German study proves: Screen Time is bad for you eyes - and it’s worse than you thought

[Sakkura]

1 hour ago, Amazonsucks said:

Wow thats actually pretty hilarious. Little scientific evidence? First, there is plenty of evidence that blue light is damaging to the human eye.

 

Secondly, if you actually bothered to read what i said, youd notice that its the spectral power distribution of the light entering the eye, and even with a perfectly clear blue sky that is about 5500K at sea level through Earths atmosphere. I also said that sunlight doesnt cause these issues, although too much sunlight and therefore UV exposure can cause cataracts.

 

You can debunk the debunkers pretty easily without even going into any complex biochemistry like rhodopsin mediated photo reversal. Just ask them why doctors have been using blue LEDs on skin infections for years now. Hint: its  got to do with the same ROS that kill your retinal pigment epithelial cells. And thats what does damage in addition to rhodopsin mediated photo reversal; the strong blue SPD light sources cause increased reactive oxygen species production in the retina, which is also well established in medical literature and not "currently under research" or some other nonsense.

 

And actually blue light is essential to overall health precisely because our intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells stop melatonin secretion and make us feel awake when there is blue light in the spectrum. If you notice, the SPD of sunlight changes from very red in the morning, to a yellowish white 5500K in the day, then back to red at sunset. We evolved to be diurnal and our circadian rythm is entrained by the blue light component of sunlight.

 

However, strongly blue light sources dont exist in nature on Earth, and sunlight does not approach the blue peak in SPD of high CCT LEDs. So what that guy is saying is only half true: you dont need to avoid sunlight, but you do need to avoid artificial light sources with a strongly blue SPD. But i already said sunlight was good.

 

The unintended consequence to completely avoiding blue light all the time(such as purposely avoiding daylight) would actually be "non 24", which is also well documented in medical literature.

 

And if youd like to purposely damage your eyes with blue light, cumulatively especially, you could take a colour acuity test now, then expose yourself to blue lights for a while, take the test again and get the results for yourself. If your colour acuity is shot already like many adults these days you could increase your macular pigment optical density and see how much it improves from month to month. I did the latter myself beginning four years ago. Made a huge difference.

 

 

There isn't plenty of evidence, and I just quoted the main ophthalmological medical association in the US saying so.

 

The spectral power distribution of light entering the eye depends what you're looking at. You're forgetting to account for that.

 

Leaping from rhodopsin mediated photo reversal to eye damage is completely unwarranted.

 

Using blue light on skin infections has nothing to do with its effects on the eye. Bacteria have a completely different type of rhodopsin, when it's even present at all.

[Amazonsucks]

36 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

There isn't plenty of evidence, and I just quoted the main ophthalmological medical association in the US saying so.

 

The spectral power distribution of light entering the eye depends what you're looking at. You're forgetting to account for that.

 

Leaping from rhodopsin mediated photo reversal to eye damage is completely unwarranted.

 

Using blue light on skin infections has nothing to do with its effects on the eye. Bacteria have a completely different type of rhodopsin, when it's even present at all.

 

Except that ROS production from blue light doesnt rely solely on rhodpsin mediated photo reversal. Its just that both things can happen under the right condition. The acne and infection treatments that use blue light(not IPDT though) rely on ROS production and have no dependence on rhodopsin mediated photo reversal.

 

The increased ROS production caused by blue light can kill retinal cells all by itself. Thats why it does have everything to do with blue light infection treatments. The same mechanism is at work: visible blue light killing cells via increased ROS production in the tissues.

 

And really, you can go google terms like blue light reactive oxygen species, blue light ancne treatment, and find tons of medical research on it. A lot of it is quite new and hasnt gone mainstream. When discussing it with a medical student in China the other day, he said the issues with blue light and eye damage are common knowledge. I guess it depends on where you are in the world and who you talk to, just how common that knowledge is though.

[Sakkura]

45 minutes ago, Amazonsucks said:

 

Except that ROS production from blue light doesnt rely solely on rhodpsin mediated photo reversal. Its just that both things can happen under the right condition. The acne and infection treatments that use blue light(not IPDT though) rely on ROS production and have no dependence on rhodopsin mediated photo reversal.

