Posted on 08/31/2022 9:00:25 PM PDT by ConservativeMind
Too much screen use has been linked to obesity and psychological problems. Now a new study has identified a new problem—a study in fruit flies suggests our basic cellular functions could be impacted by the blue light emitted by these devices.
"Our study suggests that avoidance of excessive blue light exposure may be a good anti-aging strategy," advised Giebultowicz.
The researchers have previously shown that fruit flies exposed to light "turn on" stress protective genes, and that those kept in constant darkness lived longer.
Blue light exposure caused significant differences in the levels of metabolites measured by the researchers in the cells of fly heads. In particular, they found that the levels of the metabolite succinate were increased, but glutamate levels were lowered.
"Succinate is essential for producing the fuel for the function and growth of each cell. High levels of succinate after exposure to blue light can be compared to gas being in the pump but not getting into the car," said Giebultowicz. "Another troubling discovery was that molecules responsible for communication between neurons, such as glutamate, are at the lower level after blue light exposure."
The changes recorded by the researchers suggest that the cells are operating at suboptimal level, and this may cause their premature death, and further, explain their previous findings that blue light accelerates aging.
The signaling chemicals in the cells of flies and humans are the same, so the there is potential for negative effects of blue light on humans," explains Giebultowicz.
"We used a fairly strong blue light on the flies—humans are exposed to less intense light, so cellular damage may be less dramatic. The results from this study suggests that future research involving human cells is needed," concluded Giebultowicz.
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
I had a utility on my Mac that changed the color tone towards orange-red as the evening went on. Don’t know why I stopped using it. I’m not sure I noticed any difference,
Isn’t watching television going to cause the same effect? When I look at the glow in the windows of people watching tv it all looks blue-purple to me.
I use a sleep app that monitors my sleep, because I haven’t been sleeping well. One of the things it said was that 7 minutes of blue light from sceens activates your brain for an hour.
My son said, “then your brain has been activate for the next 40 years.” LOL
But I have taken some steps. I set both my phone and computers to switch to warmer colors (less blue light) in the evenings.
I turned on a setting on my phone that restricts apps at night. You can still access them but you have to override it and it will prompt you for a reminder in 15 minutes. It’s helping me be more conscious of “do I really want to look at that app, since it’s night time.”
I also have started turning my lights down at night. I have smart lights in the living room and master bedroom. and I can tell it to lower the lights to 40%.
And I bought some cheap blue light blocking reading glasses off the internet.
I tone down the blue light is three ways
—— My 24” LED monitor has a low blue option. This option is on all 24/7. This is an average HP monitor. Obviously attached to a desktop. I am typing on this right now.
—— I use flu.x ....an easy small downland to do a red shift. Red shift is same as low blue light. https://justgetflux.com/ I adjust this day going into night
-—— Windows 11 has a red shift under “display” This is on right now. This is variable and turned off during daytime. I believe Windows 10 has this option too
My iPad has a built-in feature (no app download) that allows me to turn the blue up or down at any preset times. I turn the blue down every evening about 6:30 p.m. and back to normal early the next morning.
i have to wear ‘computer glasses’ otherwise my eyes sting after a day of computer stuff- they block out the blue light i beleive-
that sleep ap- will it detect stuff like sleep apnea and record how many times a person wakes? and stuff like oxygen levels?
TVs cause the exact same problem.
It's the only sleep monitoring app I've used and I'm really impressed with it.
I was actually about to have a sleep study done to see if sleep apnea had come back. I had surgery for sleep apnea 20 years ago. And this app convinced me that I didn't need the study. It's caught a little bit of apnea but very little.
I do have sleep issues though, just not apnea. Irregular bed times, allergies which wake me up, sometimes I eat late and I always have screen time before I sleep.
It won’t do oxygen levels.
“avoidance of excessive blue light...” Nice. Mac OS X computer screens have “night shift” which I leave on all day. My power recliner chair has a bright blue light on the remote. Time for a new remote.
thanks- I have sleep apnea and restless leg issues, though that seems to have calmed down- blankets aren’t all strewn over the bed in mornign anymore- i couldn’t use the sleep apnea machine because of another issue i have- so not sure if i still have it or not-
I had an oxygen monitor once for a night, but unfortunately i knocked it off during the night, and only had it work for a a few hours, so not sure if it got good reading or not-
I’ve been wakign myself snorign again- so I’m afraid the apnea might be back again- mine was central sleep apnea- where brain fails to send signal to breath- but starts back when run lout of air- after waking slightly- over and over-
I’ll check out that app you mentioned0- thanks for the info- i do the screen time before sleep too=- but never have trouble falling asleep- but now am waking up 3 am every morning for some reason- i fall back to sleep- but it’s annoying- the screen time might be the reason- i might have to try not doing computer an hour before bed-
i probably don’;t need it to do oxygen- but was just curious if having sleep apnea would cause issues- i might pick up a meter just to see- plus it would be good to have aroudn for when we get colds and flues- as i have asthma and some flues really affect breathing-
Good to know. Didn’t realize there was anything out there like this.
B L U E ! ! !
Are they testing the vaccines on fruit flies?
Well I couldn’t find the one you spoke of, mintey, but got another app-
sure enough, right around 3 am I started going into very light sleep, imknow i woke up at that time becausemi looked over at clock to see what time it was, then dozed back,off asleep. I didn’t have any awakenings accordin to,the app, but it did indicate several light sleep times.
Gotta rig something up though onmthe headboard to,hold the phone as I the phone was under the pillow when I awoke. I think it will work better if it’s behind my head when I sleep instead of under pillow.
Thanks for suggesting an app, I didn’t even know such things existed lol
Think I’ve seen youtube videos by Dr. Eric Berg on waking up at 3am. Too much Cortisol. he gives some advice on how to lower it.
So the app I’m using is “Mintal Tracker” on the Apple app store.
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