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Indoor risk of blue light damage 'vanishingly small'

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DENVER – Light emitting diodes are the way of the future, according to a speaker here at the American Academy of Optometry meeting.

Stephen Dain, PhD, FAAO, FCOptom, said this is not problematic, as LEDs provide no greater dose of blue light to the eye than other technologies.

"There are no safe wavelengths," he said in his presentation. "Only safe quantities."

Dain conducted a study to calculate the blue light dose from various sources to analyze the hazard they pose to the eye.

Dain utilized a Topcon SR-3 telespectroradiometer to measure the spectral radiance of incandescent, fluorescent and LED lamps. Additionally, Dain measured computer screens with cathode ray rubes, cold cathode and LED backlit liquid crystal displays, plasma and organic LEDs as well as the sky, grass and outdoor manmade objects. In applicable cases, correlated color temperature (CCT) settings were also tested.

Results showed that the sources had the same relative blue content, but that outdoor sources took less time to reach safety limits.

"Putting it into proportion, the worst case, which was a computer 450 cd/m² – horribly bright – took us 245 days of continuous viewing to reach the limit,” Dain explained. “If you take a typical computer 100 cd/m² for an hour, it takes 1,900 days to reach the safety limit. The worst case outside was 17,000 cd/m^2, and it takes 9 days of continuous viewing to reach the limit. The sun, 1.6 billion cd/m², takes about 8 seconds. Your slit lamp takes about 3 minutes."

Results also showed that warm white light lowered the dose of blue light, but Dain said that he was not worried about changing his lights.

Dain said he first concluded that “LEDs are the lighting source of the future; get used to it. Second, they are no greater dose to the retina than other technologies. If you want to increase the dose to the retina, raise the blueness, raise the correlating color temperature. If you are worried about it, choose warm white."

He closed by saying: "Blue light is a hazard, but the risk level indoors is vanishingly small." – by Chelsea Frajerman

Disclosure: Dain has nothing to disclose.