Is Blue Light Really the Concern?

In Dan Cavanaugh’s presentation on circadian rhythm in flies, he explained his work thus far in uncovering the responsibility of neurons that are downstream from clock neurons. He explained how circadian rhythm affected not only sleep patterns, but hunger and activity as well. Most studies presented had the experimental group of flies’ circadian rhythm modified in some manner when compared to controls and it was evident that the flies only exhibited normal circadian promoted patterns when exposed to control environments (light/dark cycle and no genetic modifications). In today’s age, people are higher concerned of the effects their late-night studying / Netflix binging has on their overall health as we clearly saw in the concluding questions to Dr. Cavanaugh’s presentation. In the TIME article “Forget What You Think You Know About Blue Light and Sleep” by Jamie Ducharme discusses a paper released by the University of Manchester that challenges the notion that blue light emitted from electronic devices keeps us up later at night. The notion that blue light keeps us up has resulted in the creation of ‘night mode’ on most devices, however, this study suggests its only part of the problem. In previous studies, blue light has been shown to be a melatonin inhibitor as it is particularly good at being absorbed by melanopsin, a pigment that helps our eyes assess brightness. This study found something quite different though, that after exposing mice to different hues of bright colored light, yellow light seemed to disturb sleep the most. They reasoned that these warmer tones of light may trick the brain to think the sun is out, while blue in reality would be seen towards twilight. I think the most important thing the author noted was that this new research doesn’t necessarily mean that this behavior correlates in humans. The author reached out to a researcher at the University of Michigan Dr. Cathy Goldstein who said that this study cannot be logically extrapolated into the headline “blue light at night isn’t bad for you” and that if anything blue light has become a consumerist term used by marketing campaigns for products. The healthiest thing you can do is to just not look at a bright screen before bed if you want to sleep. I think the author did a good job not only presenting what was said in the research paper but also presenting the fact that just because this behavior occurs in mice doesn’t mean it occurs in humans. Most importantly, the author stated the problem with taking this information too far and how this notion of a certain color of light is bad doesn’t really make sense as all bright light is probably not too great when you’re trying to sleep.

https://time.com/5752454/blue-light-sleep/