Colored Lenses May Improve Seasonal Disorder
Doctor Uses Special Glasses To Treat Winter Depression
UPDATED: 3:17 p.m. EST February 9, 2004
NEW YORK -- Seasonal affective disorder goes beyond the "winter blahs." The condition is a type of depression that follows seasons -- and the most common type occurs between late fall and summer.
Carol Resnick suffers from seasonal depression and says that daylight makes her manic.
"When I get high, I talk fast, and walk fast, and drop things a lot and sometimes do things I regret," she said.
But blue-green tinted eyeglasses were all it took to help Resnick function.
"I wear my glasses, and it helps me stay calm and stay focused, and not speak too fast, or walk too fast, or make foolish choices," she said.
Peter Esposito has been in and out of hospitals because of schizophrenia. He could barely speak until he started -- literally -- looking at the world through rose-colored glasses.
Light affects brain chemistry and can cause many psychiatric conditions, according to Dr. Peter Mueller.
Daylight is made up of the different colors in the rainbow. Each color in the spectrum represents a specific wavelength of light.
Some of these colors or wavelengths can affect how you think or feel, Mueller said.
That is where tinted glasses come in. Blocking out certain wavelengths of light with tinted glasses can help many patients, according to Mueller.
"With the blue-green glasses, a good maybe 80 to 90 percent" of patients respond to the treatment, Mueller said. "The red and yellow [are] more variable, but I would say at least 50 percent or more."
That may sound wacky, but Dr. Orrin Devinsky doesn't rule out the possibility.
"Dr. Mueller's hypothesis and his thinking are very much worth taking seriously," said Devinsky, who is the director of New York University Medical Center's comprehensive epilepsy center.
"It is a novel hypothesis," Devinsky said. "He may be overly enthusiastic about the number of people who respond."
Devinsky stressed that there is no proof that tinted glasses can treat seasonal disorders, but he believes it to be worthy of further research.
"If there is promise that certain lenses filtering certain frequencies of light can be beneficial, it would be a wonderful therapy for people and certainly worth pursuing," he said.
"When I get high, I talk fast, and walk fast, and drop things a lot and sometimes do things I regret," she said.
But blue-green tinted eyeglasses were all it took to help Resnick function.
"I wear my glasses, and it helps me stay calm and stay focused, and not speak too fast, or walk too fast, or make foolish choices," she said.
Peter Esposito has been in and out of hospitals because of schizophrenia. He could barely speak until he started -- literally -- looking at the world through rose-colored glasses.
Light affects brain chemistry and can cause many psychiatric conditions, according to Dr. Peter Mueller.
Daylight is made up of the different colors in the rainbow. Each color in the spectrum represents a specific wavelength of light.
Some of these colors or wavelengths can affect how you think or feel, Mueller said.
That is where tinted glasses come in. Blocking out certain wavelengths of light with tinted glasses can help many patients, according to Mueller.
"With the blue-green glasses, a good maybe 80 to 90 percent" of patients respond to the treatment, Mueller said. "The red and yellow [are] more variable, but I would say at least 50 percent or more."
That may sound wacky, but Dr. Orrin Devinsky doesn't rule out the possibility.
"Dr. Mueller's hypothesis and his thinking are very much worth taking seriously," said Devinsky, who is the director of New York University Medical Center's comprehensive epilepsy center.
"It is a novel hypothesis," Devinsky said. "He may be overly enthusiastic about the number of people who respond."
Devinsky stressed that there is no proof that tinted glasses can treat seasonal disorders, but he believes it to be worthy of further research.
"If there is promise that certain lenses filtering certain frequencies of light can be beneficial, it would be a wonderful therapy for people and certainly worth pursuing," he said.
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