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High-tec specs to banish winter blues

Sleep disorders, jet lag and seasonal affective disorder (SAD) could soon be treated with a simple drug-free appliance - a pair of glasses.

The high-tech specs use fibre optic light therapy to stimulate sensors in the brain that affect our sleep.

Worn at specific times of the day, they help to regulate the body's internal clock to promote and restore normal sleep patterns by beaming light directly into the eye.

By replicating the effects of sunlight in this way, the glasses have the potential to alleviate winter depression.

Somnavue products are in the final stages of development by the U.S. company Enlightened Technologies Associates, Inc (ETA) and could be on the market late next year.

The company, soon to have a European base in the UK, says the technology could replace the need for sleeping pills and anti-depressants.

The remarkable spectacles, that look like an ordinary pair of glasses, are fitted with fibre optics embedded into the lenses and light emitting diodes (LEDs) secreted in the frames.

Each fibre is coated with a reflective material. When light from the diodes in the frames is projected down the fibres, it bounces off the reflective coating and into the eye and on to a part of the retina that deals specifically with the body clock.

Signals transmitted through the optic nerve to the brain from the retina then stimulate the sensors that regulate sleep.

Dr Neil Goldman of ETA explains: 'In the eye we have photo receptors that we use for vision. However, in the past couple of years we have found that there are other light receptors in the retina whose sole function appears to be in regulating the body clock.

'We try to illuminate these areas and not those involved with vision.'

The light from the LEDs is powered by a set of rechargeable batteries contained in a Walkman-sized box worn on a belt or in a pocket. A thin wire from the battery pack runs to the earpiece of the glasses.

Any type of prescription lenses can incorporate the high-tech device which may be worn for several hours a day, depending on the problem, without interfering with normal vision.

Since the discovery of the body clock back in the early Seventies, scientists have been trying to understand its influence on the brain and the rest of the body. One of its main functions is to set the time for sleep.

A condition known as Advanced Sleep Phase Disorder, that typically affects the over 65s, interferes with the body's time clock, causing night-time insomnia.

Sufferers feel the need to go to sleep earlier than normal but then wake in the early hours and have difficulty getting back off again.

Using light treatment for two hours before bedtime has the effect of shifting the body clock back to its normal sleep pattern.

Similarly with jet lag. Somnavue worn en-route or the day after a trip seems to re-set the clock.

A new study at the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health is looking into the benefits of Somnavue for sufferers of SAD.

Dr Goldman says the treatment tricks the brain into seeing the day as longer than it is. He says: 'We advise about an hour of light therapy as soon as people get up.

'After using the treatment for about three weeks, a large number of sufferers found they were in remission - not just feeling better.'

Unlike light box therapy, where people have to sit still and stare at the light, users of Somnavue simply slip on the glasses and wear them about the house.