Doctor frowns on blue-tint lenses

Those cool, blue-tinted shades worn on bright summer days might be fashionable, but some eye experts are warning that it may not be the best choice of lens for the long-term health of your eyes.

“Blue tint emits ultraviolet light, and that is what sunglasses are supposed to block,” said Dr. Eleanor Faye of Lighthouse International in Manhattan, a nonprofit organization that promotes the rehabilitation of vision impairment.

“Sunglasses really prevent the eye from constantly being barraged with ultraviolet light … which … is harmful to the retina and may cause damage like macular degeneration,” Faye said.

Janet Sparrow, professor of ophthalmic science at Columbia University Medical Center, said the problem is that blue light excites pigments in the retinal cells to form unstable oxygen molecules that harm the macular cells responsible for fine eyesight used for reading and other close work.

“Naturally, these cells have a mechanism that gets rid of unwanted compounds, but in this case these particular compounds are unusual, and the cell doesn’t have a mechanism for how to deal with it,” Sparrow said.

Sunglasses with yellow- or amber-tinted lenses are best, Sparrow said.