[HN Gopher] Study links blue light from smartphones or tablets t...
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Study links blue light from smartphones or tablets to early puberty
Author : clumsysmurf
Score : 33 points
Date : 2023-09-25 20:20 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (medicalxpress.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (medicalxpress.com)
| ShakataGaNai wrote:
| Every time people talk about "Blue light" it's a problem
| precisely because it's like the light we get from the sun, it
| mucks up our circadian rhythm and keeps us awake. Or it's bad for
| our eyes because reasons, even though "there is no good evidence
| that filtering blue light with spectacles has any effect on eye
| health, eye strain, sleep quality or vision quality" (Wikipedia).
|
| So if tablets do the same thing the sun does and keep us awake,
| that must mean kids in very sunny areas have early puberty as
| well? Those up in the tropics with a consistently large amount of
| sun year round, for example?
|
| Even simple logic deduction, this story makes no sense. And when
| the truth comes out, it'll probably be something like "Exposing
| rats to the equivalent of 20 suns worth of blue light causes
| early puberty and death"
| korm wrote:
| > there is no good evidence that filtering blue light with
| spectacles...
|
| That's likely referencing this recent review[1]. The products
| referenced don't actually reduce blue light by much, which you
| can confirm in the studies. The lenses look transparent, not
| amber in many cases. Which makes sense because they're meant
| for all day use, but it's just a marketing thing.
|
| If you bought glasses in person in the last 10 years, they
| probably tried to upsell a blue light or "screen strain
| reduction" filter.
|
| It's a stretch to hold this as evidence that blue light doesn't
| affect us.
|
| [1] https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD013244.pub2
| Aerbil313 wrote:
| Puberty age in tropical regions is lower. As you near the
| poles, it gets higher. This is why people in higher latitudes
| are longer in average. Growth hormone's release slows down when
| puberty is reached.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Even if the blue light from electronics had any significant
| effect, my first instinct would be to say, it's a wash: the
| amount of time spent with such electronics correlates
| strongly with amount of time spent indoors and away from
| sunlight. If anything, this would be bringing us closer to
| status quo from 50+ years ago.
| thesz wrote:
| Tropical regions are also relatively poorer, compared to more
| northern countries. And poverty during childhood is related
| to earlier puberty [1].
|
| [1] https://ifstudies.org/blog/poverty-and-early-puberty-in-
| aust...
|
| So, there is another way to explain what we see.
| Jensson wrote:
| > are longer in average
|
| When you write this people think about genital length. I've
| done that mistake as well, easy to make as a non native
| speaker, to get the right point say "taller" not "longer".
| hristov wrote:
| Yeah, I moved to an english speaking country in my teens,
| boy did I make the girls giggle when I made that mistake.
| It took me a year to figure out why.
| wizofaus wrote:
| Specifically "taller _on_ average ".
| tabtab wrote:
| [flagged]
| Lerc wrote:
| It would be interesting to see data of how much blue light an
| individual is exposed to proportional to their smartphone use. I
| would expect people who are regularly outdoors would use their
| smartphones less due to the difficulty of seeing the screen under
| the enormous blue light reaching from horizon to horizon.
| dappermanneke wrote:
| another worthless study to add to the pile
| lifechoseme123 wrote:
| My optometrist was quite skeptical of various claims about blue
| light & blue light blocking glasses, for example...
| fatfingerd wrote:
| I've noticed people who start wearing blue blockers can no
| longer attract a mate..
| Aerbil313 wrote:
| My optometrist was quite skeptical of that anyone can cure
| their myopia. Yet I'm doing exactly that with measured
| improvement.
| myshpa wrote:
| Oh, do tell ...
| tabtab wrote:
| Is that the ancient Chinese way of sleeping with stones on
| the eyes, to flatten the lenses?
| imchillyb wrote:
| Myopia is the cornea slowly becoming football shaped instead
| of round. While the effects can be lessened through various
| methods, the myopia will indeed eventually overcome such
| methods.
|
| Can't make a football into a soccer ball without surgery.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| in the USA, medical guild members are trained to ignore non-
| guild member theory from the very first year of specialization
| IMHO.. secondly, there are legal consequences for those that do
| not adhere to guild doctrine, or could be exposed to legal
| threat.. IMHO medical guild information is conservative often,
| but surpasses simple science when pressed in controversy.
| optimus_banana wrote:
| "...in male rats" would be a key phrase to add to the title.
| tedunangst wrote:
| But how did they teach the rats to use a tablet?
| alwayslikethis wrote:
| As an important consideration, rats are usually considered
| nocturnal animals. They are less active when there is light
| out.
| h2odragon wrote:
| Nah, its the extra hormonal load from the early exposure to porn.
| Jensson wrote:
| 10 year old girls watches porn to such a degree it affects
| their hormones? Obesity is the main suspect so far, but maybe
| it is blue light, we don't really know. But we can be pretty
| sure it isn't porn, since it affects young girls to such a high
| degree.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/19/science/early-puberty-med...
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| Good article (I remember reading that one when it first came
| out)--not only does it seem to disproportionately affect
| young girls, but it also seems to affect American kids more
| than kids from any other country.
| digging wrote:
| Years ago I remember hearing it was due to growth hormones we
| feed livestock. Wonder if that's been debunked.
| fatfingerd wrote:
| Is there a lot of rat porn?
| h2odragon wrote:
| i wouldn't say ive seen "a lot", but it's not _un_ known...
| tabtab wrote:
| Um, I think those were gerbils.
| callalex wrote:
| Do you have any links to scientific studies that found this
| effect?
| temptemptemp111 wrote:
| [dead]
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