Chances are, you have probably never heard of a BioPhotonic scanner before and you wouldn’t be alone. This innovative piece of equipment is one of the latest developments within the optical care world and has been proven to be invaluable in helping eye doctors to evaluate the patient’s risk of developing certain eye diseases, particularly macular degeneration. In doing so, your eye doctor can make recommendations so that you can potentially prevent these conditions from occurring.

BioPhotonic scanners are used to detect the level of carotenoids in your skin. Carotenoids are plant pigments that color food and act as antioxidants in humans. Antioxidants are substances that can prevent or slow the damage caused to cells by free radicals – unstable molecules that the body makes as it processes food, sunlight and more. Carotenoids can be found in a variety of different foods including peppers, carrots, oranges, mangos, watermelon, and tomatoes.

Carotenoids have also been shown to be important to eye health because high levels of carotenoids in the body have been associated with a lower risk of developing eye diseases such as macular degeneration. Macular degeneration affects approximately 11 million people in the U.S and while it doesn’t make the patient completely blind, it can affect their vision enough to make some day to day activities, such as reading and driving, much more difficult.

How does a BioPhotonic scanner work?

The way in which a Biophotonic scanner works is really very simple and completely painless. The scanner emits a narrow beam of blue light that is focused onto the patient’s skin. When this blue light makes contact with a carotenoid, there is an automatic and natural change in the wavelength of the light that is measured in nanometers and its wavelength changes from blue to green and from 473 nanometers to 510 nanometers. This change can be detected and counted by the BioPhotonic scanner. Carotenoids are the only molecules in the body that react to the blue light in this way, meaning that the carotenoid count, or scanner carotenoid score or SCS for short, detected is extremely accurate.

When it comes to evaluating your score, the basic interpretation is that the higher your SCS is, the better since the more carotenoids there are that are in your skin, the lower your risk for developing macular degeneration and other ocular diseases.

As you can see, a BioPhotonic scanner is an incredibly valuable asset for any eye doctor, and we are delighted to have one here at our office to help us ensure that we can offer our patients the very best in ocular monitoring and care. If you would like to discover more about BioPhotonic scanning, please don’t hesitate to call our team who will be delighted to discuss this technology with you in greater depth.