October 31, 2025 • 33 mins
In this episode of The Eye-Q Podcast, Dr. Rudrani Banik speaks with ophthalmologist Dr. Ravi Goel about how sunlight, UV rays, and blue light affect our eyes. They break down myths about sun gazing and blue blockers, explore conditions like cataracts and pterygium, and share three easy ways to safeguard your eyes daily—without giving up sunshine or screen time.
Ravi Goel’s family has lived in Southern New Jersey for more than 50 years. He graduated from Cherry Hill High School East and earned a B.A. in Ethics, Politics, and Economics from Yale University. He earned his medical degree (M.D.) from the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. He completed a medical internship at the Cooper Health System and an ophthalmology residency at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center. Dr. Goel completed an Advanced Refractive Surgery (LASIK) course with the pioneers of refractive surgery at the world-renowned Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital in Chennai, India.
Dr. Goel is board-certified by the American Board of Ophthalmology. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) and a member of the American Medical Association (AMA). He is an instructor at the Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia and a cataract surgeon at the Wills Eye Surgical Network in Cherry Hill, NJ.
Ravi D. Goel, MD
Website: https://protectingsight.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ravigoelmd/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I remember when COVID first started and our practices were
closed and then we we slowly reopened our practices.
I saw more and more patients whohad eye strain, dry eye,
etcetera. And because what was happening
was everybody was working from home and all of a sudden they
were spending many more hours working on their computer,
(00:23):
working on their iPad, working on their iPhone, etcetera.
So it was causing much more eye strain.
And we would typically get the question about blue light,
blocking glasses, etcetera, bluelight, etcetera.
Just to let's just step back andsay when is sunlight helpful?
And we know sunlight is helpful throughout our life for mood
etcetera, but we need the sunlight in the morning, 20-30
(00:45):
minutes, 2-3 days a week to helpwith our circadian rhythm.
We need sunlight to help us withvitamin D production, etcetera.
Welcome to the IQ Podcast. I'm Doctor Ronnie Banach, here
to help you boost your IQ with powerful insights that connect
your eyes, your brain, and your whole body Wellness.
(01:06):
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Eye Health Summit.
I'm your host, Doctor Ronnie Bannick, and today I have the
honor of speaking with Doctor Ravi Goyle, who is an
ophthalmologist based out of NewJersey who has a tremendous
amount of experience taking careof countless patients with eye
issues. Thank you so much, Doctor Goel,
(01:27):
for joining us on the Eye HealthSummit.
Thank you, Doctor Blannick, for the opportunity to speak with
you today. Absolutely.
I know you are a wealth of information from base down of
topics from cataract surgery to dry eye to.
But one thing I really wanted tospeak with you about today is
light exposure for our eyes and the various different
(01:49):
wavelengths of light that our eyes are exposed to, which are
good, which are maybe not so good and how we can best protect
our eyes. But before we get into all of
those amazing topics, can you just share with our listeners
what interested you about eye health that made you become an
ophthalmologist? Ronnie, if I may, I have.
(02:11):
When I, when I was in medical school, I thought that
mentorship was a little bit lacking and I felt I wanted to
find a specialty which was cutting edge, which was moving
forward. And I found ophthalmology.
Ophthalmology really is the primary care of the eye, of the
ocular system. Yeah.
We deal with patients who have chronic diseases, who have acute
diseases. And when I was in medical school
(02:33):
and when I was in residency, I found that eye health was very
important. Just like you could think about
high blood pressure, hypertension, we think about
something called glaucoma, just as we think about diabetes
affecting multiple organ systems.
Diabetes affects the eye, the small vessels in the eye and
there we see patients who have macular degeneration, dry eye,
(02:53):
lifestyle issues, etcetera. So vision is important part of
mobility. Vision is a critical part of
quality of life, and that's whatgot me interested in eye health,
eye safety, and protecting sight.
That's wonderful to hear. And I think for many of us who
are in eye care as providers, just being able to give people
the gift of sight is really so impactful.
(03:15):
To be able to help someone function again and do all of the
activities they love, there's really no better reward than to
be able to do that. So I'm in complete alignment
with you on that, Doctor Goyle. So let's talk a little bit about
day-to-day. Many of us spend time, whether
it's outdoors or on screens, oureyes are constantly exposed to
(03:36):
light. Can you review for us basically
give us like a 30,000 foot view of the different wavelengths of
light that our eyes take in and process, and where are those
different wavelengths come from?Like what are the main sources
of those various wavelengths of light?
Most, most of the wavelengths oflight come from the sun.
And when we think about, if you think about wavelengths of
(03:57):
light, think about wavelengths, the electromagnetic field,
etcetera, you think about radio waves.
We listen to the radio in the 40s, fifties and 60s and that's
one wavelength of light going all the way to infrared.
The other end of wavelengths of light, we think about something
called the vision, the visual length wavelengths of light that
we can see, something called ROYGBIV, red, orange, yellow,
(04:21):
green, blue, indigo, Violet. That was the old Roy G bib we
had to learn when we were in in grade school growing up.
But the last ones, Violet goes so the visible light is between
400 and 700 nanometers and we gobelow 400 nanometers.
That's where Violet is. Now Violet has ultraviolet ray
(04:42):
AB and C. And just to get a little
technical here, UVA goes from 400 to about 320 nanometers, UVB
goes from about 3:20 to 280 nanometers, and UVC goes from
280 down to 100 nanometers. Now those are different
ultraviolet wavelengths of light.
(05:03):
Now we think about what is can be damaging to the eye and to
the skin and to the body. We need to think about UVA, UVB
and UVC. Thankfully we can ignore UVC
because UVC is taken up by the ozone in the atmosphere.
Absolutely. So what I'm hearing from you,
Doctor Gaul, is that there are many different wavelengths of
(05:24):
light that we're exposed to. There's visible light, which is
the colors of the rainbow that we typically think of.
And then there's invisible light, which can be either
really short wavelengths, which are in the UV spectrum or really
long wavelengths that are in theinfrared spectrum.
And you're not talking about theUV spectrum, UVA and UVB perhaps
being the most risky to our eyes.
Is that safe to say, Doctor Gaul?
(05:46):
Doctor Vonnegut, as I was preparing for this talk, let's
look at what ultraviolet radiation can cause damage to
the body. It can cause damage all over the
body. And especially we think about
the skin. If you want to think about, hey,
skin cancer, skin screening, etc.
We're thinking about what does UV rays, what does UV damage
cause to the skin? And we understand that
(06:08):
conceptually, the epidermis, thedermis.
So as I was reviewing the damagethat UV rays can cause to the
eye, I went to the skin because we think about skin screenings,
dermatology friends who have Melanoma, basal cell carcinoma,
squamous cell carcinoma, etcetera.
All of these issues with ultraviolet radiation can cause
(06:30):
damage to the eye. We know about the skin when we
when I go golfing, I'm always putting on sunscreen.
And before I I really got into eye health, I wasn't as maybe I
wasn't as cognizant to use sunglasses and use hats,
etcetera to protect my eyes. But it's just as important it is
to think about the skin. You have to think about the eyes
(06:52):
and the potential for ultraviolet radiation to cause
damage to multiple layers of theeyes.
I'm so glad that you made that analogy of UV damage to the skin
and UV damage to the eyes. A lot of people are, as you
said, cognizant of their skin. They go see their dermatologist
regularly, some every six months, even three or four
months, depending on what your skin issues are.
