The Dark Side of LED Lighting

i am deeply suspicious of this " study "

why ?

because the mine workers unions have not reported a change in visiual imparement patterns over the last 15 years

LED lighting has become the industry standard - at least over the last decade

with [ obviously ] workers doing 8 hour shifts underground - 5 days a week , 48 weeks // year

and there are 100s of thousands of miners

thier health is monitored - and various studies - of numeropus environmental influences are reapeated at intervals

so - just my opinion - but LED induced visual imparement SHOULD be noticable in the mining industry

a reply to: ignorant_ape

Never heard of actual visual impairment related to LED lighting. The most common complaints are associated with LEDs with a colour temp above 6000K 'cold white', the glare can be irritating and cause headaches for some individuals but that's about all. Personally I can't stand them and go for 'warm white' which feels more 'normal' for indoor lighting.

Worked long hours in an office which upgraded to 6500K ceiling mounted LED lamps for the energy saving and found it difficult to work with white paper documents due to the glare - switching half the lights off was the solution.

Scaremongering at its worse.
The truth is LEDS are a revolution in low power consumption.
I use them throughout my house without any ill effects.
This reminds me of the whole microwaves are bad nonsense.

originally posted by: Dr X
This reminds me of the whole microwaves are bad nonsense.

Right? They can be use safely for a whole host of jobs, defrosting a roast, warming leftovers, drying your Chihuahua.

a reply to: Realtruth

they clearly never took this into consideration when developing LI FI then

because it relies on LED lights to transfer data

surely this can only be bad unless they use the 97 CRI ones

originally posted by: Woodcarver
a reply to: Realtruth

First thing i noticed is that this Dr sounds exactly like the nihilists from the big lebowski. Further commentary soon.

This caught my interest because i recently changed all of my workspace lighting to LED. I don't like it very much. It puts a blue hue over everything and changes the "feel" of these rooms. I thought i would get used to it after a couple of weeks, but it still feels "fake".

Also, it is nearly impossible to take pictures of my work and get a good representaion of the colors in my photos. It saps the color and makes photos look bland.

Get better LED bulbs. I use nothing but LEDS and nobody has even been able to tell the difference between incand. and my leds.

This entire article is laughable. LEDS can be made in any color at pretty much all of the standard kelvin color temps.

originally posted by: sapien82
surely this can only be bad unless they use the 97 CRI ones

You wont see 97CRI units at reasonable cost for a few years. California's T-24 guidelines, which are the most stringent in the country, mandate 90CRI for most applications and are only switching to 93 next year.

I'm glad this article has stirred everyone's "Deny Ignorance" thought process.

One area I did not touch on that is poorly manufactured LED bulbs/fixtures.

I've seen some dangerously manufactured bulbs from China, it's really important to buy from a reputable source, even pay a bit more, because the larger companies have higher standards safety.

Here is a pretty good video and explanation on why poorly manufactured bulb can be lethal.

You'll notice the heat-sink fins, on the bulb, if there's a short with the wiring, those fins could conduct full input power.

Some higher end PC monitors have been advertising low blue light, don't know if it's just a marketing gimmick. Supposed to reduce eye strain.

BenQ takes the eye health of users to heart and computer eye strain is no exception, offering a series of BenQ monitors designed to help everyone. Studies show that blue light from the sunlight, computer monitors and fluorescent lamps may be very harmful to the eyes causing macular degeneration or sleep disorders. These concerns are very serious and BenQ has developed a series of Eye-care monitors with features including Flicker-free and Low Blue Light technologies, so users can combat the possible side effects associated with blue light to keep eyes healthy and happy.

www.benq.eu...

Been using some warm white 3000K LEDs for a while they seem OK better than the CFL globes which seem to blow all the time, my local supermarket has 28W halogen globes for $2 I've got some of those they're OK too.
As for the blue light thing there might be something there but I doubt it's a huge issue or people would be going blind all over the place.

a reply to: JimTSpock

I have opted for the blue light eliminating specs which are great if you sit and stare at a monitor all day every day from 9-5

a reply to: sapien82

I just ordered some. We'll see.

White LED lights do contain red frequencies. They contain a mixture of red, green, and blue, which is the only way to get white light. The only frequencies they are short on are the frequencies in between red, green, and blue.

The reason behind this is that LEDs only put out a single narrow range of frequency, based on the material they are made of. White LEDs are made of a mixture of these materials, so they essentially operate like a red LED, a green LED, and a blue LED working in tandem. The cool white LED bulbs simply put out more blue than the warm white ones.

The two designations are designed for different applications. I would hazard that almost everyone reading this would be happier with warm white designations. They more closely approximate the light combination we are used to. Cool white is actually a more even distribution of frequencies, but we are not used to having as much blue in the spectrum, because the atmosphere typically scatters a lot of it (which is why a clear sky is blue and not black).

Ever wonder why cops use blue lights? Because our eyes are more sensitive to blue to compensate for the atmospheric scattering. That's also why those darned blue lights flashing at night hurt so much... our eyes are not evolved to handle high amounts of pure blue. It's also why the bluish headlights (which I wish were illegal) are so hard on the vision when driving... those are cool white bulbs.

My house and shop, as well as my mother's house, are both 100% LED, and have been for some time. I will not allow a CFL on my property, and incandescent are hard to come by, as well as being inefficient (although I do still use a few for heat lamps around animals in the winter). Since I buy warm white, I have seen no difference in lighting intensity or color since switching from incandescent, and have suffered no noticeable eye problems. I have also not replaced a light bulb in years. The only time I buy a bulb now is when I discover an old incandescent in an outbuilding that blew years ago and was forgotten about.

