Blue Light Blocking Glasses May Have Limited Impact

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Blue Light Blocking Glasses May Have Limited Impact, Research Suggests

In a recent study, researchers have concluded that blue light blocking glasses may not deliver the advertised benefits as promoted by advertisers and optometrist clinics.

They caution consumers to think twice before spending extra money on these glasses.

To arrive at this conclusion, researchers from the University of Melbourne, in collaboration with colleagues from Monash University and City, University of London, examined 17 published studies on the use of blue light blocking glasses from six different countries.

The participants in these randomized controlled studies ranged from 5 individuals to 156, and the duration of each study varied from less than a day to up to five weeks.

Blue Light Blocking Glasses May Have Limited Impact, Research Suggests

They found that based on the current research, there is no conclusive evidence regarding the benefits of blue light blocking glasses on overall eye health, sleep quality, or visual performance.

Despite a range of claims in advertisements about these benefits and frequent prescription of such lenses based on their supposed efficacy.

Lead author of the study, Laura Downie, remarked, “Our review, based on the best available evidence, suggests that the claims made do not have strong supporting evidence. Our findings do not support the prescription of blue-blocking spectacle lenses to the general population. These results have implications for a wide range of stakeholders, including eyecare professionals, patients, researchers, and the broader community.”

Downie and her team were quick to point out that even with such a comprehensive review of existing research on blue light blocking glasses, larger-scale studies are needed to obtain truly valuable data on the use of these glasses.

One of the issues they highlighted is that the studies they reviewed did not have a long enough follow-up period to draw conclusions about the long-term use of these glasses.

The study’s first author, Sumil Singh, stated, “To gain a clearer understanding of the potential impact of blue-blocking spectacle lenses on visual performance, sleep, and ocular health, larger and longer-term tracking of more diverse populations is needed, with high-quality large-scale clinical trials. They should investigate whether the effectiveness and safety outcomes differ among populations using different types of lenses.”

Singh also emphasized that, even without larger, longer, and more rigorous studies, the efficacy of blue light blocking glasses remains doubtful.

He stated, “The amount of blue light our eyes receive from artificial light sources like computer screens is about one-thousandth of the blue light we receive from natural daylight.

Notably, blue light filtering lenses typically block around 10-25% of blue light, depending on the specific product.

If you want to block more blue light, lenses would have to take on a noticeable amber hue, which would significantly affect color perception.”

This new research has been published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.