Exposure To Green Light Reduces Severity Of Migraine Pain

First Posted: May 30, 2016 04:57 AM EDT
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Researchers from Harvard Medical School come up with findings that low-intensity green light can considerably reduce migraine pain.

A migraine is really painful just like a sinus headache and tension headache. Its symptoms include vomiting, a pounding headache, nausea and light sensitivity. Many people all around the world suffer from a migraine.

Medical Daily reports that the study was published in the journal Brain. The study involved 69 migraine patients. The researchers exposed them to various wavelengths of light that include red, green, blue and amber in a pair of color-tinted glasses. They asked the participants to report any changes when shown the various colors.

The researchers also gauged the electrical signals produced by the retina, which is the light-sensitive layer of eye tissue, to the brain in order to see if there were changes in action based on each color.

The outcome showed that the green light produced the smallest amount of electrical signals in both the retina and the brain. This indicates that there was less stimulation. The participants said that the low-intensity green light eased their migraine pains by 20 percent. Meanwhile, the other colors heightened the patients' migraine pains.

Rami Burstein, a professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School said that they were surprised to see that blue light was no more painful than red or amber or white. He added that they were all painful. He also said that it is their inability to bear light that most often immobilizes them.

He is hoping that patients will be able to benefit from the findings of the study one day very soon. Burstein in now finding a way to create a low-cost light bulb that can discharge "pure" green light at low intensity. He is also trying to invent sunglasses that block all yet this narrow band of pure green light, according to BioTechin.Asia.

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