 

The increased ROS production caused by blue light can kill retinal cells all by itself. Thats why it does have everything to do with blue light infection treatments. The same mechanism is at work: visible blue light killing cells via increased ROS production in the tissues.

 

And really, you can go google terms like blue light reactive oxygen species, blue light ancne treatment, and find tons of medical research on it. A lot of it is quite new and hasnt gone mainstream. When discussing it with a medical student in China the other day, he said the issues with blue light and eye damage are common knowledge. I guess it depends on where you are in the world and who you talk to, just how common that knowledge is though.

Scientific consensus disagrees with you.

[Amazonsucks]

18 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

Scientific consensus disagrees with you.

Actually it agrees pretty well with what i said. None of what i said is even controversial among people who actually study it. Blue visible light has been known to increase ROS production in tissues for many years. Intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells were discovered decades ago now. Rhodopsin mediated photo reversal is a fairly recent thing, but you dont even need that to happen for blue visible light to increase ROS and cause damage, so even if you somehow think that rhodopsin mediated photo reversal is BS, how do you dismiss the rest of it?

 

Go ask some researchers in that field, doctors who are up to date with the latest research or medical students. You simply didnt look in the right place, despite it being readily accessible on the internet. You need to be reading actual medical journals and research, not talking points for the lay person though.

[Sakkura]

4 minutes ago, Amazonsucks said:

Actually it agrees pretty well with what i said. Go ask some researchers in that field, doctors who are up to date with the latest research or medical students. You simply didnt look in the right place. You need to be reading actual medical journals and research, not talking points for the lay person.

I just quoted the biggest association of medical professionals in that field, and they say there's no evidence.

[Amazonsucks]

5 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

I just quoted the biggest association of medical professionals in that field, and they say there's no evidence.

And are they on the cutting edge of research? No. Medical research is usually years, if not decades, ahead of mainstream medicine. Thats part of the very broken system of "modern" medicine in much of the world. It doesnt surprise me at all that a group like that would take an on the fence position like that currently. If you dont understand the science behind it, i guess you can wait a few more years for them to spoon feed a change in their position. Cigarettes being carcinogenic or not comes to mind ?

[Sakkura]

1 minute ago, Amazonsucks said:

And are they on the cutting edge of research? No. Medical research is usually years, if not decades, ahead of mainstream medicine. Thats part of the very broken system of "modern" medicine in much of the world. It doesnt surprise me at all that a group like that would take an on the fence position like that currently. If you dont understand the science behind it, i guess you can wait a few more years for them to spoon feed a change in their position. Cigarettes being carcinogenic or not comes to mind ?

They're not on the cutting edge?

 

Okay, let's look at the guy who reviewed that article, Rahul Khurana MD.

 

Quote

Dr. Khurana is active with clinical research in developing new treatments for various retinal diseases. He has published over 70 peer reviewed scientific papers, been honored with numerous national awards and involved in over 60 clinical trials.

 

And so on and so forth. A leading expert representing the leading medical association in the field. He clearly has no idea what is going on.

[Amazonsucks]

3 hours ago, Sakkura said:

They're not on the cutting edge?

 

Okay, let's look at the guy who reviewed that article, Rahul Khurana MD.

 

 

And so on and so forth. A leading expert representing the leading medical association in the field. He clearly has no idea what is going on.

Well unless hes one of the researchers studying the effects of blue light on the human visual system, then no. He would be a medical professional like many others who may or may not have familiarized themself with the latest research. What ive been discussing is on the cutting edge of medical research.

 

You should realize just how many medical professionals have to change the way theyve done things for years upon new information coming to light, right? A few examples that immediately come to mind are antibiotic overuse leading to drug resistant strains, triclosan finally being removed from store shelves due to new medical research, the discovery that infant circumcision causes permanent neural entrainment and pain sensitization, the labeling of glyphosate as a carcinogen in the EU after years of scientists claiming it was safe enough to drink.

 

And then of course theres the countless drug recalls; drugs that were cleared by peer reviewed research, clinical trials and the plentiful, mighty experts at the FDA. 

