视力健康 – 减少白内障、年龄相关性黄斑变性

世界人口正在面临迅速蔓延的视力健康问题。 “据估计，在近十年内，世界人口的三分之一，即25亿人可能会面临短近视的问题。到2050年，世界人口将有50％ – 近50亿人 – 近视。这被认为与生活方式的改变有直接相关，而此改变乃由户外活动时间减少和工作时近距离目视时间增加，再加上 – 一关键决定因素 – 自然光照射减少等因素综合所致。” ¹

近视问题已在东亚地区蔓延。在年龄较低的人口中，近视率已从60年前为10到20％，攀升至目前的80％至90％。世界其他地区的人口近视问题也在急剧恶化，影响今日美国和欧洲大约半数的年轻人，而这个数目是半个世纪前的两倍。²

预计未来将有10亿人有高度近视的问题，且人们罹患黄斑变性、视网膜脱离、白内障和可能导致失明的青光眼等其他眼病的风险也会增加。到2050年，近视将成为视力丧失的主要原因。¹

美国黄斑变性基金会（AMDF）报道称，“光谱的蓝色光线似乎比光谱中的任何其他光线更能加速与年龄相关性黄斑变性（AMD）”。 ³

The maintenance of eye health is particularly important in this digital age with increasing exposure to the damaging blue light from computer screens, mobile phones and digital devices. Greater awareness to these associated vision problems is necessary, as is the need to protect our eyes as much as possible.

According to researchers from the University of Toledo in a very recent scientific study, blue light from laptops, smart phones and other digital devices could raise the risk of blindness. Their study appears in a recent issue of the journal Scientific Reports. “Every year more than two million new cases of age-related macular degeneration are reported in the United States,” one of the study’s scientists Dr. Karunarathne said. “By learning more about the mechanisms of blindness in search of a method to intercept toxic reactions caused by the combination of retinal and blue light, we hope to find a way to protect the vision of children growing up in a high-tech world.” ⁶

The researchers clinically determined that long term exposure to blue light increases certain toxic molecules within the light sensitive photoreceptor cells of the eyes and leads to subsequent macular degeneration. Macular Degeneration (MD) is a progressive and incurable condition that leads to blindness. It most often afflicts older adults in their 50s and 60s and leads to vision loss.

This loss of vision occurs due to the deaths of the photoreceptor cells of the retina. The blue light emitted from the digital devices has a shorter wavelength, more energy compared to other forms of light and this can cause damage to the eyes. This blue light constantly affects the cornea and the lens, with no ability to block or reflect it. With time this exposure can damage the retina as their experiments have shown, and lead to slow macular degeneration.

When blue light is shone on the retina, it kills photoreceptor cells and also the signalling molecules “retinal” dissolve. The photoreceptors cannot function without the presence of the healthy retinal molecules. once photoreceptor cells are dead, they cannot be regenerated. The blue light activated toxic retinal molecules were also studied on other cell types of the body; cancer, heart, nerve. Their experiments showed that the toxic retinal produced by blue light exposure can also kill any type of body cell.