My brother warned me the other day, before I sat down to a nice steak dinner, that a study in Australia has found that eating red meat may cause blindness. I later found the specifics of this particular study found that *too much *red meat can accelerate macular degeneration. In this particular study, the subjects who were affected ate ten portions of red meat a week. Such a number is obviously beyond a moderate number. It’s likely that the folks who ate so unhealthily had other health problems too.
Reading more on the condition macular degeneration, I learned about a new potential cause: namely something called the “blue light hazard.” http://www.mdsupport.org/library/hazard.html In short, there is a possibility that too much absorption of blue light could ruin the retina and lead to serious vision damage, including macular degeneration, particularly in those with retinal problems to begin with. Some studies find a link, others find no link. In any case, there are some tips as to avoiding blue light, if one wants to be safe. The simplest way may be to wear yellow-tinted lenses. Another may be just moving to a nice cozy cave somewhere, avoiding sunlight and artificial lighting altogether, but I don’t really want to do that.
I don’t want to worry myself unnecessarily but it wouldn’t hurt to become more knowledgeable on the matter. I also don’t want to wear yellow glasses if I don’t have to. What about looking into my computer screen four to eight hours a day? Does blue light come from a computer screen and how would that be affected by manipulating the color information in the screen menu?
I know also that there are natural defenses against this supposed hazard but evolution has been outpaced with the way humans use their eyes these days and (hopefully not) for each part defense there’s two parts looking directly into an artificial sun you can carry in your pocket. Or am I worrying for nothing?
In case you haven’t noticed a pattern in many ‘studies’, there are people who get way too much of something…way outside the norm…and they seem to run the risk of developing or getting ‘something’. Everything in moderation is a good tip. If you’re predisposed, then moderation might be too much.
Quite frankly, the stress from worrying about too many things is more damaging, so chill out!
The more serious concern with blue light is that it impairs your vision now, because the eye doesn’t process it well. Yellow lenses make things sharper because they block blue wavelengths.
I think this is the best advice! I was expecting a whole bunch of replies on the best way to adjust the color scheme on my monitor but see not many others are concerned and so I probably should just to chill out. At least until the next study comes out!
The intensity of the blue light coming from your computer monitor is nowhere near that coming from the sun. Blue light is fairly high energy and only a couple of notches down from ultraviolet (which is definitely ionizing radiation and thus harmful), so it’s certainly possible that it could do some damage to sensitive tissue such as your retina. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to consider that when purchasing sunglasses and therefore select lenses that preferentially transmit less blue (i.e. brownish colored ones).