 

The problem for lay people is that they dont have a fundamental understanding of the billogical processes involved so they simply defer to whatever a reputable organization can put into talking points.

 

And also you have to understand what im saying, and what im not saying here. The damage is cumulative, not acute exposure like staring at the Sun or an arc welder. 

 

Increased ROS production isnt limited to  the kind thats blue light induced. Lots of things produce free radicals in the body and oxidative stress can affect any tissue and have detrimental effects. How much detriment depends on tons of variables.

 

For the eye some of those variables are, the individual's own antioxidant response which diminishes with age, vascular health in the retina, macular pigment density, the intake of macular carotenoids in the diet, smoking, drinking, aspirin use. See this for more details https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4038937/

 

And its not like: someone sees a blue LED for a few minutes, then bam got full on wet macular degeneration like theyre 90 or something. Its a slow degradation over time of colour acuity, and that increased level of oxidative stress could make an individual more susceptible to macular degeneration, or just make its onset happen earlier. 

 

Macular degeneration is one of those relatively simple to prevent issues thats affecting an increasing number of people, which is rather sad and should be alarming. Was talking to a medical professional friend of mine about that recently actually. He was alarmed by how many relatively young people are getting conditions of old age like macular degeneration now, and how it seems to be getting worse rather than better. Most people are reactive rather than proactive though so its not really surprising.

[Sakkura]

5 minutes ago, Amazonsucks said:

 

Well you have no evidence for any of that.

 

The incidence of macular degeneration is rising because people live to older age.

[SteveGrabowski0]

So between screen time and ponhub how much time before we're all blind?

[Amazonsucks]

14 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

Well you have no evidence for any of that.

 

The incidence of macular degeneration is rising because people live to older age.

Lol wut? Its happening to people earlier. How is that because people live longer? 

 

Secondly, life expectancy has begun to drop...

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38247385

 

Try again.

[Zodiark1593]

While I definitely prefer the light output from an incandescent (I've several laying around) to even the fairly expensive LED bulbs I'm currently running in my bedroom (to my eye, there is a very slight flesh/pinkish hue to the incandescent that is quite nice, like stage lighting), the power consumption and resulting heat output from a single 60 watt bulb are pretty obscene compared to a pair of 4 watt, (supposedly) 2700K LED filament bulbs.

 

Would probably take some pretty serious health hazards to enact a mass exodus back to incandescents, mind you.

 

 

[Amazonsucks]

Warm typically expensive LEDs dont pose the same visual health risks, but they dont have the perfect colour rendering of a $2 incandescent, since an incandescent is a black body radiator.

 

http://news.mit.edu/2016/nanophotonic-incandescent-light-bulbs-0111 hopefully those become popular or at least available. They are incandescents that are much higher tech than any LED.

 

I personally avoid LEDs and CFLs, even expensive high CRI LEDs for indoor use, because i like the light of incandscents better, no EMI to speak of from them, theyre dimmable with no flicker and their colour temp changes smoothly when you dim them. I have incandescent bulbs on dimmer switches that are on 16 hours a day that are 15 years old. As long as you dont drive them at full power they last for ages.

 

Another reason i avoid LED and CFL bulbs can be found on product recall websites since a lot of cheap consumer lighting LEDs are made very poorly and are fire or shock hazards.

 

[bobonlinenet]

It's funny because I've been on a computer since I was 5. I'm the only one in the family who doesn't wear glasses, but in the past 2 years, my eyes have been going bad. (Increasing font sizes, zooming in to see stuff better)

 

I ask people who have been to eye doctors, and they say it's just straining the eyes from being on the computer all day. If you have to be on the computer all day, just take breaks from looking at the screen like some people have said here. Too much of anything can be bad. Moderation.

[Amazonsucks]

3 hours ago, B0bonline84 said:

It's funny because I've been on a computer since I was 5. I'm the only one in the family who doesn't wear glasses, but in the past 2 years, my eyes have been going bad. (Increasing font sizes, zooming in to see stuff better)

 

I ask people who have been to eye doctors, and they say it's just straining the eyes from being on the computer all day. If you have to be on the computer all day, just take breaks from looking at the screen like some people have said here. Too much of anything can be bad. Moderation.