(07:14):
But for our eyes, let's talk about are there any protective
mechanisms that the eye naturally has to try to filter
out some of these rays that may cause problems?
Sure. What's interesting is that UV
radiation can cause damage to multiple layers of the eye.
For example, if you're sun gazing, if you're looking at the
(07:36):
at the sun intensely, you can cause photo damage to the
cornea. You can have like something
called sunburn. A patient who I had the worst
pain I've ever seen as a resident in ophthalmology was a
gentleman who was doing it was doing blowtorching on on a
Saturday night and he came in his eyes were just like like
severe pain. UV radiation cause can cause dry
(07:57):
eye and then we are it can also cause damage to the cornea and
also to the natural lens of the UVB can cause can change
something called oxidative stress, changing the proteins in
the natural lens causing a cataract or ultraviolet
radiation cause damage to the retina where things we think
about macular degeneration. If you're thinking about sun
(08:19):
gazing, you're talking about solar retinopathy etcetera.
So we do have some natural protection.
Ultraviolet rays can cause something called trisium's where
they can reprogram the tissue around the white part of the
eye, the sclare, something called the sclare of the
conjunctiva. You're reprogramming those
tissues and they're causing changes to the they're causing
stress to those cells and they're causing the cells to
(08:41):
grow. And that leads to how can we
protect the eyes? And I would, I have, I think
there are three things we can doto protect the eyes.
I love the power threes. 1 is sunglasses, one is brimmed hats
and the third is something I call, we call the 2020 rule
where every 20 minutes you should look 20 feet away for 20
seconds. The 1st is sunglasses we think
(09:01):
about and when I think about when I speak to a typical
patient in the lane, they say hey Doctor Gol, can I pick up
these sunglasses over the counter?
Can I you do this, do that. I say look the sunglasses you
want to look for should have oneof two designations.
Either it should say 100% UVAUVPprotection or it should say
UV400 then you should be You should have reassurance that
(09:24):
those types of sunglasses are going to protect you as much as
possible. 90 plus percent from damages from ultraviolet rays.
The second is getting. Could I just interrupt?
For a moment. So if someone wears proper UV
protection, is there still a chance that they could develop
some of these issues like dry eye or corneal burns or
(09:46):
terrigium or pinguacula? Can that still happen?
I think the risk goes down as you have.
Don't forget there's a difference between wearing
glasses which which I wear and which have transitions in them
which which have protection, or wearing wrap around sunglasses
like those. Those wrap you can even when
you're wearing. And this is the same analogy I
(10:07):
gave earlier with the nose causing some natural protection
or even the brow, etcetera. Some natural protection to the
eyes you still can have light rays coming from the side that
that are going to be your that can cause issues.
So there's never 100% protectionobviously with anything but I
think that but I think that the you still have to live your
life. So I think you still have to be
as protected as possible. I think that you can, I
(10:29):
recommend if you someone who there's a difference between
somebody who's going out day-to-day and somebody who's a
postal worker, UPS driver, FedExdriver, etcetera, who's out in
the sun all day. I just saw one of those patients
just today actually patient who,who drives trucks, you know, and
they're out all day. So they, they're at a higher
risk. They don't realize that in their
(10:50):
20s, thirties or 40s. If you think you're invincible
and your lower 50s, early 60s, you're getting earlier
cataracts, you have Trusia, yourpingueculum, etcetera, which can
be a big risk factor for overalleye health.
Now I wanted to go back to this,the topic of torridium that you
brought up now, just to give a visual for our listeners and our
audience. Terrigia typically happened as
(11:11):
Doctor Gould was saying, on the middle part, the inside part of
the eye. And it's like a little bit of an
elevated kind of a growth, right?
And sometimes it may be a littlered.
It can get inflamed. And then sometimes it can grow
over the cornea, like a little triangular wedge that grows over
and blocks the cornea. Have you seen, I'm sure you must
have seen a lot of patients of Teregia in your career Doctor
(11:32):
goal. Oh, yeah, I saw.
I actually, it's funny, I saw two or three today as I was
preparing for the talk. I took some videos just to just
like, oh, you got Teregium. Yes, those are gross.
Point and then pinguecula which you mentioned earlier.
Can you explain what a pinguecula is compared with a
teregium? Like what's the difference?
Sure, the pingueculas are relative, are commonly non
malignant. There's like these raised yellow
(11:53):
white, we call them lesions of the it's between the lids, so
the inter palpebro conjunctiva, the nasal part and they're gross
and they are they're called fromdegeneration of collagen, sub
epithelial collagen. The fancy term is elastotic
degeneration of sub epithelial collagen.
But you know. Light exposure typically like
(12:14):
lots of use exposure. OK.
You can have acute and you can have chronic, right.
So so we say, hey, this is long term, typically long term damage
activating cells sunlight that can cause these gross of these
this again, this yellow white lesion.
But yeah, it's from, it's from long term chronic exposure to.
(12:36):
Typically in my experience it typically looks very different
than a terrigium because it typically looks like little
bubbles or round areas on the surface, whereas the terrigium
is more like a like a wing. Actually I think the origin of
the word terrigium comes from the word wing.
I don't remember which language it is, Greek or Latin.
It's. From Greek Greek trijios meaning
wing. Yes.
(12:57):
So it looks like triangular, butI feel them.
On the other hand, it's more just like a bubbly, a round
area. If somebody starts to develop
one of these two things from sundamage, can they reverse?
Can they just go away or is thatnot possible?
It typically doesn't go away. I typically counsel patients if
they come in and they're, they somebody sees, somebody sees it
(13:17):
for the first time, whatever, and they come in a panic.
I see, look, you know, you've had this from, you've probably
had this for many years now. Our, our smartphones are so
good. I say, why don't you take
pictures of it? We'll monitor it over time, take
pictures at home. But the, they, it's typically,
we typically don't remove them unless they're causing visual
(13:38):
symptoms. And what that means is typically
a pinguaculum, which is that white yellow lesion that'll be
flat, it'll be a little elevated.
It's so common, I actually don'teven document it often in my
electronic medical records if I see it so commonly.
But if it's causing secondary symptoms, dryness, something
called Delen, all these sort of other symptoms where it's
causing damage to the cornea, damage to the visual system,
(14:01):
then we might address it. The tritium, typically it has to
grow on to the eye a fair amountor when patients come up for
cataract surgery, they have trigium and sometimes it can
affect the measurements. So somebody can have something
called astigmatism where the best way to think about
astigmatism is you imagine bouncing a basketball, you
(14:21):
bounce a basketball up and down that has no astigmatism.
If you bounce your, if you imagine your eye being shaped
like a football, you bounce a football, it's going to bounce
off to the side a trigium as it,as you have that wing growing on
to the end onto the cornea, it can sometimes cause a secondary
astigmatism effect. So you can have some distortion
(14:41):
not only from your cataract fromthe natural lens of the eye, but
you got some distortion from thetrigium.
So typically those patients I may recommend that the trigemium
be removed prior to cataract surgery, meaning three to six
months before cataract surgery because we want to have the best
data we have in is it gives us the best results going out.
So we want to have the best ocular surface before we
(15:03):
consider cataract surgery, and that plays in the dry eye and
other issues that a patient can be susceptible to throughout
their life but also during the time of surgery.
