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Thread: Study Determines Blue Light from Bulbs and LCD Screens Too Weak to Cause Damage...

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    Study Determines Blue Light from Bulbs and LCD Screens Too Weak to Cause Damage...

    This is the most comprehensive study done analyzing real world exposure of Blue light from various real world sources.

    http://www.foxnews.com/health/2016/0...mage-eyes.html

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    As I mentioned on another thread, certainly not comprehensive and not very credible. The group doing the experiment may be a front for industry people.

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    Master OptiBoarder optical24/7's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dr. Bill Stacy View Post
    As I mentioned on another thread, certainly not comprehensive and not very credible. The group doing the experiment may be a front for industry people.
    "Industry People" are the exact people that have spent millions already to convince us we need to *protect* the un-assuming masses with a product that protects them from blue light.....With their products! I'm in wait and see mode until MUCH more definitive answers come out on this subject.

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    Take this from an expert, or take the other from a bunch of O.D.s paid by the organization that stands to gain the most.

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    Master OptiBoarder OptiBoard Gold Supporter Judy Canty's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sharpstick777 View Post
    This is the most comprehensive study done analyzing real world exposure of Blue light from various real world sources.

    http://www.foxnews.com/health/2016/0...mage-eyes.html
    It doesn't seem to address concerns over long-term exposure.

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    Quote Originally Posted by optical24/7 View Post
    "Industry People" are the exact people that have spent millions already to convince us we need to *protect* the un-assuming masses with a product that protects them from blue light.....With their products! I'm in wait and see mode until MUCH more definitive answers come out on this subject.
    2 opposing industries; the really big one makes all the blue emitters (from tablets to cell phones to LEDs to you name it) and the little ones that make protective lenses. You go ahead and side with the big guys, but I'm joining the litttle guys who for sure want to make a few bucks but also have people's visual protection in mind. The big boys deal in billions, the little ones just in millions.

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    Here's is the link to the study with all the scientific data the above article pulls the information from. It is a good read and very detailed.

    http://www.nature.com/eye/journal/v3...e2015261a.html

    I posted it in the other blue light threads and it seems it was mostly ignored. For the life of me I can't figure out why some of the best people in our industry aren't willing to shell out a paltry $18 to access the article. IMHO If you are selling blue-light filtering/blocking lenses to your patients, and you're not willing to read and gather all available scientific information, you are at the very least doing a disservice to your patients.

    On other notes, where is the American Medical Association on this issue? Why aren't they up in arms about something that can lead to potential blindness? Where is the uproar from the optical/optometric community about the non-glasses wearing population? I have not heard a peep about the emmetropes getting blasted by blue light, only the glasses wearing public.

    Maybe in a few years studies will prove some level of damage done by blue-light in everyday situations and conditions. And when those studies are available I will be the first to accept them. Until then, I say its marketing hokum and nothing more.

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    Anti-blue confirmation bias seems to run strong with the lens guys, lab rats, and what on the surface appears to be fear-mongering ODs.

    Still, it remains very interesting that the human eye evolved with highly particular cell structures, designed to specifically to be most sensitive to visible light over a bell curve centered around 440nm.

    I wonder who's going to sue the sun for emitting so much more blue light than we are possibly able to handle according to the lens/lab guys today. Or all the LED light bulb guys? Or the cool white fluorescent tube guys? Or the Barco movie screen projector guys? They should have vaporized us all long ago with all the intense blue light they put out.

    And yet, I'm still here to take my dog out for his walkies every evening...and can still see 6th magnitude stars at night...

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    Quote Originally Posted by Uilleann View Post
    Anti-blue confirmation bias seems to run strong with the lens guys, lab rats, and what on the surface appears to be fear-mongering ODs.

    Still, it remains very interesting that the human eye evolved with highly particular cell structures, designed to specifically to be most sensitive to visible light over a bell curve centered around 440nm.

    I wonder who's going to sue the sun for emitting so much more blue light than we are possibly able to handle according to the lens/lab guys today. Or all the LED light bulb guys? Or the cool white fluorescent tube guys? Or the Barco movie screen projector guys? They should have vaporized us all long ago with all the intense blue light they put out.

