Researchers report that a short burst of red light in the morning improves deteriorating vision, which can provide a simple, safe, and easy-to-use treatment to keep our eyes sharper as we age.
In tests with 20 subjects exposed to three minutes of 670 nm deep red light in the morning between 8 am and 9 am, vision improved by 17 percent and lasted (at a lower level) an average of a week. In some volunteers, the improvement was up to 20%.
This association between long-wavelength red light and improved vision is consistent with what scientists have seen. Previous studies In animals, the study was drawn from a similar It was done last year – but in this case the red light was limited to one exposure per day that required less red light energy than before.
“Using a simple LED device once a week recharges the degraded energy system in the retinal cells, like recharging the battery,” Neuroscientist Glenn Jeffrey says: from University College London (UCL) no Reino Unido.
“And morning exposure is absolutely essential to achieving improvements in deteriorating vision: as we’ve seen earlier in flies, mitochondria have altered patterns of functioning and don’t respond in the same way to afternoon light – this study confirms that.”
O mitochondria In the eye, which is often called the cell’s forces, is the key: the team I already know They are most receptive in the morning, and it is these organelles that the red light recharges so they can produce more energy.
The photoreceptors in the retina, where mitochondria are collected more densely, consist of cones (they handle color vision) and rods (they adapt to low light). Here, the team focused on cones, evaluating color contrast sensitivity after exposure to red light.
Follow-up tests on six participants, using red light therapy daily between 12:00 and 13:00, resulted in no change in vision – confirming that mitochondria do not respond to deep red light in the same way at the end of the day.
(University College London)
above: Dr. Pardis Kaynezhad maintains a deep red light above the eye, which helps to stimulate mitochondria in the retinal cells.
“Mitochondria have specific sensitivities to long-wavelength light that affect their performance,” Jeffrey says. “Longer wavelengths, extending from 650 to 900 nanometers, improve the performance of mitochondria to increase energy production.”
Human retinal cells begin to age when we reach age 40 or older, and aging results in part from a diminished mitochondrial energy supply. Because photoreceptors in the retina require more energy, they also tend to age faster.
The simple, low-power LED device used in the study can be an affordable vision therapy that people can apply quickly. It’s probably also safe to use, as infrared light at 670nm is not much different from light found in the natural environment.
It will take some time to develop a complete device for widespread use, however, the researchers caution that some of their data are “high”: the level of improvement varied among participants, even those of the same age. Future studies may look more closely at other variables that may influence the results.
“This simple intervention applied at the population level will significantly affect quality of life as people age and is likely to reduce the social costs that arise from problems associated with low vision.” Jeffrey says.
The research was published in Scientific Reports.
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