Have you tried increasing your macular pigment optical density by ingesting more lutein and zeaxanthin in your diet? Worked very well for me.

[Sakkura]

12 hours ago, Amazonsucks said:

Lol wut? Its happening to people earlier. How is that because people live longer? 

 

Secondly, life expectancy has begun to drop...

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38247385

 

Try again.

Not happening earlier, happening more often because people live longer.

 

Life expectancy drops, if any, will take many years to take effect; the population is still aging as it catches up to past increases in life expectancy.

 

https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2017/comm/median-age.html

 

https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2018/demo/p25-1144.html

[Amazonsucks]

2 hours ago, Sakkura said:

Not happening earlier, happening more often because people live longer.

 

Life expectancy drops, if any, will take many years to take effect; the population is still aging as it catches up to past increases in life expectancy.

 

https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2017/comm/median-age.html

 

https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2018/demo/p25-1144.html

You do realize that an aging population percentage is also driven by a lack of new births, not simply an abundance of people living longer. Its happening in the west(and Japan) because of many factors, taxes, decreased purchasing power of the dollar, decimated middle class etc. The population can be aging while life expectancy drops if you have few enough births in a large enough population.

 

And i was saying that macular degeneration is becoming more common among younger people, not that more people are getting old enough for it to be a typical age related thing(which is still largely preventable and sometimes reversable too). Youre just misinterpreting a lot of data and coming to incorrect conclusions.

 

 

[Sakkura]

2 hours ago, Amazonsucks said:

You do realize that an aging population percentage is also driven by a lack of new births, not simply an abundance of people living longer. Its happening in the west(and Japan) because of many factors, taxes, decreased purchasing power of the dollar, decimated middle class etc. The population can be aging while life expectancy drops if you have few enough births in a large enough population.

 

And i was saying that macular degeneration is becoming more common among younger people, not that more people are getting old enough for it to be a typical age related thing(which is still largely preventable and sometimes reversable too). Youre just misinterpreting a lot of data and coming to incorrect conclusions.

 

 

The incidence of macular degeneration is rising because people, on average, are older. Same goes for everything from male-pattern baldness to cancer. In that context, it doesn't matter why people are older.

 

You have provided no evidence that macular degeneration is becoming more common among younger people.

[Amazonsucks]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/core/lw/2.0/html/tileshop_pmc/tileshop_pmc_inline.html?title=Click on image to zoom&p=PMC3&id=5755466_gr3.jpg

 

Chart from a study on ARMD which shows early MD increasing, while late stage ARMD is actually decreasing(attributed to better treatment). Full paper https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5755466/ 

 

https://opto.ca/health-library/blue-light-is-there-risk-of-harm optometrists in other countries acknowledge the risk, especially to young people. 

 

https://www.reviewsce.com/ce/warding-off-the-blues some interesting information in there too.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1857207/

 

There is ample evidence that blue light causes damage to the retina with a similar profile to the kind found in age related macular degeneration, and that it accelerates existing macular degeneration. Its expected that the number of people with macular degeneration will double or something by 2040, which cant be attributed to aging alone.

 

You can do whatever you want when it comes to your own eyes, but youll probably see even more regarding the issue of modern lighting and displays causing eye problems in the coming years, if these studies, articles and what the people i talk to in the medical field are any indication.

 

Which is a good thing really. Kids spend so much time plugged into shitty WLED screens with white points way higher than 6500K and lots of people were conned into replacing their incandescent bulbs with shitty Chinese made LED or CFL bulbs. I do actually know some very smart and very wealthy people who also wont go near "energy efficient" lighting and similarly hoard banned incandescents to light their homes with. Mostly they prefer the aesthetics but the bonus is avoiding all these issues that come from poor quality light sources.

 

There are blue light reduction modes on smartphones now, WLED monitors too. It will get a little bit better when it comes to monitors and TVs once WLED trash backlights are replaced by better technologies. Hopefully high CCT LED lighting will also be done away with, although many cities have fallen for the scam of less efficient(Watts per lumen compared to high pressure sodium) LED street lights with very high CCTs. They scam cities and residents by saying they use less power, which is true, but they also produce less than half as much light per fixture, cause a reduction in scotopic vision(once youre out of a lit zone youre night blind for several minutes), and they cause more light pollution due toshort wavelength light scattering more. 

