303 5150 www.neuroquantology.com

469
previous work of Jung (2005), but in which the
differences were more distinct for the palm.
The seasonal dependency is more
distinct when averages of the four subjects are
taken for each region; then a curve appears for
every measured region, seen in Fig 2, which
correspond well to the four seasons. For all
three locations (palm, dorsal, feet) we observed
that October, November and December are
periods where the biophoton averages go down,
whereas in April, May and July the biophoton
averages go up. These observations are
important to help us to normalise biophoton
data for later diagnostic purposes.
At last we want to present a new point
of view with which we hoped to create a
diagnostic tool for the future. The Yin/Yang
polarisation parameters X and Y were computed
for 52 week and their distributions are shown in
Fig 3. The characteristic patterns of each
individual are clearly distinguishable. The
subjects 1 and 3 have positive Y values, while the
subjects 2 and 4 have negative ones. In Fig. 3 the
averages of each subject are shown with circles
representing the standard deviations. Table 2
shows the averages for X and Y with standard
deviations.
We also took a look at the distance
between left and right points on the Yin/Yang
plot. The average results of the four subjects are
show in Fig 4. As a final observation we plotted
the differences of the Y values in the yin/yang
plot between left and right (Fig 4). Those two
data show seasonal dependency of the balance
between left-right and up-down.

Discussion
In this investigation we studied the biophoton
emission from human hands and feet of four
normal persons over 52 weeks. This kind of long-
term observations had only rarely been
performed before due to the practical
difficulties. Cohen and Popp studied the left and
right hands and forehead for nine months by
Cohen et al (2003), and Bieske et al. (2000)
measured that from the wrists and lower arms
of 30 subjects in summer and winter. Jung et al
(2005) performed long-term measurements of
biophoton emission from hands of three
subjects.
One notable finding is that there are
persistent characteristics that can be used for
classification of subjects. Subjects 1 and 3 (S1, 3)
and subjects 2 and 4 (S2, 4) belong to different
classes. S1, 3 show higher emission from the
feet, while S2, 4 the opposite behaviour. This is
again reflected more manifestly and in detail in
the XY diagram, as shown in Fig.3. This
classification also appeared in frequency count
analysis of the feet. S2, 4 are far more widely
distributed. S1, 3 are non-smokers, S4 is a
smoker and S2 stopped smoking 6 month after
starting the experiment. It is well known that
smoking has great physiological and health
effects (Vinesi 2004; Peastonb 2008, Schneider
2008, Kelly 2008, Kricka 1984), even on
biophoton emission like showen by Yoda (1984).
We found that it would be worth further studies
to measure the biophoton emission from
smoking and non smoking subjects.
Another finding is that the (XY) - point
distribution of the subjects seems invariant for
each subject. The subjects measured by Yang et
al. (2006) show, even within the relatively short
period of measurements, quite good agreement
with the current long-term measurement. Hence
the (XY) - point distribution can be used as an
indicator for some diagnostic type classification.
A diagnostic opinion of a TCM doctor is
also consistent with the S1, 3 and S2, 4 classes.
There follows a TCM opinion about the four
subjects:
S1: Shows the symptoms of lacrimation without
any apparent reason, sweat of the scrotum, and
fatigue in the morning when he gets up. He also
has pain in the back of the shoulders and the
medial part of the left knee. From the viewpoint
of oriental medicine, these symptoms commonly
indicate the weak energy of the kidney.
Furthermore he has some digestive problems.
S2: Usually drinks too much alcohol and feels
tired in the evening. And he feels stiffness in the
back of the neck. Those symptoms mean that his
liver is overloaded. But his body is healthy.
S3: Has severe digestive problems and feels a
working resistance in his chest. He also suffers
from urinary frequency and headaches. He gets
angry easily and he feels difficulty to fall asleep
at night. From this we suppose that he has the
problem of abnormal Qi-energy circulation. His
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470
upper half of his body is better developed than
lower part.
S4: Feels chest pain and feels a small working
resistance in his chest. He also has pain on his
left side of the body, has slight headaches and
gets dizzy in his head. He dreams a lot during the
night. Those symptoms mean that his Qi-energy
leans toward his upper part.
From the body shape of the subjects, the
upper part of the body is better developed than
the lower part for S1 and S3, and vice versa for
S2 and S4. They are called yang type persons and
yin type persons respectively in TCM. So, it can
be possible that the biophoton emission
differences between the palm and the sole can
indicate the yin or yang type of a person.
Furthermore the absolute value of S3 from the
origin is the biggest one, and S3 also has the
most severe health problems. This means that
the absolute value may also indicate the state of
health.
Another interesting observation is the
distance between left and right points for each
week. While the average of these distances
seems to become smaller in July and August, as
seen in Fig 4, it increases the rest of the time,
and is high again in winter, therefore it could be
an indication factor for the left-right balance of
the subjects. People are in general more left-
right balanced in summer than in winter. This
could also be related to the seasonal effect on
the psychological states of the subjects. This
effect is known as Seasonal Affective Disorder
(SAD) or winter depression like explained by
Westrin (2007). Also the serotonin levels, which
are responsible for the mood of a person
described by Ashwin (2003), are seasonally
dependent and can be seen to be related to our
work.
With respect to the seasonal variations
our results show consistency with the earlier
works of Jung et al. (2005) and Van Wijk (2003).
The biophoton emission rate is low in autumn
(September to November). Long-term
measurements and seasonal comparisons are
hard to perform but worth further studies to
investigate the relation between the state of
health and the biophoton emission rates, which
might be useful for epidemiological purposes.


Acknowledgements
We want to thanks BK21 for their support. Also this work
was supported in part by the Korean Science and
Engineering Foundation (NRL, MI 0302-00-0007), and
Systems biology infrastructure establishment grant
provided by Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in
2008.














































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