Life Sciences & Medicine Active Updated Aug 27, 2026
A missing wavelength that may stop myopia before it starts
Sunlight contains a short wavelength called indigo light that standard indoor white LED bulbs barely produce. Researchers at Cincinnati Children's and the University of Alabama at Birmingham found indigo light completely prevented myopia in tree shrews, whose eyes closely mirror human ones, even under conditions designed to force the condition. The stakes are whether this holds in children, since myopia is already the world's most common eye condition and some researchers estimate it could affect nearly 5 billion people by 2050.
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Aug 27, 2026 Latest
Researchers at Cincinnati Children's and the University of Alabama at Birmingham raised tree shrews under indigo light, a wavelength largely missing from standard white LED bulbs, and found it completely prevented the animals from developing myopia even under conditions designed to induce it.
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