Absolutely. Now just for our listeners, this
is the kind of a fun fact about becoming an ophthalmologist.
Terrigium surgery is one of the first surgeries we learn when
we're doing up the ophthalmologyresidency and we're actually
(15:25):
very cautious about deciding which patients undergo the
surgery. We actually don't recommend it
for the vast majority of cases like doctor goal was saying only
select cases. And when we do surgery, we use
specific techniques, but one of the risks is that they can grow
back. Have you seen that in your
practice, Dr. Gold? You take off a trigium or maybe
(15:46):
the patient had surgery 1015 years ago and there it is, it's
back again. Yeah.
So, yeah. And we have we, there is the
risk of recurrence of trigium and that can be addressed.
And I think that we can use different techniques, different
modalities, some just some, sometimes you can use something
called amniotic membrane grafts or you could use different sort
of chemicals hopefully to decrease the risk of the
recurrence. But that's why you should see an
(16:08):
ophthalmologist in your local community, you know who is
dedicated protecting site and, and to address those issues.
But as ophthalmologists, we're trained to be conservative,
right? So we don't, we try not to,
we're not going to remove a trigium unless it's causing
symptoms. It can have some cosmetic effect
for a patient. We're really looking at, hey,
(16:29):
how's it affecting your quality life?
How's it affecting your activities of daily living?
And how in in the case of cataracts and secondary effects,
those are those can be very important also to determine
should we address this surgery, should we remove it to help the
patient? Yeah.
Just to share a story with you. So I did my residency out in
California, in Southern California at UC Irvine.
(16:50):
And our facility was very close to Disney, Disneyland.
And so we oftentimes saw some ofthe Disney princesses come in
with these terrigia because they're out in the sun all and
they have these growths on the surface of the eye from chronic
sun exposure. And for those patients, even
though it may not have impacted their vision, they wanted it
removed for cosmetic reasons. So yes, sometimes we do it for
(17:13):
cosmetic reasons, but the vast majority of patients is because
they have a visual disturbance because of their terrigium.
Doctor Gaul, one of the other risks of too much UV exposure
could be something more serious on the surface of the eye.
Could you explain a little bit more about what could happen
when people don't wear sunglasses or large wide brimmed
hats? Sure, Doctor Bonneke, as I as I
(17:36):
would recommend, the patients undergo screenings by their
dermatologist to look for skin cancers throughout their whole
body. And that's very important,
especially for the folks who spend many hours outside in the
sunlight unprotected. However, we are particularly
concerned with eyelid periocularmalignancies, skin cancers
including, I'll bring up two points. 1 is basal cell
(17:59):
carcinoma. Basal cell carcinoma is the most
common eyelid cancer and it encompasses about 90% of eyelid
malignancies. And there's a strong link to
chronic UV exposure, which and which causes damage to basal
skin cells. Also, there's a disease called
squamous cell carcinoma of the eyelid that is less common, but
(18:21):
it's more aggressive than basal cell carcinoma.
And that can spread to nearby tissues also, which requires
early interventions. But if you have it sort of a non
healing growth on the eyelid, ifyou have something called
crusting or ulceration or bleeding lesions or if you have
loss of eyelashes in the affected areas, you can be at
risk for basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma,
(18:45):
Melanoma. We think about so something
called when we think about ocular Melanoma, we think about
something in in the back of the eye, the choroid, something
called croital Melanoma, which is behind the retina, deep to
the retina. Patients when you think about
the skin's the largest organ in the body, there is skin around
the eyes and we are very concerned about eyelid
malignancies. So patients should be checked by
their ophthalmologist and in thecase of the skin, by their
(19:07):
dermatologist. Yeah, and I want to echo what
you just said. If there's anything suspicious
that's growing that's not healing, get it checked out, go
to your eye doctor, get it checked out.
And then also some of these growths may actually happen or
these malignancies may actually happen on the surface of the
eye. Isn't that correct?
Doctor goal. Yes, you can have CIN.
(19:29):
It's called so different malignancies that can occur on
the surface of the eye or as I mentioned we're most we're very
concerned about deep retina, croital melanomas, cancers
around the eye or in the eye that can be that can cause
vision loss, cause decreased quality of life that might be
metastatic etcetera. So patients should be certainly
(19:50):
checked by the age of 40 and then they should be checked
appropriate intervals when they see their ophthalmologist.
So again, there can be growths on the surface of the eye that
are malignant on the conjunctiva, which is like the
skin part of the eye, but also in the back.
Of the eye, and that's. Why dilated exam is so
important? I always tell my patients,
please do not skip that annual dilated exam because without
(20:12):
that, we sometimes may miss something that could be
potentially not just vision threatening, but life
threatening. This has been such an
interesting discussion so far. Doctor Gaul, I've learned a lot
from you. We've shared a lot of insights.
We're going to take a very shortbreak here from one of our
sponsors and we'll be right backwith more on the ihealth Summit,
so stay tuned. Hello, I'm Doctor Ronnie and I'm
(20:35):
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(20:55):
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(21:16):
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(23:03):
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Welcome back to the Eye Health Summit, everyone.
Today we're chatting with DoctorRavi Goal, a leading
ophthalmologist based it out of based out of New Jersey, and
we're chatting about different light wavelengths that it may
impact our eyes. Now, Doctor Goal, I wanted to
ask you about, we've talked about sunlight and the various
(23:25):
wavelengths and what it can do to our eyes, but let's talk
about artificial light. Now that most of our world is on
screens, many of us spend 8/10/12 or more hours a day in
front of a screen. We're constantly getting
bombarded by blue light that's coming from our screens.
Tell us more about this blue light.
Is it bad? Is it good?
What are some of the potential consequences of this excessive
(23:46):
blue light exposure? Doctor Ronnick, that is, that is
a great question. I remember when COVID first
started and our practices were closed and then we we slowly
reopened our practices. I saw more and more patients who
had eye strain, dry eye, etcetera.
And because what was happening was everybody was working from
(24:07):
home and all of a sudden they were spending many more hours
working on their computer, working on their iPad, working
on their iPhone, etcetera. So it was causing much more eye
strain. And we would typically get the
question about blue light, blocking glasses, etcetera, blue
light, etcetera. Just to let's just step back and
say when is sunlight helpful? And we know sunlight is helpful
(24:30):
throughout our life for mood etcetera, but we need the
sunlight in the morning, 20-30 minutes, 2-3 days a week to help
with our circadian rhythm. We need sunlight to help us with
vitamin D production, etc. And so that is where sunlight
can be helpful. Now when you talk about like
blue light and blue blocking glasses, etcetera, like I'm
(24:52):
guilty where I will use my, my, my iPad and my iPhone, all my
devices up until the time I go to sleep.
And I think that I got to in terms of melatonin production,
etcetera, the recommendations tolike not be on your systems for
at least an hour or two before you go to sleep.
But in terms of blue light blocking glasses, the science
simply isn't there for me to saythat they have benefit where
(25:13):
people should invest a lot of money to them.
I do think that that for generally, for generally when
patients come to me with these types of symptoms, I say look
20/20/20 every 20 minutes, look 20 feet away for 20 seconds.
That's going to help your eye strain, etcetera.
And it's actually funny because I have family, nieces and
nephews in high school who know about the 20/20/20 rule.
(25:35):
So I think this goes into the whole like the mists of sun
gazing. Is there a huge benefit from sun
gazing? And I'm like, Oh my God.
