You already know about the dangers blue light poses to your sleep cycle and skin, but new research in fruit flies sounds the alarm regarding the damage blue light can do to longevity and the brain. Researchers exposed fruit flies to blue light – the type of light emitted from our electronic devices, including cell phones and tablets – for 12 hours a day. They found that the blue damaged the flies’ eye and brain cells, impaired their ability to move around, and aged them faster than the control group of flies kept in darkness. Even scarier, they repeated the test on flies without eyes and found they were still affected by the blue light.
And you might be thinking, why does this matter to us? Despite an annoying in-law or two who keeps buzzing around, humans are vastly different than flies. Except, that the cells in flies work the same way as the cells in humans and approximately 60 percent of the cells related to human disease states can be found in the fly genome as well. Testing on flies also allows researchers to discover information and breakthroughs at a much more rapid pace – the average life span of fruit fly is just a few weeks.
Luckily for us, we’re different than fruit flies because we have several options to protect against blue light. One option is blue light blocking glasses, although they only protect your eyes (and become one more thing for you to have to remind your kids to do, when they still haven’t made their beds). You can also dim the brightness on your devices and install Night Shift, which will change the look and color of the screen..
The simplest solution is to block blue light at the source using a screen protector like EyeJust. It’s ophthalmologist tested and proven to cut blue light, without changing the look or color of your screen. And with this new research emerging, we know EyeJust isn’t just an eye saver, it’s a lifesaver.