Prolonged Staring At Screens Changes Our Eyes

Workers who spend most of their day in front of computer screens experience changes in their tear fluid similar to people suffering from dry eye, according to research carried out by Japanese scientists. The leading author of the study is Yuichi Uchino, who is an ophthalmologist at the School of Medicine at Keio University in Tokyo.

Cells in human eyelids secrete a protein called MUC5AC. It is responsible for the tear film that keeps eyes moist. However, some participants in the study had levels of the protein close to those found in people with dry eye.

The study involved 96 office workers from Japan, with the majority being male employees. The study aimed to measure the levels of MUC5AC in tears and a certain part of the sample was diagnosed with dry eye since they had the symptoms of it. People who spent more than seven hours on a computer per day had an average of 5.9 nanograms of MUC5AC per milligram of protein in each eye. In comparison, people spending less than five hours on screens had 9.6 nanograms. The individuals diagnosed with dry eye had 3.5 nanograms on average, while people without the disease had 8.2 nanograms.

The concentration of MUC5AC levels in tears is key to eye health, in the words of Uchino. Therefore doctors must always take it into consideration, he said.

When people work on computers they tend to blink less often than when reading a book, Uchino told Reuters Health. Moreover, when staring at a screen people usually open their eyelids wider. This results in extra exposure of the surface of the eye and may lead to faster tear evaporation, which is similar to dry eye, Uchino said.

One of the things office workers can do is to decrease the exposed ocular surface by locating the terminal lower and tilting the screen upwards, Uchino suggested.