Like I remember when we had the solar eclipse in 2017, I was
doing research for my blog and Ifound AUS soldier who was it's
there's actually a case report in the from the 1940s who was
sun gazing in the 1940s and he caused damage to his retina
(25:58):
solar retinopathy. So I think that I think that we
have to try to debunk miss if it's part of the I health summit
and the I Health summit, my, my take would be that blue blocking
glasses may not be worth the investment.
I think. I think they're taking frequent
breaks from working, respecting the last hour or two before you
go to sleep. I think that would help your
your sleep cycles with circadianrhythm, etcetera.
(26:19):
And I think that that would be my feedback.
Thank you for those insights. I think debunking myths is very
important and that's one of the reasons why we're talking about
some of these topics on the I Health on the I Health Summit.
To get expert advice. I'm going to share something
with you, a study that I read about blue blockers.
So basically Consumer Reports, which is pretty reputable
(26:41):
company, they have a magazine where they review different
products. So this is pre pandemic.
They reviewed several of the leading blue blockers on the
market and they looked at three of the top selling blue blockers
and what they found was that onewas like a very light yellow
tint and one was a little bit darker yellow, and 1 was really
deep orange, amber and color. So the really lightest one only
(27:01):
blocked about 10 to 20% of the blue light.
The middle one only blocked about 30 to maybe 40% of the
blue light. The deeper 1 blocked the
majority of the blue light. So the truth is, most blue
blockers, this is my take. The most blue blockers on the
market don't really block significant amounts of blue
light, 10 to 30% Max. And most of them are light in
(27:22):
color, but some of them even look clear.
Those clear ones are hardly blocking any of the blue light.
But if you feel like you want toblock blue light, if it's
interfering with your sleep, if you're using devices at night
and can't go to sleep, If you feel like you're having a lot
strain, get the really deeply pigmented blue blockers, the red
ones, the dark orange, the amberones.
What are your thoughts about that doctor goal like?
(27:44):
I mean, I, Doctor Vonnegut, I have to defer to the fellowship
trained neuro ophthalmologist from Johns Hopkins Hospital.
You are the expert on, on, on, on these issues and on quality
life. So I think, yeah, I think the
patients, the nice thing is thatyeah, there there can be a
placebo effect for some of thesedevices.
And I think that some patients swear by them.
And I certainly maybe time will will change our minds on some of
(28:06):
these technologies. But I do agree that I, I think
that if you're going to go in, you should go all in respecting
the safety, etcetera. And I think that I think that
certainly I sleep is so important for 500 days.
I was watching a Ted Talk a day during the pandemic.
I was trying to make myself a little more educated on like
these high yield topics and I got really into the value of
sleep and, and especially for the eyes in terms of in terms of
(28:27):
respecting sleep. And I think that is one of the
great wonders of the world is the value of sleep.
Absolutely. And we can go back and forth
about some of these topics. But the one thing I wanted to
ask you, Doctor, goal is with all this blue light exposure, is
there any evidence that it actually does any permanent
damage to our eyes? Are we hurting ourselves being
on screens for 1012 to 14 hours a day?
(28:50):
I think that I'm not sure about the evidence, but I think that
in terms of eye strain, headaches and that sort of
thing, I think that on a day-to-day basis, I think that
we, we should be cognizant of, you know, of the, the stresses
to the system that can occur from being on our devices.
I know we can go to the sort of like the, the 20 twenties is the
myopia pandemic we have around the world.
These sort of, we want to make sure, I think China, like in
(29:13):
different countries that, that we want to get kids outside for
one or two hours a day to decrease the amount of myopia.
Nearsighted is or nearsighted isover time because we have shown
that nearsighted is where the eye gets longer, it has more,
you can have more, we call morbidity more, more issues
later in life. So I think that I think that I
think that this goes back to what I was saying, going saying
(29:34):
earlier where we want to make sure that folks go outside, go
outside safely and for vitamin Dproduction, for circadian
rhythm, etcetera, especially in younger kids spending an hour or
two outside air per day with UV protection, but still hopefully
decrease the incidence of myopiaover the course of your
lifetime. I think it's very important.
This, and we're not sure. The studies have definitely
shown that's important for kids to be outdoors and playing or
(29:57):
not on screens basically, or notlooking at doing near work for
two hours a day, but we're not yet sure.
Is it the sunlight that's reducing the risk of myopia?
Is it the type of the distance that the child is focusing at
that's making the difference? We don't yet know.
But the general recommendation is get outdoors, do some
physical activity, rest your eyes from screens, and get those
(30:19):
healthy habits started in childhood.
Don't wait until it's too late, until you're very myopic.
And at that point you can't. Like, as Doctor Gaul was saying,
there could be other complications of myopia,
especially high myopia, which isnear sightedness.
This has been such an enlightening conversation.
Doctor Golav enjoyed talking with you and learning from you.
Again, we're dispelling a lot ofmyths here on the ihealth
(30:41):
Summit. Is there one myth or
misconception about our eyes with relation to light that you
would really just love to dispeltoday for our audience?
Well, I want to go back. I think about safety 1st and I
remember when we had the solar eclipse in 2017 and I was
fearful over what the risk was of people gazing the sun
(31:03):
intensely for those for those few moments.
So I think sungazing blue, blocking those sorts of risks I
think I think we typical patients should be mindful of.
But I think going back to my topthree pearls, 1 is sunglasses,
2nd is wearing a nice trimmed hat.
You either can wear this or if you're down in, if you're down
in Mexico or down somewhere else, you can wear a nice good
(31:25):
brimmer hat, especially if you're playing golf.
And the third is the 2020 twentyrule, which I love.
So we think about to the Snellen, the old Snellen visual
cutie chart from the 1860s 2020,which is the letters on the
chart in 9mm for 2020. But 20/20/20, every 20 minutes,
look 20 feet away for 20 seconds.
That'll give you help to relax your eyes, help you to decrease
(31:46):
your your dryness, help to decrease eye strain, and help
you to live a healthier life. Absolutely.
First of all, Doctor Gould, I love your hats.
I love your. Very stylish.
Very stylish. But you know what Doctor Gould
just shared? Those are truly words of gold.
One of the other themes of our Eye Health Summit is an ounce of
prevention is worth a pound of cure.
(32:08):
And when it comes to light exposure, UV exposure, healthy
screens, clean habits, it's really so much better to prevent
issues from happening than to wait until they happen then try
to chase after the consequences,wouldn't you say?
Doctor goal? Like it's 100% frustrating for
us as eye care providers to try to chase after something once
it's already started. So try to prevent it as best as
(32:29):
you can. Absolutely.
Thank you Doctor Gough for sharing your insights with us
and spending some time with us here on the ihealth Summit.
If anyone wanted to learn more from you, perhaps follow your
blog or follow you on social media or even become a patient,
how could they find you? They can go to my professional
website or they can just find me, find me on it's very easy,
(32:50):
protectingsite.com, which is or just my first name, my last
name, md.com. They'll hit one of my they'll
get to my blog and they can theycan follow me and find links to
my practice, etcetera. Wonderful.
We will share all of those linksright below the interview and
please anyone reach out to Doctor Goal.
He is again a wealth of information and so experienced.
So again, thank you for joining us and thank you all for sharing
(33:12):
some time with us on the I Summit and we will see you all
soon for the next interview. So stay tuned.
