so there's a lot of talk about blue light right now and they need for anti
blue light glasses but do blue light glasses really help or is this a bunch
of marketing hype that's why in this video we're answering do blue light
glasses work let's take a look hello and welcome this is dr. Allen here from the
doctor eye health show helping you learn all about the eyes and vision and on this
channel we do a lot of different educational videos about different eye
diseases as well as vision product reviews on glasses and contacts that sort
of thing so if that interests you then consider hitting that subscribe button
down below so you don't miss any of my future videos now I'm excited to be
talking about blue light and really kind of answering some of the questions I've
been getting about blue light I have a lot of people asking hey is blue light
real? do I really need to blue light glasses and do they really work so
that's what we're covering today and to answer these major questions I'm just
gonna tell it to you just how I tell patients in the clinic almost every
single day the first major thing that you'll hear about blue light and the
need for blue light glasses is that blue light affects our sleep and that is true
blue light has been found in studies to affect retinal cells in the back of the
eye which then speak to the pineal gland in your brain which produces melatonin
which is known as the sleeping hormone and the presence of melatonin helps
improve your overall nightly sleep which of course affects different health
aspects including affecting memory and that's why people who don't get as very
good sleep have increased risk chances for things like early dementia and
Alzheimer's and blue light has this effect because most of the blue light
you'll ever experience in a lifetime comes from the Sun and so staring at
your computer screen or your cell phone for long periods of time especially in
the evening kind of acts like staring at the Sun early in the morning tells your
brain to wake up and to stay alert that means that people who spend a lot of
time in front of digital screens are at higher risk of diminishing the melatonin
production and therefore risking having poor sleep which i think is really
important for younger individuals such as children who are starting to use more
digital products in their learning regimen whether they're a homework in
front of a computer staying up all night writing a paper or maybe learning on
something like an iPad and for this reason blue light glasses are
recommended for people who spend a lot of time in front of digital screens
however I think overall most eye care professionals
we'll recommend that people one try to reduce the amount of screen time use
especially in the later evenings try not to use any sort of digital screen at
least two hours before going to bed time in addition if your digital device has a
blue light or nighttime mode turn that software on most Apple products and
Samsung Galaxy phones do have some sort of a blue light protective mode and
you'll notice the screen kind of turning a dim yellow studies have found that
those apps do reduce the amount of effect that blue light can have on your
melatonin production however it's not a hundred percent and so again people who
are spending a lot of time in front of computer screens can consider blue light
glasses the second big thing you'll hear all marketing companies talk about their
blue light glasses is the reduction of eye fatigue I strain it also known as
digital eye strain or computer vision syndrome which can basically lead to
things like headaches and as far as the scientific validity for these statements
it is very mixed some studies have found that people do benefit from using these
blue light protective glasses and these yellow filters to reduce eye strain
however many studies also find really no benefit
I personally on an anecdotal level see a lot of patients who can go either
direction some people will come back into the office saying thank you so much
for these blue light glasses because they have reduced my eye strain on the
computer well some people don't really notice a benefit at all but again the
results are very mixed I personally don't find a huge benefit from the dark
yellow tints unless I'm currently experiencing a headache or a migraine
now before we get down to the most controversial subject about blue light
and how blue light could be affecting the retina in the back of the eyes if
you're finding value in this video it's mesh that like button for me and leave a
comment in the section below if you have already tried blue light glasses and
have you noticed any benefits at all whether it be from something like eye
fatigue or maybe affecting your sleep patterns now there's a lot of confusion
about blue light and how it could be potentially affecting the back of the
eye leading to different eye diseases such as age-related macular degeneration
and potentially vision loss from those diseases now there are several studies
showing that blue light can affect the retina cells in the back of the eye but
those studies were done on mice and rats and that was with a very high-energy
blue light just inches away from their faces in addition the only study I've
read about human retinal cells being tested under these conditions these
retinal cells were on a petri dish in a laboratory and they're human
retinal cell that are attached to the back of your
eye under normal conditions has a lot of protective mechanisms to prevent
photochemical damage from this blue light effect and the best argument
against blue light causing damage to the retinal cells comes from the fact that
epidemiological studies don't even show that people exposed to harsh amounts of
sunlight and again most of the blue light you'll ever see in your lifetime
comes from the Sun these studies show that people exposed to sunlight for long
periods of time do not experience this type of cell death from things like
macular degeneration or other retinal diseases and that's again because the
normal eye has mechanisms in place to protect the eye from this harsh energy
light with that being said we still ultimately don't know we're still
waiting for studies to be completed and give us a final answer there is still
concerned because we know that high-energy light can cause damage to
the back of the eye such as in solar retinopathy when somebody stares the Sun
too long as well as from other high intense light
beams such as laser pointers can also cause damage to the retina so in theory
the concern is real however in the scientific studies the evidence just
isn't there right now that blue light really causes retinal damage so to blue
light glasses work for sleep yes for fatigue maybe for retinal health we're
not sure yet but again there are other ways to protect your eyes from blue
light other than blue light glasses if you want to hear a little bit more about
those strategies I do have them in a full video series about blue light
protection and if you want to check out that series go ahead and click or tap
the screen just over here to the side or if you'd like to see another cool video
from dr. eye health go ahead and click or tap the screen down over here hey
thanks for watching keep an eye on it and we'll talk to you soon