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fluorescent lights and health effects?

rockyroad

Unregistered
R
my poor Google skills have failed me - so I turn to the experts.

A co-worker is claiming the flourescent lighting in her office (which has no windows) is making her ill. Not the general flickering or buzzing noise (which I also find annoying - though not health threatening) - but the actual light itself. Nothing specific for symptoms, general fatique, slight depression, trouble concentrating in general, more susceptible to flu/colds etc. etc.

She wants the lighting all replaced, not at her expense of course. Anyone have any sources which might support her contentions or suggest she is imagining this (which is a bit what it seems like - she does have a bit of a history for tending to err towards the woo-woo side on health and other issues).

Any help is much appreciated.
 
Hm. I dunno if there have been any studies on this. I reckon that interior offices with no access to natural daylight are pretty depressing places anyway. Whether the actual light from a flourescent tube has any harmful effect I don't know. I wouldn't have thought so, but then I'm ALWAYS prepared to be wrong.
It may be the artificial lighting is too similar to winter light. I do know that when the days are short, the cloud low, and the light is weak - I feel like ◊◊◊◊! This is very subjective, but I suspect your answer may be in there somewhere! Let us know if you find out. Good luck!
 
There's nothing magical about fluorescent lighting that can cause poor health, it's just an incomplete spectrum of visible light. However, it can also visibly flicker if used with magnetic ballasts (although that flicker may be mostly noticeable when viewed with periferal vision) and a poor color-rendering index can make things look "bad." Fluorescent lights can cause headaches from those types of things, but there's nothing special about it that could (or does, demonstrably) cause a loss of immune response or anything like that.
 
garys_2k said:
There's nothing magical about fluorescent lighting that can cause poor health, it's just an incomplete spectrum of visible light. However, it can also visibly flicker if used with magnetic ballasts (although that flicker may be mostly noticeable when viewed with periferal vision) and a poor color-rendering index can make things look "bad." Fluorescent lights can cause headaches from those types of things, but there's nothing special about it that could (or does, demonstrably) cause a loss of immune response or anything like that.
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that's pretty much what I thought as well. I'm not fond of them myself for these reasons, but that's a long way from the kind of problems she seems to blame them for.
 
Do a search in PubMed. Click on "Limits" under the search box. Underneath where it says "Limited to:," change it from "All fields" to "MeSH Terms" In the search text box put "Lighting/adverse effects." You'll get a bunch of hits (not all relevant), including this one. Unless your coworker is a "Salmonella tester strain," I don't think there's much to worry about. Of course you might want to price out Philips bulbs. ;)

Photochem Photobiol 1995 Apr;61(4):353-9 Related Articles, Links

Reversion profiles of coolwhite fluorescent light compared with far ultraviolet light: homologies and differences.

Cebula TA, Henrikson EN, Hartman PE, Biggley WH.

Molecular Biology Branch (HFS-235), CFSAN, FDA, Washington, DC 20204, USA.

General Electric and Sylvania 15 W coolwhite fluorescent lamps emit roughly 6% of their total irradiance as light in the UV spectrum. Illumination of sensitive Salmonella tester strains results in both lethal and mutagenic activities. In contrast, comparable Philips lamps emit lower levels of UV light, especially UVB, and exhibit no detectable lethal or mutagenic effects. The spectra of mutations induced by General Electric coolwhite lamps in histidine-requiring base substitution mutants hisG46 and hisG428 ("reversion profiles") resemble mutagenesis by far UV light (UVC) and differ quite markedly from the spectra of mutations that occur spontaneously. Coolwhite and UVC reversion profiles are not identical, however. The percentage of C to A transversion mutations induced in hisG46 are elevated over those found after UVC treatment, and a strong bias for one particular class of tandem base substitutions (TAA-->TGT) prevails after treatment of hisG428 with coolwhite light, a bias not observed with UVC. Increased attention needs to be given to minimization of exposure to UV light from fluorescent lamps commonly used in homes and workplaces.
 
thanks for that
I'm fairly certain she is not a Salmonella tester strain, although on some of her bad days there is a resemblance!
But an interesting study none-the-less.

