What exactly is blue light?
Natural daylight is made up of a relatively continuous spectrum, including all the colors. Here you can see the spectral distribution of daylight on a cloudy day. The different colors correlate with different wavelengths; at the far left of the (visible) spectrum there are the short-wave frequencies, creating violet and blue light. (UV light has even shorter wavelengths, and is not visible)
These frequencies of visible light, with wavelengths below 500 nm are called "blue light".
Short-wave optical radiation has strong oxidative capacities, and can damage cells due to the production of free oxygen radicals. It is common knowledge that UV light can be damaging to skin and eyes, this is why sunglasses have long since been required to have 100% UV filters.
More and more of the recent medical research show evidence that the visible short-wave radiation (blue light) is equally damaging. Not only does it have a similar oxidative capacity, it also advances further into the eye itself. While UV light is mostly damaging the eye lens, where it is filtered out, blue light gets to the retina unfiltered and can damage the photoreceptor cells there.
Why is this such a newsworthy concern?
While natural daylight largely balances out the harmful effects of blue light with it´s regenerative red and infrared content, we are increasingly surrounded by light sources which don´t only radiate a large amount of blue light, but also lack red frequencies which are regenerating and can even help repair cell damage.
This is especially serious when it comes to flat screen TVs and computer screens, which are now mainly illuminated by LED backlight, and into which we sometimes look for hours at a time. Here you can see the spectral distribution of an ordinary LED-lit flat screen.
The peak in the blue frequencies is clearly visible, a disproportionate energy distribution which is never found in natural light. This spectrum also shows an almost complete lack of red light. This artificial light can not only lead to oxidative stress within the eye, which promotes medical conditions such as age-related macular degeneration, it is also likely to disrupt the hormonal balance and therefore promote chronic diseases. Quite a lot of people also suffer from short-lived side effects when working on a screen, such as burning, stinging eyes, eye stain, headaches and unsteadiness of vision. All of this doesn´t have to be the case.
We have developed our range of bluelight protect glasses in order to offer you a simple and save method of protecting your eyes against aggressive blue light radiation.
Note: Artical reproduced from innovative eyewear
