I wanted to share with everyone what I learned about the Blutech lens technology. I just had a long lunch meeting with Alan the AZ Blutech rep and I know there has been some misinformation and lots of discussion on optiboard.

First a little background/refresher for some. As humans age, the crystalline lens begins to develop an ocular pigment which is natures way of filtering out a spectrum range of blue light. Now this range is not just "blue light" it is a higher energy range of blue light. Within this range are some wavelengths that the eye uses to trigger the pinal gland (within the brain) to cycle sleeping and waking (circadian rhythms). Also, within this wavelength are high energy light that causes oxidation ("rusting") of the retina. This blue light wavelength range is also very susceptible to chromatic aberration resulting in defocus and reduced vision acuity. Now the crystalline lens can filter out some of this light when it mature and concentrated enough ocular pigment BUT people have virtually zero ocular pigment before you are ~20 years old and only a little bit afterwards until maybe ~65 years old.

From the Blutech meeting:
So, Blutech actually extracted, characterized, and synthesized the exact ocular pigment and worked it into the polymer monomer chain of their lens material. Thus, being able to perfectly replicate the spectrum transmission curve of a mature (non-cataract) crystalline lens. So this pigment is in the mix and not a surface tinting. It can never fade or delaminate.

Where are we exposed to this wavelength range of blue light and why is it a problem now rather than 20+ years ago? Digital light sources (ie: LED, LCD, compact fluorescent) emit proportionally MUCH more of this blue light than sun light and incandescent lighting sources (regular old light bulbs). Within the past 10 years peoples lifestyles have become increasingly more focused on staring into digital light sources all day and evening. We are exposed to a flood of the high energy blue light spectrum continually by our home and office lighting (LED, compact fluorescent). This is confusing the sleep wake cycle and preventing true restful sleep and REM sleep. There is iron clad clinical evidence of this for the past 10 years by sleep MD's and others. The poor sleep causes stress on the body and is linked clinically to obesity, hypertension, increase cancer cell growth, diabetes, and "ADHD". ADHD is one of the most troubling aspects because ADHD diagnosis have exploded in recent years and MD's are medicating these children. ADHD symptoms are very similar to children that simply have been chronically deprived of restful REM sleep.

Superior visual acuity in sunglasses and indoor eyewear is achievable with filtering out the chromatically aberrating blue light. I tried the sun lenses on personally and compared to HCL Maui Jim's and I had significantly better contrast and it had a soothing tone. However, I did note that colors seemed to be more towards the yellow than compared to the MJ's.

Retinal health is a very important aspect to Blutech. The filtering of the oxidative wavelengths reduces the odds of developing macular degeneration in high risk patients. It is possible that our young generations and the future generations will have much higher rates of macular degeneration than previous generations due to our lifestyle of higher energy blue light exposure. Especially important in children since they tend to bury their faces in ipad, cell phone, etc... and have no natural ocular pigment yet in their crystalline lens.

An easy way to relate to people the effects of digital light and REM sleep is to spend 45 min in bed reading a book on an ipad right before you try to sleep. Then on another day try the same thing with a regular bulb table lamp and a regular paperback book. See how you feel each morning.
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Thats as much as I can recall but the evidence is there and I really do believe the blutech is a superior product than a surface tint or laminate. It offers a better transmission curve than the melanin lenses and other blue blocking tints. It also greatly outperforms the AR prevencia/Recharge because the filtering curve of Blutech is broader and greater reaching than the AR products, which have very narrow ranges and focus on the oxidative ranges only. It also provides better acuity in indoor and outdoor lenses.