Holiday Prevention Myopia These eye care products can help

Pediatric "family"

These eye protection products do not play a role in preventing myopia, if the hope of protecting vision is placed on them, but will make students and parents relax their vigilance, ignore the health of the eyes, and increase the risk of myopia.

Wei Ruihua

Director of Tianjin Vision Health Management Center for Primary and Secondary School Students, Chief Physician of Eye Hospital of Tianjin Medical University

Winter break has arrived, and parents are beginning to worry about their children's excessive use of electronic products to cause myopia. So, they collected a variety of eye protection products from the Internet - eye protection tablets, anti-blue light glasses, projectors, eye masks, eye patches, lutein... Let the children use it with the mentality that talk is better than nothing, in the hope of protecting their precious eyesight.

So, are these products eye protection "artifacts" or "placebos"? Wei Ruihua, director of the Tianjin Vision Health Management Center for Primary and Secondary School Students and chief physician of the Eye Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, said in an interview with the Science and Technology Daily reporter that these eye protection products can not play a role in preventing myopia, if the hope of protecting vision is pinned on them, it will make students and parents relax their vigilance, ignore the health of the eyes, and increase the risk of myopia.

Blue light is not the culprit that causes myopia

Many parents feel that the blue light emitted by electronic products is the culprit that causes myopia. Therefore, they tried their best to find the "artifact" of anti-blue light, no blue light, and blue light drop.

For example, the eye care tablet that has recently sold well online. Relevant manufacturers said that it uses blue light wave redshift technology, which can effectively reduce the amount of blue light radiation on electronic screens. At the same time, compared with ordinary tablets, the display of eye care tablets is clearer, and the brightness can be adjusted according to light, reducing the irritation to children's eyes.

Another example is anti-blue light glasses. Relevant merchants claim that the glasses lens is attached with a special film, including amethyst film, gold film, blue film, green film, yellow-green film, etc., children wear anti-blue light glasses and then use electronic products, you can effectively shield blue light, protect the retina and vision.

There is also a projector that is popular with parents, and the merchant claims that it can not only effectively block short-wave high-energy blue light, but also isolate the direct light generated by the screen, which in turn greatly reduces the damage of light to children's vision.

So, can obscuring blue light prevent myopia?

"Blue light refers to visible light with a wavelength of 400 to 500 nanometers, most of which comes from sunlight, and there is also blue light in common light sources such as LED lamps that we use every day." Blue light is also divided into beneficial and harmful two, harmful blue light is mainly in the 400 to 445 nanometer band, which can penetrate the cornea and lens directly to the retina, long-term irradiation may indeed damage the retinal cells. Wei Ruihua introduced, but the mainland's recommended standard for photobiological safety is that the spoke brightness is less than or equal to 100 units, and there will be no blue light hazard in this range, and the radiation brightness of most electronic products in life is within 1 unit.

In the first half of 2019, the China Consumer Association selected 13 representative electronic products in the market for testing, and all the relevant indicators of the products were within the safe range.

"There is currently no evidence that blue light causes myopia in children. For children, we advocate the intake of full-spectrum light. Wei Ruihua said that if unqualified anti-blue light glasses are selected, such as lenses with dark colors and high light blocking rates, not only will not protect the eyes, but will aggravate eye fatigue, and may even aggravate the degree of myopia.

Wei Ruihua pointed out that in fact, the blue light emitted by electronic products is not the real culprit that causes myopia, and the use of electronic products for a long time, uninterrupted, close distance, and improper posture leads to excessive use of eyes and eye fatigue, which is the culprit that causes myopia.

Wei Ruihua reminded that when children look at electronic products, they should follow the principle of "rather big than small, rather far rather than near". At the same time, parents should control the time their children use electronic products. For example, children in preschool or lower primary schools must not use electronic products for more than 1 hour per day. For teenagers, the cumulative use of electronic products should not exceed 2 hours per day. In addition, it is best to continue to use the eyes for 20 minutes and then rest for 20 seconds looking away from the scene 20 feet (6 meters).

Eye masks, massagers, and lutein do not prevent myopia

"Some steam eye masks and hot eye patches on the market are mainly based on the principle of accelerating eye blood circulation through appropriate temperatures, thereby alleviating eye fatigue, and steam also has a certain alleviating effect on dry eye disease." Wei Ruihua said that this kind of eye mask and eye patch have no effect on preventing myopia, and children with sensitive skin should be used with caution.