    And yet, I'm still here to take my dog out for his walkies every evening...and can still see 6th magnitude stars at night...
    Centered around 440 is it? Hmm. That means we see UV pretty well do we? No, your number is WAY off. Our sensitivity curve centers around 550 nm. Just a typo or what?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dr. Bill Stacy View Post
    2 opposing industries; the really big one makes all the blue emitters (from tablets to cell phones to LEDs to you name it) and the little ones that make protective lenses. You go ahead and side with the big guys, but I'm joining the litttle guys who for sure want to make a few bucks but also have people's visual protection in mind. The big boys deal in billions, the little ones just in millions.
    Little ones. HA HA HA! Too funny Doc.

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    Quote Originally Posted by optical24/7 View Post
    "Industry People" are the exact people that have spent millions already to convince us we need to *protect* the un-assuming masses with a product that protects them from blue light.....With their products! I'm in wait and see mode until MUCH more definitive answers come out on this subject.
    An excellent point!

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dr. Bill Stacy View Post
    Centered around 440 is it? Hmm. That means we see UV pretty well do we? No, your number is WAY off. Our sensitivity curve centers around 550 nm. Just a typo or what?
    Well, there is some indication that people with aphakia can indeed see into the UV range.

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    Eyes eastward... Uilleann's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dr. Bill Stacy View Post
    Centered around 440 is it? Hmm. That means we see UV pretty well do we? No, your number is WAY off. Our sensitivity curve centers around 550 nm. Just a typo or what?
    C'mon Doc... You're trying to shift the focus to the entire scope of human vision. Please re-read, and note I was referring to S cones, which is the frequency of light this entire discussion . Perhaps it's time to brush up on your 1st year ocular anatomy books? ;) We're not being sold lenses that block everything. We're being sold up the river with lenses based on extremely speculative and highly suspicious "science" pertaining to BLUE light.

    No soup for you! ;)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Uilleann View Post
    C'mon Doc... You're trying to shift the focus to the entire scope of human vision. Please re-read, and note I was referring to S cones, which is the frequency of light this entire discussion . Perhaps it's time to brush up on your 1st year ocular anatomy books? ;) We're not being sold lenses that block everything. We're being sold up the river with lenses based on extremely speculative and highly suspicious "science" pertaining to BLUE light.

    No soup for you! ;)
    Ok on your advice I brushed up a bit on the human eye photopic sensitivity curve and I am right that it centers in the green wavelengths, not on the blue. Your post did not mention S cones, which constitute only 2% of the cones in the retina, and are not even found in the macula. So as long as you're "focused" on the blue receptors, it is also well known that the eye doesn't focus blue light very well, partly because of the macular absence, but also due to the scatter and absorption of blue by the ocular media. Ever try to read a blue neon sign? Pretty tough, even for this pseudophake.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dr. Bill Stacy View Post
    Ok on your advice I brushed up a bit on the human eye photopic sensitivity curve and I am right that it centers in the green wavelengths, not on the blue. Your post did not mention S cones, which constitute only 2% of the cones in the retina, and are not even found in the macula. So as long as you're "focused" on the blue receptors, it is also well known that the eye doesn't focus blue light very well, partly because of the macular absence, but also due to the scatter and absorption of blue by the ocular media. Ever try to read a blue neon sign? Pretty tough, even for this pseudophake.
    However, the S cone sensitivity covers the most wavelength region, extending from 350nm to approx 500nm.

    B

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    my charts show blue is about 400-525, green is 425-650 and red is 425-700. Incidentally, maybe the reason that blue receptors are not in the macula is that they got evolutionarily burned out by millions of years of concentrated visible blue in the macula?

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    So I can directly view extremely detailed blue and violet hued images using only red and green photo-receptors in my macula? If there are so few blue sensitive receptors, how is it we can directly perceive blue/violet frequencies at all? I don't seem to require off-axis viewing techniques for anything other than when I'm at the telescope eyepiece, searching for detail in an emission nebula or galaxy dust lane. Blue neon? No issues so far. Though staring directly into the Transitions UV activator lamp does look the slightest bit 'furry'. But the suntan I can get on my eyelids is kickin! ;)

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    Yes you can. Both red and green cones are sensitive to blue wavelengths, although increasing less as you go toward the violet. But blue scatter is well understood and is probably the reason we use red and green in the bichrome or duochrome test rather than red and blue. The blue side would be pretty unreadable.

