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Thread: Melanin lenses?

  1. #1
    Master OptiBoarder Texas Ranger's Avatar
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    Smilie Melanin lenses?

    A few days ago in the northern Republic area, on a News spot, they were talking about a "new" lens that "prevents macular degeneration". I missed the piece, but checked it out on their web site, that linked the article to a Lenscrafters web site, and there was one of the lens designs that was a polycarbonate melanin lens to "prevent macular degeneration", so, we had a few calls from folks with macular problems, and what lens? and could we get them?, etc. do you guys know the availability? who carries them? what lens designs are available? do they "really" preven MD.? I guess they would if you were to wear them starting as a young child? Do they distort colors? etc.? the news piece sounded like the woman reporter and the lady OD at LC thought it a good PR piece? just smacked a bit self-serving by the OD...

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    Melanin is the pigment color found in skin eyes and hair. Its function is described as absorbing harmful rays of the sun. Malaniin has been used in lenses for over thirty years. The claims of the benefits of these lenses has not been widely accepted in the industry but that does not mean that they are not effective for the purpose of preventing cataracts and macular degeneration. I went to a search engine and found 80600 hits on the word melanin. Many were promoting melanin lenses.
    Wes Trayner

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    That Boy Ain't Right Blake's Avatar
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    The melanin lenses sold by LC (they are called SPF lenses there) use a synthetic melanin. They are orangish brown in color, and are available in single vision and PAL (Outlook). Their main selling point is that they block out high energy visible light (blue light).

    Blake

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    Master OptiBoarder Texas Ranger's Avatar
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    So, Blake, they're what we used to sell as "blue blockers" that no one would wear because they changed what all the colors looked like?

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    Manuf. Lens Surface Treatments
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    Blue light is scattered light

    Texas Ranger said:
    So, Blake, they're what we used to sell as "blue blockers" that no one would wear because they changed what all the colors looked like?

    Light is an electromagnetic wave. If you stand in one spot as a light wave passes by, there will be an oscillating electric field and an oscillating magnetic field, which are perpendicular to each other. If the light is in the range of frequencies that we can see, then the frequency of the vibration affects the color of the light. The color-vision receptors in our eyes, the cones, are of three types: "blue" receptors that respond to light over a broad range of high frequencies, "green" receptors that respond to medium frequencies, and "red" receptors that respond to low frequencies. The ranges of sensitivity of the receptors overlap considerably, but they have their maximum sensitivities at different frequencies. The perceived color depends (among other things) on the relative strengths of the signals from these receptors.

    Molecules are usually electrically neutral, but they are made of charged objects: their atoms consist of negatively charged electrons and positively charged nuclei. If there is an electric field at the position of an atom, the nucleus will move a short distance in the direction of the field and the electrons will move the other way, and the atom will become a "dipole": the positive and negative charge will be centered around different places. A molecule made of such atoms will acquire its own electric field, something like the magnetic field of a bar magnet.

    A dipole's electric field falls off more rapidly with distance than it would if the molecule had a net electric charge. This is because at large distances, the fields from the positive and the negative charge tend to cancel each other out, as the difference between their average positions becomes less important.

    However, if the dipole is made to oscillate-- that is, if the positive and negative charge wiggle back and forth, out of phase with each other-- then the molecule can produce electromagnetic radiation of its own, for reasons I'll explain below. This is how air molecules scatter light: the oscillating electric field of the incoming wave makes the molecules develop oscillating dipoles, which in turn give off radiation.

    The radiation destructively interferes with the incoming wave in the forward direction. The original wave is lessened in intensity, and new waves move out in all other directions, so that overall energy is conserved (this requirement is sometimes called the "optical theorem"). The net effect is that light energy that was moving in a straight line from the sun ends up traveling in some other direction.

    Since sunlight appears white but the sky is a robin's-egg blue, it must be that the scattered light excites our blue-sensing cones more, and our red-sensing cones less, than the original sunlight. The distribution of frequencies in the scattered light must be biased toward high frequencies.

    The perfect Blue-Blocker Color will filter the scattered blue. Everything will look much clearer. The people who wear them prefer them to anything else.

    It takes at least 10 to 15 minutes to get adjusted to the effect, but the people that wear them on a regular basis claim to have a much better vision.

    Lately up with a new version that is much lighter, like a lite orange, which absorbs all the UV rays in the full range from 270 to 430nm

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    Master OptiBoarder Jeff Trail's Avatar
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    As most of the others I have seen this type of product floating around for years in our field.. I would and tend to go with the Prosite Eagle 475 (from Melibrad) comes in a SV, bifocal and PAL.
    .. if you want a different shade other than the brownish/gray than you have the option of eagle 515 a orange filter (sv, bifocal)
    If you wanted to go with a "blue blocker" the Avian 515, blocks 99% of blue lightin the 400-500 nm range
    One thing to remember is it can NOT hurt to have a melanin lens but as for all the hype? Well it has been produced in a number of designs by different companies under different names...
    I have a few pairs of eagles and they are a good lens as far as cutting haze and increasing contrast ..
    As far as stopping things like MD and the rest.. I do not think you will find anyone willing to "sign" off on that on paper (melanin) :) I think you seen through the haze TR and seen it for what it is "hype" as much as anything else, but hey you could argue that "something is better than nothing" ...
    I think you should base your choice of polarized on the needs of each person and what they are looking for ...fishing,driving etc., etc. ..have more than a one trick pony to dispense out...remebering that the shade and density of the shield will have a direct bearing on what it does (filtering) .. some of those higher contrat brighter versions of sheet do NOT block polarized light as well as a darker based sheet.
    I had a few that I got for myself and tryed them out that way to see what worked well..I use mainly Nu-polar, but do have a variety of shades of sheets that I wear such as the Eagle 475 and 515, those 515's are great for late evening driving. KBco's version is called HI Contrast Amber ... I still think we (opticians) make the best test subjects and you should try a number of them on ourselves and the ones we like get some plano demo's to show out in the dispensery :)

    Jeff "put a dress on a pig, it's still just a pig" Trail

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    I would be highly suspect of any product that said it could prevent ARMD. What basis did they give for this prevention?? True, you would decrease the chances of suffering from the disease if you wore from a young age--the magnitude of the decrease would be unknown.