Merchants claim that eye massagers can relieve eye fatigue by pressing acupuncture points, but there is no scientific evidence to prove that it has a controlling and therapeutic effect on myopia. "Everyone's eyes are different, the location of the acupuncture points around the eyes is also different, the eye massager can not find the acupuncture points, massage is ineffective." If it is pressed on your child's eyeball and the vibration is too strong, it will cause damage to the eye. Wei Ruihua suggested, "The use of eye massagers is not as convenient and safe as children doing eye exercises by themselves, and we advocate that primary and secondary school students do 5 minutes of eye exercises every morning and afternoon." In addition, proper ball sports are also conducive to myopia prevention and control. ”

Studies have shown that specific nutrients such as lutein, carotene, vitamin A, zinc, etc., have a certain preventive and health care effect on dry eyes, certain retinal diseases, macular degeneration, etc. However, these nutrients have not been found to play a role in the prevention and control of myopia.

"Many foods are rich in lutein, and as long as children eat a balanced diet, they can eat well to get enough lutein." Wei Ruihua said that if the child is seriously picky and partial to eating, he can supplement lutein appropriately under the guidance of a doctor.

Related Links

Experts teach you to choose and buy eye lamps scientifically

Click on the online shopping app, search for "eye protection lamp", and the products that appear will definitely make parents pick their eyes. The price of eye protection lamps on the market ranges from tens of yuan to thousands of yuan, "A-class", "AA-level", "glare-free low-shadow technology", "diffuse reflection lighting principle", "three-dimensional double transmission"... Strange words are dazzling.

"When choosing an eye lamp for a child, one of the most important principles is that the relevant parameters should meet national standards." Wei Ruihua, director of the Tianjin Vision Health Management Center for Primary and Secondary School Students and chief physician of the Eye Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, introduced that the national standard GB/T9473-2017 "Performance Requirements for Reading and Writing Desk Lamps" implemented in 2018 has clear requirements for the color rendering, color temperature, blue light hazards, stroboscopic, illuminance, and uniform illumination of reading and writing desk lamps.

For example, the "national A level" and "national AA level" are divided according to indicators such as illuminance and illuminance uniformity in the national standard. Among them, the illuminance "national A level" means that the illuminance in the 120-degree sector area of less than or equal to 300 square millimeters should be greater than or equal to 300 lux (Lux); in the 120-degree sector area greater than 300 square millimeters and less than or equal to 500 square millimeters, the illuminance should be greater than or equal to 150 lux. The "national AA level" represents a illuminance greater than or equal to 500 lux and greater than or equal to 250 lux under the same conditions.

"Illuminance has a certain impact on children's vision, if the illuminance is insufficient, the light will be relatively dark, the child can't see things clearly, you need to look closely, and then affect the vision." Wei Ruihua introduced that the uneven illumination will cause children to adjust their pupils in order to adapt to this change of light and shade when they look at things, which is easy to cause eye fatigue.

At the same time, when choosing an eye lamp, you should also pay attention to the color temperature, and try to choose an eye lamp with a color temperature of about 4000 Kelvin (K). "The color temperature is too low, the light is warm and yellow, the human eye is not easy to fatigue but easy to hypnotize; the light with too high color temperature is cold and blue, which is easy to cause eye fatigue." Wei Ruihua said.

In addition, try to choose an eye lamp without strobe. Wei Ruihua explained that every time the flicker, the child's pupils will contract and enlarge once, which will invisibly increase the burden on the eyes and the eyes will feel tired.

"The essence of any eye lamp is to improve the lighting environment of children, so we recommend that when children are reading and learning, they should not only turn on the table lamp, but also place the table lamp on the opposite side of the writer to prevent shading." Wei Ruihua said that the top lamp should be turned on at the same time as the table lamp, because the lighting range of most table lamps is still limited. The top light can provide backlight, and the overall visual light environment is also important for the protection of vision, so it is generally recommended to use dual illumination.

Of course, no eye lamp can achieve the illumination of outdoor sunlight. The study found that when the ambient illumination exceeds 1000 lux, a good myopia prevention and control effect can be achieved. The illuminance of 1000 lux is difficult to achieve indoors, but it is easy to achieve outdoors even on cloudy or cloudy days (the sun illumination at noon on a sunny day can reach 8000 to 10000 lux).

"If possible, try to ensure that children accumulate outdoor exercise time of 2 hours per day. If you can't go outdoors due to epidemic prevention and control, you can also retreat to the second place, choosing to bask in the sun on the balcony or window sill. Wei Ruihua said that as long as the lighting is good, activities on the balcony can also play a role in myopia prevention and control.

(Science and Technology Daily)