Morning exposure to deep red light improves declining vision | Hacker News Reader

Morning exposure to deep red light improves declining vision

eurekalert.org

41 pointslisper8 comments

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Further article (ex NewScientist):

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2298723-red-light-thera...

Further submission (ex NewAtlas):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29341199

For anyone thinking of making their own therapy device, the paper has further details:

> The 670 nm light devices were supplied by CH electronics (UK) and based on commercial DC torches with nine 670 nm LEDs mounted behind a light diffuser so that energies at the cornea were approximately 8 mW/cm2. 670 nm light was delivered down a white internally reflecting tube that fitted over the eye with an internal diameter of 3.2 cm.

Standard through hole red LEDs are around 630-650 nm.

I'd love to see a study combining this will a blue light in the morning for seasonal depression/sleep regulation.

for that matter, i'd be interested to know if just getting natural sunlight in the morning would deliver an adequate amount of both.

Have a look at http://bitly.com/PBM-database - if there's one it's probably listed there

The article makes it sound like all mitochondria respond to this stimulation in some way. Perhaps tanning beds have a future after all.

I am just wondering if this is something I could achieve with hue lights and what is the tonality I need to set them to in RGB

Can you make a phone screen show 670nm red?

Typical red LEDs used for displays have a peak emission somewhere in 600-650nm range, but it's bell curvish so yeah you can expect a small amount of 670nm light out of it.

Does getting exact 670nm light matter? It's just the wavelength that this particular study investigated. They do not offer conclusions for other wavelengths as they did not test them, it's as simple as that. But a lot of other researchers did, especially in red/infrared part of the spectrum and generally with positive results - http://bitly.com/PBM-database. So I would guess you should be able to get some of the described effect at nearby wavelengths as well. 670nm seems to be near an absorption peak of cytochrome c oxidase, a molecule believed to be involved in the mechanism of light therapy action, which is why I suppose it appears frequently in research.

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