Downside Of Led Lights?

[Les Izmore]

There has been a lot of discussion about swapping out the Xenon bulbs in the cabin and galley with LEDs, in order to avoid a fairly small drain on the battery. Anyone thinking about doing so may want to read this Dr. Mercola article first. Near the end the blog post is a discussion of how blue light from LED and fluorescent lights contributes to age-related macular degeneration, the most common form of blindness in the U.S.

Foods to Significantly Improve Your Vision

 

[dustinp]

Very interesting.
LED's are available in a large range, from low to mid 2000 degrees, which are very similar to the warmth of incandescent light, to 6-8000 degrees which are very cold blue looking. I wonder if the level of degrees make a difference as far as eye damage is concerned?

 

[Les Izmore]

I doubt if the amount of blue light exposure from converting the cabin and galley lights would contribute significantly to ARMD damage. I threw it out there mainly as a counterpoint to those who may think that LEDs are an inherently better lighting choice. They have their benefits, but there are no perfect choices.

The real threat is the lighting in the typical office environment. Folks have puzzled over why office workers have higher rates of melanoma than farm workers. It would be interesting to learn of any studies that compared the incidence of ARMD between the two groups.

 

[Ben]

As a physician, I am pretty skeptical of claims made like this. I don't think we have the science behind his claims of damage with blue wave versus red wave light spectra. We do know that UV light damages DNA (hence skin cancer in sun exposed areas) but I think claims of adverse health effects of visible light are premature. It would be pretty hard to set up human experiments to study these claims but perhaps there are some animal models that could be tested (ex rats with LED lights versus incandescent, etc).