The report this thread was based on is pure poppycock, written (I would assume) to try and bring back CFLs. After all, a lot of places invested heavily in CFL production when incandescents were phased out, only to have them replaced within a few short years by LED bulbs.

TheRedneck

originally posted by: TheRedneck


The report this thread was based on is pure poppycock, written (I would assume) to try and bring back CFLs. After all, a lot of places invested heavily in CFL production when incandescents were phased out, only to have them replaced within a few short years by LED bulbs.

TheRedneck

Poppycock is when we make claims that aren't backed up by studies, and there is plenty of studies on this topic that say blue lights have an effect on us. I think caution in this area is important, since we don't have all the facts yet related to long term exposures.

Harvard

www.health.harvard.edu...

Exposure to blue light at night, emitted by electronics and energy-efficient lightbulbs, can be harmful to your health.

www.nature.com...

In depth and well laid out study by Japanese researchers with excellent credentials.

In conclusion, the present findings suggest that the blue LED light can damage the retinal cone photoreceptor cells severely.

Antioxidants could potentially be used to improve the retinal photoreceptor cell damage induced by blue LED light.

US National library of medicine

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

Although we are convinced that exposure to blue light from LEDs in the range 470–480 nm for a short to medium period (days to a few weeks) should not significantly increase the risk of development of ocular pathologies, this conclusion cannot be generalized to a long-term exposure (months to years).

Finally, we believe that additional studies on the safety of long-term exposure to low levels of blue light are needed to determine the effects of blue light on the eye.

The list goes on and on.

Effects of Blue Light Technology

Scroll to the bottom for all references.

a reply to: Realtruth

Yeah, it's poppycock. This study takes known, studied research and twists it. As your excerpts state:

Blue light at night is harmful. I mentioned the pain from seeing flashing blue police lights at night, and blue LEDs produce a more intense blue light than filtered conventional lights (which is what police blue lights are). The effect occurs because the human eye is much more sensitive to blue light than to other frequencies. This increased sensitivity is why true white light, such as is produced by some headlights, looks bluish.

Your excerpts state that

• Intense blue light is harmful. I have already stated this.
  
• Exposure to high levels of blue light produced by blue LEDs can be harmful. This is an extension of the statement above, as blue LEDs produce a purer blue light than filters on white light.
  
• There is no harm from low-level exposure to blue LED light. That's because our eyes are sensitive to blue light, but not to the extreme.

But the biggest poppycockness is the assertion that LEDs somehow create too much blue. All white LEDs contain red, green, and blue LEDs internally; otherwise the light would not be white. If the light produced is close to the light produced by an incandescent bulb, judged by no noticeable difference in lighting quality, then there is no excessive amount of blue light.

TheRedneck

Whatever happened to those good ol Mercury filled CFL's?

We just can't win maybe we should go back to candles and Oil?

This is actually from older articles and not Dr. Mercola's personal research, but a colleague's presented by him.

forbiddenknowledgetv.net...

LED was a developing technology when this research was being done, at this point they are crystal clear, and much better for you than mercury fluorescents or incandesecents. If you have lived with other types of lighting for the majority of your life, there is definitely an adjustment factor when you start living with LEDs but they are worth it. I just changed my Christmas tree bulbs and got from 160 w, down to 28w same amount of bulbs (400). that's more than 5 hours extra my tree can be on, versus just 1 hour.

If anyone is so dependant on bulb lighting that it affects their health that much they should get more sunlight and go outside (why doesn't it affect animal vision?) There is a lot of missing variable to be drawing such serious conclusions. Mercola is really putting his rep on the line by publishing this type of misinformation campaign.

At this point these bulbs are suoerior to the other options and should be the standard and norm, while their technology is only getting better.

also blue light has necessary applications sometimes.

light affects the eye differently blue light just goes deeper.

and sunlight is super blue, but also natural.

If you are really a stickler for lighting and want to make it perfect, you should read this:

www.integral-led.com...

I have cool white lights in my task lighting areas (office and study) and also areas that help me wake up and I don't mind looking like a health facility (washroom, closets, storage, garage, laundry room)

and I have warm white light in my lounge and relaxing areas like living room and bedroom because cool white would keep me too alert in the bedroom (insomnia inducing). I can honestly say if you play with led colour lighting you can achieve a dynamic balance in your habitat, inclusive of both warm (2700k or 3000k, and cool >5000k lighting) I don't have anything over 5000k though mostly because of availablity in my region.

oh btw get rid of your TVs and computer monitors, phones and tablets too don't even read this, the horrible LED is out to get u, and those things are just about the bluest u will ever be exposed to.

almost ironic the doctor who did this research wears glasses. he's obviously the expert on healthy vision. (sarcasm)

originally posted by: Asktheanimals

originally posted by: dashen
Take the time to notice how most of Television programming and video games is 90% blue and 10% yellow

That was something I noticed 10 -15 years ago, all the movies shot in a blue hue everywhere. I hate it, it's depressing to look at and it's very unrealistic. Those blue car headlights; first time I saw a pair of those I nearly wrecked from being confused by them. They are ridiculously bright and make everything else go dark due to the extreme glare. They ought to be illegal.

It is incredible they can be allowed at all...noone can barely see a dam thing..most dangerous i have almost ever encountered...

Almost as bad as a train light right in your face

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: Realtruth
I serviced a full industrial lettuce growing facility here in Detroit that uses only Red LED's.

Urban gardening is the next big industry vertical. While the legalized cannabis industry is great you cannot eat your weed for sustenance* and growing vegetables indoors, particularly repurposed warehouses and such is going to be huge.


*I know people are going to tell me they've tried but it's not exactly an AMA recommended diet.

AMA recommended ? Have they improved something?

They seem as quackery as anyone else.

The proof is in the overall health of all.

Is it not.