Thank you. Thank you for tuning in to the
IQ Podcast. I hope you enjoyed today's
episode and learn something new.To help.
You boost your IQ. Leave us a review and share the
podcast with your family and friends.
(33:32):
Stay connected with me for more eye opening insights on ihealth,
nutrition and lifestyle. Until next time, keep your
vision clear and your IQ sharp.
I remember when COVID first started and our practices were
closed and then we we slowly reopened our practices.
I saw more and more patients whohad eye strain, dry eye,
etcetera. And because what was happening
was everybody was working from home and all of a sudden they
were spending many more hours working on their computer,
(00:23):
working on their iPad, working on their iPhone, etcetera.
So it was causing much more eye strain.
And we would typically get the question about blue light,
blocking glasses, etcetera, bluelight, etcetera.
Just to let's just step back andsay when is sunlight helpful?
And we know sunlight is helpful throughout our life for mood
etcetera, but we need the sunlight in the morning, 20-30
(00:45):
minutes, 2-3 days a week to helpwith our circadian rhythm.
We need sunlight to help us withvitamin D production, etcetera.
Welcome to the IQ Podcast. I'm Doctor Ronnie Banach, here
to help you boost your IQ with powerful insights that connect
your eyes, your brain, and your whole body Wellness.
(01:06):
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Eye Health Summit.
I'm your host, Doctor Ronnie Bannick, and today I have the
honor of speaking with Doctor Ravi Goyle, who is an
ophthalmologist based out of NewJersey who has a tremendous
amount of experience taking careof countless patients with eye
issues. Thank you so much, Doctor Goel,
(01:27):
for joining us on the Eye HealthSummit.
Thank you, Doctor Blannick, for the opportunity to speak with
you today. Absolutely.
I know you are a wealth of information from base down of
topics from cataract surgery to dry eye to.
But one thing I really wanted tospeak with you about today is
light exposure for our eyes and the various different
(01:49):
wavelengths of light that our eyes are exposed to, which are
good, which are maybe not so good and how we can best protect
our eyes. But before we get into all of
those amazing topics, can you just share with our listeners
what interested you about eye health that made you become an
ophthalmologist? Ronnie, if I may, I have.
(02:11):
When I, when I was in medical school, I thought that
mentorship was a little bit lacking and I felt I wanted to
find a specialty which was cutting edge, which was moving
forward. And I found ophthalmology.
Ophthalmology really is the primary care of the eye, of the
ocular system. Yeah.
We deal with patients who have chronic diseases, who have acute
diseases. And when I was in medical school
(02:33):
and when I was in residency, I found that eye health was very
important. Just like you could think about
high blood pressure, hypertension, we think about
something called glaucoma, just as we think about diabetes
affecting multiple organ systems.
Diabetes affects the eye, the small vessels in the eye and
there we see patients who have macular degeneration, dry eye,
(02:53):
lifestyle issues, etcetera. So vision is important part of
mobility. Vision is a critical part of
quality of life, and that's whatgot me interested in eye health,
eye safety, and protecting sight.
That's wonderful to hear. And I think for many of us who
are in eye care as providers, just being able to give people
the gift of sight is really so impactful.
(03:15):
To be able to help someone function again and do all of the
activities they love, there's really no better reward than to
be able to do that. So I'm in complete alignment
with you on that, Doctor Goyle. So let's talk a little bit about
day-to-day. Many of us spend time, whether
it's outdoors or on screens, oureyes are constantly exposed to
(03:36):
light. Can you review for us basically
give us like a 30,000 foot view of the different wavelengths of
light that our eyes take in and process, and where are those
different wavelengths come from?Like what are the main sources
of those various wavelengths of light?
Most, most of the wavelengths oflight come from the sun.
And when we think about, if you think about wavelengths of
(03:57):
light, think about wavelengths, the electromagnetic field,
etcetera, you think about radio waves.
We listen to the radio in the 40s, fifties and 60s and that's
one wavelength of light going all the way to infrared.
The other end of wavelengths of light, we think about something
called the vision, the visual length wavelengths of light that
we can see, something called ROYGBIV, red, orange, yellow,
(04:21):
green, blue, indigo, Violet. That was the old Roy G bib we
had to learn when we were in in grade school growing up.
But the last ones, Violet goes so the visible light is between
400 and 700 nanometers and we gobelow 400 nanometers.
That's where Violet is. Now Violet has ultraviolet ray
(04:42):
AB and C. And just to get a little
technical here, UVA goes from 400 to about 320 nanometers, UVB
goes from about 3:20 to 280 nanometers, and UVC goes from
280 down to 100 nanometers. Now those are different
ultraviolet wavelengths of light.
(05:03):
Now we think about what is can be damaging to the eye and to
the skin and to the body. We need to think about UVA, UVB
and UVC. Thankfully we can ignore UVC
because UVC is taken up by the ozone in the atmosphere.
Absolutely. So what I'm hearing from you,
Doctor Gaul, is that there are many different wavelengths of
(05:24):
light that we're exposed to. There's visible light, which is
the colors of the rainbow that we typically think of.
And then there's invisible light, which can be either
really short wavelengths, which are in the UV spectrum or really
long wavelengths that are in theinfrared spectrum.
And you're not talking about theUV spectrum, UVA and UVB perhaps
being the most risky to our eyes.
Is that safe to say, Doctor Gaul?
(05:46):
Doctor Vonnegut, as I was preparing for this talk, let's
look at what ultraviolet radiation can cause damage to
the body. It can cause damage all over the
body. And especially we think about
the skin. If you want to think about, hey,
skin cancer, skin screening, etc.
We're thinking about what does UV rays, what does UV damage
cause to the skin? And we understand that
(06:08):
conceptually, the epidermis, thedermis.
So as I was reviewing the damagethat UV rays can cause to the
eye, I went to the skin because we think about skin screenings,
dermatology friends who have Melanoma, basal cell carcinoma,
squamous cell carcinoma, etcetera.
All of these issues with ultraviolet radiation can cause
(06:30):
damage to the eye. We know about the skin when we
when I go golfing, I'm always putting on sunscreen.
And before I I really got into eye health, I wasn't as maybe I
wasn't as cognizant to use sunglasses and use hats,
etcetera to protect my eyes. But it's just as important it is
to think about the skin. You have to think about the eyes
(06:52):
and the potential for ultraviolet radiation to cause
damage to multiple layers of theeyes.
I'm so glad that you made that analogy of UV damage to the skin
and UV damage to the eyes. A lot of people are, as you
said, cognizant of their skin. They go see their dermatologist
regularly, some every six months, even three or four
months, depending on what your skin issues are.
(07:14):
But for our eyes, let's talk about are there any protective
mechanisms that the eye naturally has to try to filter
out some of these rays that may cause problems?
Sure. What's interesting is that UV
radiation can cause damage to multiple layers of the eye.
For example, if you're sun gazing, if you're looking at the
(07:36):
at the sun intensely, you can cause photo damage to the
cornea. You can have like something
called sunburn. A patient who I had the worst
pain I've ever seen as a resident in ophthalmology was a
gentleman who was doing it was doing blowtorching on on a
Saturday night and he came in his eyes were just like like
severe pain. UV radiation cause can cause dry
(07:57):
eye and then we are it can also cause damage to the cornea and
also to the natural lens of the UVB can cause can change
something called oxidative stress, changing the proteins in
the natural lens causing a cataract or ultraviolet
radiation cause damage to the retina where things we think
about macular degeneration. If you're thinking about sun
(08:19):
gazing, you're talking about solar retinopathy etcetera.
