It is widespread that the light from the screens of smartphones, laptops and other gadgets negatively affects the skin, so it needs the same protection from it as from sunny. We decided to check if this fear is justified by scientific data.
About the dangers of blue light from the screens write Beauty bloggers and sites cosmetic clinics, they tell about potential harm Women's magazines And Lifestail. Some cosmetologists in an interview for Russian federal publications And entertainment portals Pretty unequivocally declare the dangers of light from gadgets for the skin and urge the use of protective agents. At the same time, some doctors carefully They saythat the data to justify such recommendations is not enough, while others, without denying this restriction, Consult insure. Cosmetics manufacturers even Offer Special funds from "digital aging".
Blue light or HEV-ray (High-Energy Visible Light) called Part of the visible spectrum with a wavelength of 380 to 500 nanometers. Thanks to the blue light, the gadget screens are bright, and the image on them is clearly visible. In addition to smartphones and laptops, HEV rays are used in fluorescent lamps, incandescent lamps and LEDs. However, the main source of blue light is not a technique and not artificial lighting, but the sun. It is thanks to Hev rays that the sky looks bright blue on a sunny day.
Blue light penetrates The skin is deeper than ultraviolet rays, therefore, causes fears among dermatologists. UV rays type B (they are UVB) have the lowest penetrating ability, affect only the epidermis and therefore cause only redness of the skin and sunburns. UV rays of type A (they also UVA) pass through the entire epidermis and affect the dermis, contribute to premature aging and pigmentation, and can also lead to skin cancer. Hev rays, according to scientists, affect even deeper layers of the dermis, and tan, obtained From blue light, more pronounced and stable. However, a person who sits behind the monitor all days does not look like he had just returned from vacation in the tropics.
The fact is that gadgets emit an extremely small amount of blue light. LED TV on average has Power 78 μW/cm2 when viewing from a distance of 20 cm, and a laptop - 15 μW/cm2 (for comparison, the sun is 7700 μW/cm2). Researchers of the German cosmetic brand BiersDorf found outthat the monitor located at a distance of 30 cm from a person allocates the same amount of blue light that the skin receives in just one minute spent on the street in a sunny day in the middle of summer in Hamburg. Not everyone holds the screen (for example, smartphone) 30 cm on behalf, but in this case, fears are premature. The same minute on the street on a sunny day, 10 hours of continuous irradiation of the skin with a smartphone lying right on it will be equivalent. Watching the TV, which is usually at an even greater distance from the face, is also almost harmless to the skin. The conclusions of German cosmetologists were confirmed by French dermatologists: according to their estimates, the power of radiation of blue light from the screens of computers and smartphones is hundreds of times lessthan that of sunlight. Moreover, the daily eight -hour use of a computer located at a distance of 20 cm from the face, did not provide No negative effect on the skin in terms of the manifestation of pigmentation.
Specialists from Harvard Medical School in 2019 Compared The maximum brightness of the iPhone 11, that is, the mode in which the device produces the most HEV rays, with lighting in a shopping center. It turned out that the smartphone is two times less bright than the light in stores, and more than ten times weaker than the light reaching the surface of the earth from the sun. To similar conclusions in 2016 They came British scientists. They studied the brightness and quantity of the excreted blue light in two models of stationary computers, nine laptops, nine tablets and five smartphones. For 60 minutes of exposure, all devices radiated No more than 0.38% of the daily safe norm of blue light established by the International Commission for Protection against Nonionized Radiation (ICNRP). That is, even if you use the gadget within 16 hours a day, a person will receive only about 6% of the dose that causes concerns from the point of view of specialists.
However numerous Experiments by irradiation cultures cells dermis in laboratory conditions in blue light Show Anxious results: some cells become less active and live less, while others synthesize less hyaluronic acid, collagen and elastin, which negatively affects the condition of the skin. However, all such tests were held in vitro. Fully reproduce All the effects that will occur in the body are impossible with such an experiment design. Firstly, the dermis cells in the human body are protected by the epidermis, and secondly, in many such studies, the irradiation power exceeded the one that comes not only from the screen, but also from sunlight.
Separate animal experiments also Showthat blue light reduces life expectancy. Scientists from the University of Oregon placed flies-zophyle in different living conditions: some insects were 12 hours from the blue LEDs and in the dark, the other was 12 hours in light without a blue spectrum and in the dark, and the third is constantly in the dark. Flies from the first group lived the least, and by the end of life they suffered from neurodegenerative diseases and experienced difficulties with movement. The second group was a little healthier, but the longest (and better from the point of view of the functioning of the body) lived those insects that were contained in complete darkness. However, the authors of the experiment are in no hurry to transfer their conclusions to people-Drosophiles, as it turned out, perceived any light as a stress factor, and their body intensified the expression of protective agents that attacked the cells of the nervous and musculoskeletal system. Data that a person has a similar mechanism does not yet. But even if so, it is unlikely that for the sake of longevity and eternal youth, many will agree to life in complete darkness.
Moreover, it is hardly possible to protect your skin from blue light with creams and other cosmetics. For means of protection against ultraviolet rays, International Standardization Organization (ISO) Developed A strict testing protocol. For cosmetic products against HEV radiation of such a standard No -The manufacturer can promise reliable protection thanks to some secret ingredient and not to put it at all or this substance will simply not be effective. In addition, as mentioned above, the blue light emanating from the sun is much more dangerous, so the inscription about protection from “digital aging” is nothing more than a marketing move.
Note that blue light is actively Used In medicine. The hev-rays used in dermatological procedures improve the condition of the skin with acne and acne and can relieve actinic keratosis-the potentially precancerous condition of the skin caused by excessive effects of sunlight. Blue light is also used in the framework of photodynamic therapy of cancer - it activates photosensitizing agents, a special class of drugs that can destroy cancer cells. The effectiveness of this method is comparable to surgical interventions and chemotherapy, and the risk of side effects is an order of magnitude less.
Finally, judging by scientific data, the processes of skin aging in people are slowing down. In dermatology, elasticity is calculated according to a certain formula, and the result can be on a scale from 0 to 1, where one corresponds to a completely elastic one, that is, the skin instantly returning to the previous state. In 1988, a group of French scientists I measured it different skin parameters in 123 volunteers, similar data can detect And in the study of 2022. It turns out that the elasticity of the 25-year-old skin in 1988 was an average of 0.87, and in 2022 this parameter was 0.97 in people aged up to about 40 years. In the group of 40-60 years, the results were 0.7–0.8 and 0.5–0.87, respectively, for the group of 60–80 years - 0.55–0.7 and about 0.7. That is, on average, modern people look younger than their peers in the late 1980s. If the gadgets had such a destructive effect on the skin, it would hardly be possible.
Thus, although experiments on cellular crops and drusophiles show that blue light leads to damage to skin tissues and even premature death, it is hardly so dangerous for humans. Moreover, hiding from blue light, just abandoning the gadgets, will not work, because hev-rays are in natural and artificial lighting. Probably, life in pitch darkness will retain the skin of a tightened longer, but in such conditions it is impossible to visually evaluate this result.
Image on the cover: Image by Startupstockphotos from Pixabay
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