Does anyone want to hear something more about blue light?
By a coincidence, I came across a new commercially available light-emitting mask for use by diabetics in the week where the Nobel Prize committee honoured the scientists responsible for our current understanding of the mechanism behind our biological clock.
The Noctura 400 is a sleep mask which emits what appears to be a green visible light through the closed lid of a diabetic patient during sleep. The technique was theorised a while back by Professor Arden (he of the gratings, you may recall) as a way of lowering the rise in oxygen demand in the retina during darkness. This is thought to produce hypoxia in those with compromised vasculature which can then exacerbate proliferative disease and macular oedema.
I remember some discussion of this some years back and one concern raised at the time was the possible disruption of circadian rhythm control by the use of daylight simulating light during the normally dark period of rest.
The mask is now commercially available, but perhaps more of note is that some major clinical trials into the effectiveness of the masks as a treatment in preventing retinal damage in diabetics are soon to publish. Once such study currently under way at Moorfields wins the acronym of the year. CLEOPATRA refers to the ‘clinical efficacy and safety of light-masks at preventing dark adaptation in the treatment of early diabetic macular oedema’ study. Its stated aim is to find out whether a simple, non-invasive device in the form of a light-mask can help prevent the progression to centre-involving DMO and visual impairment in people with diabetes.
A published study states ‘sleep masks showed no major safety signal apart from a small impairment of daytime alertness and a moderate effect on wellbeing.’ Worth keeping an eye on, even if just to see how benefits of light treatment argument balances out.