So we do have some natural protection.
Ultraviolet rays can cause something called trisium's where
they can reprogram the tissue around the white part of the
eye, the sclare, something called the sclare of the
conjunctiva. You're reprogramming those
tissues and they're causing changes to the they're causing
stress to those cells and they're causing the cells to
(08:41):
grow. And that leads to how can we
protect the eyes? And I would, I have, I think
there are three things we can doto protect the eyes.
I love the power threes. 1 is sunglasses, one is brimmed hats
and the third is something I call, we call the 2020 rule
where every 20 minutes you should look 20 feet away for 20
seconds. The 1st is sunglasses we think
(09:01):
about and when I think about when I speak to a typical
patient in the lane, they say hey Doctor Gol, can I pick up
these sunglasses over the counter?
Can I you do this, do that. I say look the sunglasses you
want to look for should have oneof two designations.
Either it should say 100% UVAUVPprotection or it should say
UV400 then you should be You should have reassurance that
(09:24):
those types of sunglasses are going to protect you as much as
possible. 90 plus percent from damages from ultraviolet rays.
The second is getting. Could I just interrupt?
For a moment. So if someone wears proper UV
protection, is there still a chance that they could develop
some of these issues like dry eye or corneal burns or
(09:46):
terrigium or pinguacula? Can that still happen?
I think the risk goes down as you have.
Don't forget there's a difference between wearing
glasses which which I wear and which have transitions in them
which which have protection, or wearing wrap around sunglasses
like those. Those wrap you can even when
you're wearing. And this is the same analogy I
(10:07):
gave earlier with the nose causing some natural protection
or even the brow, etcetera. Some natural protection to the
eyes you still can have light rays coming from the side that
that are going to be your that can cause issues.
So there's never 100% protectionobviously with anything but I
think that but I think that the you still have to live your
life. So I think you still have to be
as protected as possible. I think that you can, I
(10:29):
recommend if you someone who there's a difference between
somebody who's going out day-to-day and somebody who's a
postal worker, UPS driver, FedExdriver, etcetera, who's out in
the sun all day. I just saw one of those patients
just today actually patient who,who drives trucks, you know, and
they're out all day. So they, they're at a higher
risk. They don't realize that in their
(10:50):
20s, thirties or 40s. If you think you're invincible
and your lower 50s, early 60s, you're getting earlier
cataracts, you have Trusia, yourpingueculum, etcetera, which can
be a big risk factor for overalleye health.
Now I wanted to go back to this,the topic of torridium that you
brought up now, just to give a visual for our listeners and our
audience. Terrigia typically happened as
(11:11):
Doctor Gould was saying, on the middle part, the inside part of
the eye. And it's like a little bit of an
elevated kind of a growth, right?
And sometimes it may be a littlered.
It can get inflamed. And then sometimes it can grow
over the cornea, like a little triangular wedge that grows over
and blocks the cornea. Have you seen, I'm sure you must
have seen a lot of patients of Teregia in your career Doctor
(11:32):
goal. Oh, yeah, I saw.
I actually, it's funny, I saw two or three today as I was
preparing for the talk. I took some videos just to just
like, oh, you got Teregium. Yes, those are gross.
Point and then pinguecula which you mentioned earlier.
Can you explain what a pinguecula is compared with a
teregium? Like what's the difference?
Sure, the pingueculas are relative, are commonly non
malignant. There's like these raised yellow
(11:53):
white, we call them lesions of the it's between the lids, so
the inter palpebro conjunctiva, the nasal part and they're gross
and they are they're called fromdegeneration of collagen, sub
epithelial collagen. The fancy term is elastotic
degeneration of sub epithelial collagen.
But you know. Light exposure typically like
(12:14):
lots of use exposure. OK.
You can have acute and you can have chronic, right.
So so we say, hey, this is long term, typically long term damage
activating cells sunlight that can cause these gross of these
this again, this yellow white lesion.
But yeah, it's from, it's from long term chronic exposure to.
(12:36):
Typically in my experience it typically looks very different
than a terrigium because it typically looks like little
bubbles or round areas on the surface, whereas the terrigium
is more like a like a wing. Actually I think the origin of
the word terrigium comes from the word wing.
I don't remember which language it is, Greek or Latin.
It's. From Greek Greek trijios meaning
wing. Yes.
(12:57):
So it looks like triangular, butI feel them.
On the other hand, it's more just like a bubbly, a round
area. If somebody starts to develop
one of these two things from sundamage, can they reverse?
Can they just go away or is thatnot possible?
It typically doesn't go away. I typically counsel patients if
they come in and they're, they somebody sees, somebody sees it
(13:17):
for the first time, whatever, and they come in a panic.
I see, look, you know, you've had this from, you've probably
had this for many years now. Our, our smartphones are so
good. I say, why don't you take
pictures of it? We'll monitor it over time, take
pictures at home. But the, they, it's typically,
we typically don't remove them unless they're causing visual
(13:38):
symptoms. And what that means is typically
a pinguaculum, which is that white yellow lesion that'll be
flat, it'll be a little elevated.
It's so common, I actually don'teven document it often in my
electronic medical records if I see it so commonly.
But if it's causing secondary symptoms, dryness, something
called Delen, all these sort of other symptoms where it's
causing damage to the cornea, damage to the visual system,
(14:01):
then we might address it. The tritium, typically it has to
grow on to the eye a fair amountor when patients come up for
cataract surgery, they have trigium and sometimes it can
affect the measurements. So somebody can have something
called astigmatism where the best way to think about
astigmatism is you imagine bouncing a basketball, you
(14:21):
bounce a basketball up and down that has no astigmatism.
If you bounce your, if you imagine your eye being shaped
like a football, you bounce a football, it's going to bounce
off to the side a trigium as it,as you have that wing growing on
to the end onto the cornea, it can sometimes cause a secondary
astigmatism effect. So you can have some distortion
(14:41):
not only from your cataract fromthe natural lens of the eye, but
you got some distortion from thetrigium.
So typically those patients I may recommend that the trigemium
be removed prior to cataract surgery, meaning three to six
months before cataract surgery because we want to have the best
data we have in is it gives us the best results going out.
So we want to have the best ocular surface before we
(15:03):
consider cataract surgery, and that plays in the dry eye and
other issues that a patient can be susceptible to throughout
their life but also during the time of surgery.
Absolutely. Now just for our listeners, this
is the kind of a fun fact about becoming an ophthalmologist.
Terrigium surgery is one of the first surgeries we learn when
we're doing up the ophthalmologyresidency and we're actually
(15:25):
very cautious about deciding which patients undergo the
surgery. We actually don't recommend it
for the vast majority of cases like doctor goal was saying only
select cases. And when we do surgery, we use
specific techniques, but one of the risks is that they can grow
back. Have you seen that in your
practice, Dr. Gold? You take off a trigium or maybe
(15:46):
the patient had surgery 1015 years ago and there it is, it's
back again. Yeah.
So, yeah. And we have we, there is the
risk of recurrence of trigium and that can be addressed.