[Sakkura]

11 hours ago, Amazonsucks said:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/core/lw/2.0/html/tileshop_pmc/tileshop_pmc_inline.html?title=Click on image to zoom&p=PMC3&id=5755466_gr3.jpg

 

Chart from a study on ARMD which shows early MD increasing, while late stage ARMD is actually decreasing(attributed to better treatment). Full paper https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5755466/ 

 

https://opto.ca/health-library/blue-light-is-there-risk-of-harm optometrists in other countries acknowledge the risk, especially to young people. 

 

https://www.reviewsce.com/ce/warding-off-the-blues some interesting information in there too.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1857207/

 

There is ample evidence that blue light causes damage to the retina with a similar profile to the kind found in age related macular degeneration, and that it accelerates existing macular degeneration. Its expected that the number of people with macular degeneration will double or something by 2040, which cant be attributed to aging alone.

 

You can do whatever you want when it comes to your own eyes, but youll probably see even more regarding the issue of modern lighting and displays causing eye problems in the coming years, if these studies, articles and what the people i talk to in the medical field are any indication.

 

Which is a good thing really. Kids spend so much time plugged into shitty WLED screens with white points way higher than 6500K and lots of people were conned into replacing their incandescent bulbs with shitty Chinese made LED or CFL bulbs. I do actually know some very smart and very wealthy people who also wont go near "energy efficient" lighting and similarly hoard banned incandescents to light their homes with. Mostly they prefer the aesthetics but the bonus is avoiding all these issues that come from poor quality light sources.

 

There are blue light reduction modes on smartphones now, WLED monitors too. It will get a little bit better when it comes to monitors and TVs once WLED trash backlights are replaced by better technologies. Hopefully high CCT LED lighting will also be done away with, although many cities have fallen for the scam of less efficient(Watts per lumen compared to high pressure sodium) LED street lights with very high CCTs. They scam cities and residents by saying they use less power, which is true, but they also produce less than half as much light per fixture, cause a reduction in scotopic vision(once youre out of a lit zone youre night blind for several minutes), and they cause more light pollution due toshort wavelength light scattering more. 

That first study does not have comparison data before age 55. Thus it cannot show whether macular degeneration is becoming more common in younger people, as you claimed.

 

You are quoting an association of optometrists, not ophthalmologists. There's a huge difference - optometrists are more like technicians than doctors (let alone researchers). Their main role is to measure refractive error etc. for glasses or contact lenses.

 

That "warding off the blues" article is from a marketing company.

 

The "blocking the blue" article is not peer reviewed, it's simply a letter to a journal. It's also outdated, and newer research does not support the claims being made.

[Amazonsucks]

It shows that the incidence is increasing in younger people as it declines in the extremely elderly, which kind of contradicts the idea that the increase in prevalance is the result of people living longer... last time i checked the average life expectancy wasnt in the 55-70 age range. If you extrapolate the graph, it shows that it would likely have incrased before 55 but thats speculation.

 

To the rest of your nitpicks: that doesnt mean that they are wrong. They were just interesting articles with some relevant info. Also, wheres some contrary evidence thats more up to date? I would love to read some medical research that shows how safe blue light is, given the mountain of data that shows the exact opposite with more being released every year.

 

And what about the rest of what i said? You cherry pick and ignored half of the things i say in an attempt to deflect from anything you have no refutation for. Do you really think no one notices that?

[Drak3]

3 hours ago, GamingMemeKing said:

Did you know printers give off radiation ?

So do bananas.

[mr moose]

everything gives of radiation, that's how carbon dating works. 

[Amazonsucks]

Radiation is a very broad term. You need to be more specific as to which part of the electromagnetic spectrum youre talking about or if its photons, protons, nuclei etc.

 

A candle outputs radiation in the form of visible light and infrared...

[mr moose]

21 hours ago, Amazonsucks said:

You need to be more specific as to which part of the electromagnetic spectrum youre talking about

why?