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    I just thought of an analogy to toss out to the blue deniers who claim that millions of years of blue sky watching hasn't hurt the human eye. Well, neither has millions of years of listening to sounds and noises of nature caused much deafness. But artificially cranked up sounds like airplane engines, rock bands, and amplifiers have caused plenty of premature hearing loss and deafness. Same wavelengths as found in nature, just louder and more sustained. Similarly it doesn't take a giant leap in logic to assume that there also exists an intensity level for blue light beyond which damage can occur. This threshold rarely if ever occurs naturally. Only by artificial sources such as cell phones held close to the eyes could that threshold be reached. The Essilor studies and others demonstrated that a lethal level for retinal cells does exist for some blue wavelengths that is lower than the lethal level for other wavelengths. True, it hasn't been well quantified, nor has it been well correlated to the outputs of cell phones and other devices at various distances and brightness settings. Yet. But it seems to me the discomfort one feels when subjected to very loud noise and the discomfort one feels when looking at a very bright blue headlight is there for a reason. Our senses are telling us that too much of a good thing is not good for us.

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    This is a rather silly analogy, but I'll play along. :)

    To begin with, you're backwards. Natural blue sunlight is at levels FAR exceeding ANYTHING a screen can produce. This has been shown over and over again. So to use the sound energy level comparison you drew, let's call sunlight the light energy equivalent of standing immediately underneath the Space Shuttle during a launch.

    Blue light from a screen with the blue absolutely maxed out, held 3 cm from the sensor, and with the screen at absolute maximum brightness (which is apparently the only way the few studies have been able to show a noticeable blue 'spike' from these screens at all), You might be audibly analogous to an AC/DC concert. But the reality is simply that we don't use our screens that way. Our typical light to sound usage is more likely to be equivalent to a Kenny G concert.

    Sure it's dangerous - but only because of it's tendency to cause one to slip into unconsciousness due to boredom. ;)

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    While it may be harmless to damaging the eyes, weren't there conclusive studies that showed it an mess with your circadian rhythm, pineal gland, and melatonin production if you're using a laptop 10 minutes before you plan on trying to go to bed?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Uilleann View Post
    This is a rather silly analogy, but I'll play along. :)

    To begin with, you're backwards. Natural blue sunlight is at levels FAR exceeding ANYTHING a screen can produce. This has been shown over and over again. So to use the sound energy level comparison you drew, let's call sunlight the light energy equivalent of standing immediately underneath the Space Shuttle during a launch.

    Blue light from a screen with the blue absolutely maxed out, held 3 cm from the sensor, and with the screen at absolute maximum brightness (which is apparently the only way the few studies have been able to show a noticeable blue 'spike' from these screens at all), You might be audibly analogous to an AC/DC concert. But the reality is simply that we don't use our screens that way. Our typical light to sound usage is more likely to be equivalent to a Kenny G concert.

    Sure it's dangerous - but only because of it's tendency to cause one to slip into unconsciousness due to boredom. ;)
    Talk about messed up analogies. Standing under a rocket? Fortunately we are 93 mil miles from the sun, and the inverse square law says that at that distance the amount of radiant flux reaching us actually pretty tame, especially after getting filtered by the atmosphere, somewhere around 1 watt per square meter in the visible blue area. I don't know how much wattage the iphone is putting out, but I'm guessing it's somewhat MORE than that. Why? because I can see blue print against a white background on my iphone outdoors in full sun. If the sunlight reaching my phone was many times stronger than the phone as you and others say it is, it would be completely washed out and not readable. I'll leave the precision testing of those values to someone else, for now I'm sticking to my guns.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dr. Bill Stacy View Post
    Talk about messed up analogies. Standing under a rocket? Fortunately we are 93 mil miles from the sun, and the inverse square law says that at that distance the amount of radiant flux reaching us actually pretty tame, especially after getting filtered by the atmosphere, somewhere around 1 watt per square meter in the visible blue area. I don't know how much wattage the iphone is putting out, but I'm guessing it's somewhat MORE than that. Why? because I can see blue print against a white background on my iphone outdoors in full sun. If the sunlight reaching my phone was many times stronger than the phone as you and others say it is, it would be completely washed out and not readable. I'll leave the precision testing of those values to someone else, for now I'm sticking to my guns.
    So, by the same analogy, I can stare at the sun longer than your iPhone?

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    Quote Originally Posted by optical24/7 View Post
    So, by the same analogy, I can stare at the sun longer than your iPhone?
    To play devil's advocate, you could listen to a frequency outside of your hearing range at a much higher decibel than a frequency within your hearing range even though it would do less damage.
    Last edited by sdgibbs; 02-14-2016 at 08:34 PM.

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    I saw a retina specialist today. Has not heard a thing about this.

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