And I think that we can use different techniques, different
modalities, some just some, sometimes you can use something
called amniotic membrane grafts or you could use different sort
of chemicals hopefully to decrease the risk of the
recurrence. But that's why you should see an
(16:08):
ophthalmologist in your local community, you know who is
dedicated protecting site and, and to address those issues.
But as ophthalmologists, we're trained to be conservative,
right? So we don't, we try not to,
we're not going to remove a trigium unless it's causing
symptoms. It can have some cosmetic effect
for a patient. We're really looking at, hey,
(16:29):
how's it affecting your quality life?
How's it affecting your activities of daily living?
And how in in the case of cataracts and secondary effects,
those are those can be very important also to determine
should we address this surgery, should we remove it to help the
patient? Yeah.
Just to share a story with you. So I did my residency out in
California, in Southern California at UC Irvine.
(16:50):
And our facility was very close to Disney, Disneyland.
And so we oftentimes saw some ofthe Disney princesses come in
with these terrigia because they're out in the sun all and
they have these growths on the surface of the eye from chronic
sun exposure. And for those patients, even
though it may not have impacted their vision, they wanted it
removed for cosmetic reasons. So yes, sometimes we do it for
(17:13):
cosmetic reasons, but the vast majority of patients is because
they have a visual disturbance because of their terrigium.
Doctor Gaul, one of the other risks of too much UV exposure
could be something more serious on the surface of the eye.
Could you explain a little bit more about what could happen
when people don't wear sunglasses or large wide brimmed
hats? Sure, Doctor Bonneke, as I as I
(17:36):
would recommend, the patients undergo screenings by their
dermatologist to look for skin cancers throughout their whole
body. And that's very important,
especially for the folks who spend many hours outside in the
sunlight unprotected. However, we are particularly
concerned with eyelid periocularmalignancies, skin cancers
including, I'll bring up two points. 1 is basal cell
(17:59):
carcinoma. Basal cell carcinoma is the most
common eyelid cancer and it encompasses about 90% of eyelid
malignancies. And there's a strong link to
chronic UV exposure, which and which causes damage to basal
skin cells. Also, there's a disease called
squamous cell carcinoma of the eyelid that is less common, but
(18:21):
it's more aggressive than basal cell carcinoma.
And that can spread to nearby tissues also, which requires
early interventions. But if you have it sort of a non
healing growth on the eyelid, ifyou have something called
crusting or ulceration or bleeding lesions or if you have
loss of eyelashes in the affected areas, you can be at
risk for basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma,
(18:45):
Melanoma. We think about so something
called when we think about ocular Melanoma, we think about
something in in the back of the eye, the choroid, something
called croital Melanoma, which is behind the retina, deep to
the retina. Patients when you think about
the skin's the largest organ in the body, there is skin around
the eyes and we are very concerned about eyelid
malignancies. So patients should be checked by
their ophthalmologist and in thecase of the skin, by their
(19:07):
dermatologist. Yeah, and I want to echo what
you just said. If there's anything suspicious
that's growing that's not healing, get it checked out, go
to your eye doctor, get it checked out.
And then also some of these growths may actually happen or
these malignancies may actually happen on the surface of the
eye. Isn't that correct?
Doctor goal. Yes, you can have CIN.
(19:29):
It's called so different malignancies that can occur on
the surface of the eye or as I mentioned we're most we're very
concerned about deep retina, croital melanomas, cancers
around the eye or in the eye that can be that can cause
vision loss, cause decreased quality of life that might be
metastatic etcetera. So patients should be certainly
(19:50):
checked by the age of 40 and then they should be checked
appropriate intervals when they see their ophthalmologist.
So again, there can be growths on the surface of the eye that
are malignant on the conjunctiva, which is like the
skin part of the eye, but also in the back.
Of the eye, and that's. Why dilated exam is so
important? I always tell my patients,
please do not skip that annual dilated exam because without
(20:12):
that, we sometimes may miss something that could be
potentially not just vision threatening, but life
threatening. This has been such an
interesting discussion so far. Doctor Gaul, I've learned a lot
from you. We've shared a lot of insights.
We're going to take a very shortbreak here from one of our
sponsors and we'll be right backwith more on the ihealth Summit,
so stay tuned. Hello, I'm Doctor Ronnie and I'm
(20:35):
here to talk about something we often take for granted, our
vision. In my book Beyond Carrots best
foods for ihealth A to ZI delve into how crucial it is to be
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Certain eye issues are quite common, such as dry eye and eye
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(20:55):
macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, and glaucoma.
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(21:16):
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That's where my agent sized supplement bundle comes in.
(21:37):
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(22:00):
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(22:21):
degeneration. And remember, taking care of
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(22:43):
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(23:03):
world with clarity and confidence.
Welcome back to the Eye Health Summit, everyone.
Today we're chatting with DoctorRavi Goal, a leading
ophthalmologist based it out of based out of New Jersey, and
we're chatting about different light wavelengths that it may
impact our eyes. Now, Doctor Goal, I wanted to
ask you about, we've talked about sunlight and the various
(23:25):
wavelengths and what it can do to our eyes, but let's talk
about artificial light. Now that most of our world is on
screens, many of us spend 8/10/12 or more hours a day in
front of a screen. We're constantly getting
bombarded by blue light that's coming from our screens.
Tell us more about this blue light.
Is it bad? Is it good?
What are some of the potential consequences of this excessive
(23:46):
blue light exposure? Doctor Ronnick, that is, that is
a great question. I remember when COVID first
started and our practices were closed and then we we slowly
reopened our practices. I saw more and more patients who
had eye strain, dry eye, etcetera.
And because what was happening was everybody was working from
(24:07):
home and all of a sudden they were spending many more hours
working on their computer, working on their iPad, working
on their iPhone, etcetera. So it was causing much more eye
strain. And we would typically get the
question about blue light, blocking glasses, etcetera, blue
light, etcetera. Just to let's just step back and
say when is sunlight helpful? And we know sunlight is helpful
(24:30):
throughout our life for mood etcetera, but we need the
sunlight in the morning, 20-30 minutes, 2-3 days a week to help
with our circadian rhythm. We need sunlight to help us with
vitamin D production, etc. And so that is where sunlight
can be helpful. Now when you talk about like
blue light and blue blocking glasses, etcetera, like I'm
(24:52):
guilty where I will use my, my, my iPad and my iPhone, all my
devices up until the time I go to sleep.
And I think that I got to in terms of melatonin production,
etcetera, the recommendations tolike not be on your systems for
at least an hour or two before you go to sleep.
But in terms of blue light blocking glasses, the science
simply isn't there for me to saythat they have benefit where
(25:13):
people should invest a lot of money to them.
I do think that that for generally, for generally when
patients come to me with these types of symptoms, I say look
20/20/20 every 20 minutes, look 20 feet away for 20 seconds.
That's going to help your eye strain, etcetera.
And it's actually funny because I have family, nieces and
nephews in high school who know about the 20/20/20 rule.
(25:35):
So I think this goes into the whole like the mists of sun
gazing. Is there a huge benefit from sun
gazing? And I'm like, Oh my God.
Like I remember when we had the solar eclipse in 2017, I was
doing research for my blog and Ifound AUS soldier who was it's
there's actually a case report in the from the 1940s who was
sun gazing in the 1940s and he caused damage to his retina
(25:58):
solar retinopathy. So I think that I think that we
have to try to debunk miss if it's part of the I health summit
and the I Health summit, my, my take would be that blue blocking
glasses may not be worth the investment.
