LED lights can literally destroy your eyes:
Scientists say they have found how blue light from smartphones, laptops and other digital devices damages vision and can speed up blindness.
Research by the University of Toledo in the US has revealed that prolonged exposure to blue light triggers poisonous molecules to be generated in the eye’s light-sensitive cells that can cause macular degeneration – an incurable condition that affects the middle part of vision…
The scientists found that a molecule called alpha-tocopherol, a natural antioxidant found in the eye and body, stops the cells from dying but fails to offer any protection to the ageing population or those whose immune systems have been suppressed.
Karunarathne said: “That is when the real damage occurs.”
Notice the end. So if you are a young buck, it may not matter much, but if you are older, and especially if you are getting dry macular degeneration, you need to take measures when online for long periods looking at a LED screen, or watching a LED TV, or when just living in a house with ultra-bright LED lighting.
Consumer Reports recommends wearing the UVEX Skyper Orange blue blocking glasses, which will let you see what you are looking at while filtering out the bad wavelengths better than all other blue blocking glasses. They also only cost about ten bucks.
Windows 10 has a means by which to change the blue light output from the monitor. Similarly most LED TVs should have a setting to lower the blue light.
Three dietary carotenoids — lutein, zeaxanthin and meso-zeaxanthin — form the pigment in the macula (“macular pigment”) that protects the millions of photoreceptor cells located in this small region of the central retina.
In particular, the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of the macular pigment reduce oxidative stress on the retina caused by high-energy blue light, which is believed to contribute to the development of macular degeneration.
Here are the foods you should look at including in your diet:
Egg yolk and maize (corn) contained the highest mole percentage (% of total) of lutein and zeaxanthin (more than 85% of the total carotenoids). Maize was the vegetable with the highest quantity of lutein (60% of total) and orange pepper was the vegetable with the highest amount of zeaxanthin (37% of total). Substantial amounts of lutein and zeaxanthin (30-50%) were also present in kiwi fruit, grapes, spinach, orange juice, zucchini (or vegetable marrow), and different kinds of squash. The results show that there are fruits and vegetables of various colours with a relatively high content of lutein and zeaxanthin.
Most of the dark green leafy vegetables, previously recommended for a higher intake of lutein and zeaxanthin, have 15-47% of lutein, but a very low content (0-3%) of zeaxanthin. Our study shows that fruits and vegetables of various colours can be consumed to increase dietary intake of lutein and zeaxanthin.
This study isn’t a reason to panic. My guess is there will be a genetic component to this, and not everyone will be as vulnerable as some to macular degeneration. But if you want to play the odds, and have the best vision possible as you age, always take measures when you are on the computer or watching TV, and consider adding the right nutrients to your diet – especially if you spend a lot of time each day looking at a computer screen. Corn on the cob and scrambled eggs are not that hard to get down.
I will now wear blue blocking glasses whenever I am on the laptop or watching TV. I’ve actually already started today, and the funny thing is after five minutes, your eyes adjust and you don’t even notice the tint. Take the glasses off, and suddenly the whole world looks like it is being lit by blue light. Hopefully that will see to it that when I am 110, and fleeing the Cabal, my vision will not be holding me back.
After all, K is about taking measures now to produce better outcomes later.
Tell everyone about r/K Theory, because seeing the truth is important
Thanks for this! Wife is into bright lighting with daylight leds that have more blue. I’ve gotta get the goggles, and a pair for her too.
Dave
f.lux is software that does this for Mac screens.
I use a program called ‘f.lux’ on my PC to change the warmth of the colors. The idea behind this software is that the blue component of the light messes up your sleep cycle, blue component in the spectrum triggers your brain into thinking it’s still day-time. So what this program does is change the color to be warmer and less blue at sun-down. During the day you can set it to a lower value as well.
Like you say, you get used to it. If you disable the filtering for a moment then the bright white light is too much, jarring and stinging on the eyes. The downside of filtering blue is the lessened contrast between blue and the other colors.
I didn’t know about the blue light in LED light bulbs. I don’t like the bright ones but even those sold as ‘warm-white’ are still too bright (i.e. blue) to me. I can also recommend buying LEDs that do not have a ‘strobe effect’, your eyes won’t notice the difference but it may prevent headaches.
I’ve used f.lux for some time now, to eliminate blue light in the non-daylight hours. But I may consider tweaking it to eliminate more blue light during the day time as well.
I am a professional driver (chauffeur) and have Zeiss anti glare lenses in all my glasses for driving, which filter out the blue light. Almost all of the new model premium brand cars I drive have LED lights fitted now as standard and in vehicles like the Range Rover they are much higher off the ground and therefore dazzling to the driver of an oncoming vehicle.
Driving a car with LED headlights on at night is just like driving in the daytime, they are that bright. Though I’ve noticed with the auto dimming feature, they get caught out by the white backgrounds on signs, or fixed white security lights, which the car confuses with oncoming headlights. Can cause a problem on tight country bends where there are chevrons denoting the angle of the bend. Lights on the car dim down just as you need them to see where you’re going.
The glasses do make a difference, though I don’t have them in my reading glasses so should probably change those too. I tend to reduce the background light on my iPad and iPhone because I have a light sensitivity anyway. Use the pale yellow background on Kindle too. The LED lights in my house are all yellow white rather than blue white which isn’t as harsh being more of a diffused light like you get at sunrise and sunset.
My 80 year old Mum has just been seen by an ophthalmologist and he told us that the blue white LEDs are messing with peoples’ bio rhythms as they mimic daylight. It disturbs they’re sleeping patterns. He also said they are doing cataract operations at earlier ages now for the same reason. The LED lights are ‘aging’ peoples’ eyesight.
BMW’s new 8 series has Laserlights as an option. Not seen them yet. It will be interesting to see what effect they have. Not all new tech is good tech in the long term for human health.
Thanks AC
There’s an app called AceColor that reduces the blue light on computer and tablet screens.
F.lux as others have said above is quite useful in reducing blue light exposure if one doesn’t have the blue blocking glasses.
On Macintosh, go into your system preferences, select “display.” Choose “Color” and then select “Calibrate” and “Expert Mode.” Then follow the instructions and you will be able to control the output of your monitor and tone down the blue and get a very precise output from your display.
Always wearing yellow- or orange-tinted sunglasses outside during the day will save your eyes more than everything you could possibly do indoors.
Reflected sunlight, even on overcast days, is orders of magnitude brighter than any common artificial light. Perhaps if you spend all your time under fluorescent lights or even worse, mercury vapor lamps, the total dose of blue light might be greater than from the small time spent outdoors, but it isn’t the total dose of blue light that really matters so much as the peak dose sustained over at least seconds at a time. The reason for this is that the breakdown chemicals formed in the retina by being hit with blue light are constantly being counteracted by removal mechanisms which are sufficient for low-intensity exposure (though their effectiveness decreases with age), but in bright light the toxic breakdown products accumulate faster than they are removed, so do *exponentially* more damage. In fact, since we perceive the logarithm of the brightness, that is, exponentially brighter light seems linearly brighter to us, the damage from really bright light is super-exponentially greater then from dim lights such as reflected artificial sources and computer screens.