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    One eye sees, the other feels OptiBoard Silver Supporter
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    There was an animal study about five to ten years ago that linked blue light and MD. The rats were getting something like a thousand times more High Energy Visible light than the sun puts out though. Anyone have more info regarding this study and any ongoing research or trials related to HEV and ARMD?

    Thanks

    Robert

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    The Melanin lens available through Lenscrafters is also available to the eyecare professional through their wholesale lab. The lens is manufactured by Specialty Lens Corporation. The only difference is that the Lenscrafters product is available in polycarbonate in SV and Prog. The Melanin Polarized lens can be sourced through your wholesale lab in CR-39 and high index lens materials in basically any lens style that you need (Plano, SV, D-28, D35,7x28,8x35 and Prog).

    Melanin Lenses absorb UV and blue light without distorting colors.
    Exposure to blue light (not UV) is suspected as a contributing factor in the development of macular degeneration.

    There is a white paper on this subject at the following Internet addresss: http://www.specialtylens.com/Documen...er-Melanin.doc

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    Melanin Lenses

    The best information on Melain lenses.

    www.melaninproducts.com

    PhotoProtective Technologies
    4738 Shavano Oak
    San Antonio, TX. 78249
    800-219-9993 or 210-493-6353
    Fax 210-493-7043

    There was also an article in 20/20 magazine on Dr. Gallas about Melanin lenses. Dr. Gallas is a very interesting man to talk with.

    Intercast has been supplying Plano Gray and Brown lenses to the sunglass industry for quite sometime. They have information on their wesite.

    Wes said that they had been around for 30 years, Wes is older than I am so I do not remeber them that far back. I do remember that Younger manufactured a Melanin Polaroid about 15 years ago.

    Jerry

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    Not just for macular degeneration

    The SPF lens is also backed up through the American Cancer Association for preventing retnal cancer and skin cancer surrounding the eye. At LensCrafters is somebody wants a brown poarized lens, they automatically get the SPF. If they don't want the SPF than it's a special order and cannot be done in the one hour lab. Soon, it will be avaliable in ST 28 (or at least, that's what they keep saying.)

    Cerissa

  12. #12
    Jeweled Eyewear Billy Brock's Avatar
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    thanks for the link Jerry , very interesting thoughts on their website

    B

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    can anyone tell me where is the lab to test melanin inside those lens? how to make sure it really works?

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    you would need a lab that can test uv blockage up to the 500nm range. No idea where you would find that.

    The melanin lenses are slightly different than the traditional blue blockers in that they distort colour a little less, and there is none of that weird perception thing...if you've tried blue blockers you'll know what I mean! LOL

    Quote Originally Posted by paulshen View Post
    can anyone tell me where is the lab to test melanin inside those lens? how to make sure it really works?

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    Manuf. Lens Surface Treatments
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    Blue Jumper Melanine.........

    Quote Originally Posted by rainchild View Post
    you would need a lab that can test uv blockage up to the 500nm range. No idea where you would find that.
    rainchild..................you would never find................because it isn't there.
    UV radiation stops where the visible light starts, which is around the 400nm mark.
    Meanin lenses do fully block UV and then visible blue light to about 435nm

    http://www.melaninvisioncenter.com/i...e.height.max=0

    They actually provide the same charateristics as the OMS blue blocker dye which is available for dye pots or in MicroTint. The base color is a special orange color which prvides all the proptection and then can be tinted over to look amber, brown and even dark green.

    The website for Melanin is at: http://melaoptix.com/

    The OMS BlueBlocker is at http://optochemicals.com/products/info_blueblocker.htm

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    Quote Originally Posted by melanin View Post
    The Melanin lens available through Lenscrafters is also available to the eyecare professional through their wholesale lab. The lens is manufactured by Specialty Lens Corporation. The only difference is that the Lenscrafters product is available in polycarbonate in SV and Prog. The Melanin Polarized lens can be sourced through your wholesale lab in CR-39 and high index lens materials in basically any lens style that you need (Plano, SV, D-28, D35,7x28,8x35 and Prog).

    Melanin Lenses absorb UV and blue light without distorting colors.
    Exposure to blue light (not UV) is suspected as a contributing factor in the development of macular degeneration.

    There is a white paper on this subject at the following Internet addresss: http://www.specialtylens.com/Documen...er-Melanin.doc

    The lenses sold by Lenscrafters are the Vision-Ease Melanin, not the same as Specialty Lens corporation. VEL Melanin lenses are available through selected wholesale labs.
    There has been many studies done on the link between HEV light and AMD. Many of them can be researched on line.
    The VEL Melanin lenses allow a small percentage of blue light to be transmitted so they do not distort colors the way the old blue blockers did. They are also polarized. The lenses provide great comfort, clarity and protection. They work in a wide variety of conditions and are a great all weather lens. Great on bright sunny days, great on cloudy overcast days and great on rainy days!
    To truely appreciate the lens, you have to try it.
    www.vision-ease.com

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