I think. I think they're taking frequent
breaks from working, respecting the last hour or two before you
go to sleep. I think that would help your
your sleep cycles with circadianrhythm, etcetera.
(26:19):
And I think that that would be my feedback.
Thank you for those insights. I think debunking myths is very
important and that's one of the reasons why we're talking about
some of these topics on the I Health on the I Health Summit.
To get expert advice. I'm going to share something
with you, a study that I read about blue blockers.
So basically Consumer Reports, which is pretty reputable
(26:41):
company, they have a magazine where they review different
products. So this is pre pandemic.
They reviewed several of the leading blue blockers on the
market and they looked at three of the top selling blue blockers
and what they found was that onewas like a very light yellow
tint and one was a little bit darker yellow, and 1 was really
deep orange, amber and color. So the really lightest one only
(27:01):
blocked about 10 to 20% of the blue light.
The middle one only blocked about 30 to maybe 40% of the
blue light. The deeper 1 blocked the
majority of the blue light. So the truth is, most blue
blockers, this is my take. The most blue blockers on the
market don't really block significant amounts of blue
light, 10 to 30% Max. And most of them are light in
(27:22):
color, but some of them even look clear.
Those clear ones are hardly blocking any of the blue light.
But if you feel like you want toblock blue light, if it's
interfering with your sleep, if you're using devices at night
and can't go to sleep, If you feel like you're having a lot
strain, get the really deeply pigmented blue blockers, the red
ones, the dark orange, the amberones.
What are your thoughts about that doctor goal like?
(27:44):
I mean, I, Doctor Vonnegut, I have to defer to the fellowship
trained neuro ophthalmologist from Johns Hopkins Hospital.
You are the expert on, on, on, on these issues and on quality
life. So I think, yeah, I think the
patients, the nice thing is thatyeah, there there can be a
placebo effect for some of thesedevices.
And I think that some patients swear by them.
And I certainly maybe time will will change our minds on some of
(28:06):
these technologies. But I do agree that I, I think
that if you're going to go in, you should go all in respecting
the safety, etcetera. And I think that I think that
certainly I sleep is so important for 500 days.
I was watching a Ted Talk a day during the pandemic.
I was trying to make myself a little more educated on like
these high yield topics and I got really into the value of
sleep and, and especially for the eyes in terms of in terms of
(28:27):
respecting sleep. And I think that is one of the
great wonders of the world is the value of sleep.
Absolutely. And we can go back and forth
about some of these topics. But the one thing I wanted to
ask you, Doctor, goal is with all this blue light exposure, is
there any evidence that it actually does any permanent
damage to our eyes? Are we hurting ourselves being
on screens for 1012 to 14 hours a day?
(28:50):
I think that I'm not sure about the evidence, but I think that
in terms of eye strain, headaches and that sort of
thing, I think that on a day-to-day basis, I think that
we, we should be cognizant of, you know, of the, the stresses
to the system that can occur from being on our devices.
I know we can go to the sort of like the, the 20 twenties is the
myopia pandemic we have around the world.
These sort of, we want to make sure, I think China, like in
(29:13):
different countries that, that we want to get kids outside for
one or two hours a day to decrease the amount of myopia.
Nearsighted is or nearsighted isover time because we have shown
that nearsighted is where the eye gets longer, it has more,
you can have more, we call morbidity more, more issues
later in life. So I think that I think that I
think that this goes back to what I was saying, going saying
(29:34):
earlier where we want to make sure that folks go outside, go
outside safely and for vitamin Dproduction, for circadian
rhythm, etcetera, especially in younger kids spending an hour or
two outside air per day with UV protection, but still hopefully
decrease the incidence of myopiaover the course of your
lifetime. I think it's very important.
This, and we're not sure. The studies have definitely
shown that's important for kids to be outdoors and playing or
(29:57):
not on screens basically, or notlooking at doing near work for
two hours a day, but we're not yet sure.
Is it the sunlight that's reducing the risk of myopia?
Is it the type of the distance that the child is focusing at
that's making the difference? We don't yet know.
But the general recommendation is get outdoors, do some
physical activity, rest your eyes from screens, and get those
(30:19):
healthy habits started in childhood.
Don't wait until it's too late, until you're very myopic.
And at that point you can't. Like, as Doctor Gaul was saying,
there could be other complications of myopia,
especially high myopia, which isnear sightedness.
This has been such an enlightening conversation.
Doctor Golav enjoyed talking with you and learning from you.
Again, we're dispelling a lot ofmyths here on the ihealth
(30:41):
Summit. Is there one myth or
misconception about our eyes with relation to light that you
would really just love to dispeltoday for our audience?
Well, I want to go back. I think about safety 1st and I
remember when we had the solar eclipse in 2017 and I was
fearful over what the risk was of people gazing the sun
(31:03):
intensely for those for those few moments.
So I think sungazing blue, blocking those sorts of risks I
think I think we typical patients should be mindful of.
But I think going back to my topthree pearls, 1 is sunglasses,
2nd is wearing a nice trimmed hat.
You either can wear this or if you're down in, if you're down
in Mexico or down somewhere else, you can wear a nice good
(31:25):
brimmer hat, especially if you're playing golf.
And the third is the 2020 twentyrule, which I love.
So we think about to the Snellen, the old Snellen visual
cutie chart from the 1860s 2020,which is the letters on the
chart in 9mm for 2020. But 20/20/20, every 20 minutes,
look 20 feet away for 20 seconds.
That'll give you help to relax your eyes, help you to decrease
(31:46):
your your dryness, help to decrease eye strain, and help
you to live a healthier life. Absolutely.
First of all, Doctor Gould, I love your hats.
I love your. Very stylish.
Very stylish. But you know what Doctor Gould
just shared? Those are truly words of gold.
One of the other themes of our Eye Health Summit is an ounce of
prevention is worth a pound of cure.
(32:08):
And when it comes to light exposure, UV exposure, healthy
screens, clean habits, it's really so much better to prevent
issues from happening than to wait until they happen then try
to chase after the consequences,wouldn't you say?
Doctor goal? Like it's 100% frustrating for
us as eye care providers to try to chase after something once
it's already started. So try to prevent it as best as
(32:29):
you can. Absolutely.
Thank you Doctor Gough for sharing your insights with us
and spending some time with us here on the ihealth Summit.
If anyone wanted to learn more from you, perhaps follow your
blog or follow you on social media or even become a patient,
how could they find you? They can go to my professional
website or they can just find me, find me on it's very easy,
(32:50):
protectingsite.com, which is or just my first name, my last
name, md.com. They'll hit one of my they'll
get to my blog and they can theycan follow me and find links to
my practice, etcetera. Wonderful.
We will share all of those linksright below the interview and
please anyone reach out to Doctor Goal.
He is again a wealth of information and so experienced.
So again, thank you for joining us and thank you all for sharing
(33:12):
some time with us on the I Summit and we will see you all
soon for the next interview. So stay tuned.
Thank you. Thank you for tuning in to the
IQ Podcast. I hope you enjoyed today's
episode and learn something new.To help.
You boost your IQ. Leave us a review and share the
podcast with your family and friends.
(33:32):
Stay connected with me for more eye opening insights on ihealth,
nutrition and lifestyle. Until next time, keep your
vision clear and your IQ sharp.
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