Am I damaging my eyesight when I read by candlelight?

Factual Questions
1

Hee hee! I love rhyming subject lines.

Every time that somebody learns that I read/do my homework by candle and oil-lamp light in my room, I automatically get told that I’m ruining my eyesight. I insist that the light is bright enough, but a lot of people seem to think that that’s either impossible or irrelevant. The latter class tend to see something inherently damaging in non-electric lighting, I guess.

My question is, am I actually hurting my eyes? I never feel them strained, I always feel that the light is bright enough, and have been doing it for nearly a year with no noticable loss of eyesight. Since I have glasses, I get my vision checked regularly, and there’s no more fading of vision than I had before I removed the incandescent lamp from my room.

2

I remember reading that there’s nothing damaging about reading in low light (although it can be uncomfortable). Here’s a cite:

http://www.kellogg.umich.edu/patientcare/conditions/faq.html#computers

Unless of course your friends are right and there is something fundamentally different about candlelight as opposed to a light bulb. IANAO but I doubt that very much.