I really am not seeking to call her on this - she is obviously very unhappy and the symptoms, though I'm pretty sure mostly or entirely stress-related, seem real enough. It was more just to assure myself that there was unlikely to be something to her claims.
 
Maybe the fluorescent light per se isn't making her sick, maybe it's a lack of full spectrum light; perhaps she has Seasonal Affective Disorder. Someone could buy here a $10 incandescent desk lamp and tell her to shut up and get outside once in a while.
 
rockyroad said:


sorry - haven't seen it and unlikely to; want to explain?
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Joe, played by Tom Hanks, claims all sorts of illness and fatigue in the beginning of the movie. He works in a pooly-lit (by fluorescents, and the lighting is played up in the movie) cubicle-entrenched office. His company's doctor, played by Robert Stack, tells him that he has developed an incurable "brain cloud".

Basically, he was just depressed. The bit about the lighting causing illness just made me immediately think of that movie.
 
flickering lights

If it's visibly flickering, even a little, it can really bother someone with depression, and can be dangerous for certain types of epilepsy. But, I've heard that its usually just really annoying from my friend that suffers from seasonal depression.

But, at my school they sprung for some smaller Ott lights for the computer users. It's a nicer light. Maybe she should take up smoking and then she would have to go outside every so often to smoke and would get some nice sunlight.
 
I recall a library where the combination of fluorescent flicker, near-subsonic air fan hum and turgid reading was guaranteed to put one student in four to sleep inside twenty minutes. No question that a well aired, brightly lit room is more comfortable to work in.
Some folk will feel the effects worse than others. Some of those will ascribe it to the wrong cause.
I agree with the suggestion that she gets a good tungsten anglepoise lamp for her desk. That may be all she needs.
 
Actually, she had brought in both a floor and desk tungston lamp recently and uses these. Too early to say if they make any difference. My personal opinion is that they won't, unless there is a strong placebo effect perhaps. I haven't mentioned she has a husband she barely talks to (but will probably never divorce), two kids entering their teenage years who she dotes on and of course who are starting to rebel a bit, etc. etc. Thus I think changing her lighting is hardly going to do it!!

P.S. I have an office with one long wall of floor to ceiling windows and lots of natural light (I frequently don't turn on my interior lights). I could of course offer to trade offices with her; let me think about that... millisecond one... millisecond two - ok - done now; ain't happening :p
 
Of course, if the lights have electronic ballasts you can rule out any "flicker factor." Those operate at about 30 kHz specifically to kill any flicker (thereby increasing their energy efficiency by having a greater "light on" duty cycle with reduced current flow).
 
Soapy Sam said:
Gary- are those the ones with the buzz of death??;)
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Nope. The buzzy ones are magnetic, you're hearing the core iron rattling as it handles the flux. Electronic ones contain an inverter and high frequency oscillator that works well past our hearing range. Maybe fido could be bothered by one, but since there are no magnetic parts inside they should be quiet.
 
An additional problem could be Sick Building Syndrome. Buildings are full of plastics, paints, treated woods, etc. that outgas after installation. With poor air exchange with the outside the vapors/gases can build up. Most people are robust enough to handle the concentrations but some may show symptoms at a lower threshold. Coupled with poor lighting and no exterior view, this may all relate to her problem; course changing the lighting won't help.

You can tell her that I work in the US Navy serving shipboard. Alomost all of my day is (12-20hrs underway) spent indoors with no view of the outside and only cheap flourescent lighting and I know of no colleague who has become ill because of it.
 
Has anyone here tried those compact fluorescents yet? I have a handful of them in my home, and the experience so far has been generally good.

It seems to give the same quality light, though it takes a few seconds to start, and about half a minute to get to full brightness.

On the up side, I haven't had to replace the lights since I installed them months and months ago.

If you get them, be careful how they fit.. they can tend to protrude over lampshades if they are the wrong size.

Regarding Joe Vs. The Volcano... LOVED it! Though I was curious about the lights... something about sucking the nutrients out of him? Wasn't there also a claim about fluorescent light affecting milk?
 
I use CFs in some outdoor dusk-to-dawn lights. Good service life (years), but a definite decrease in light output in colder weather. In the summer the spiders and moths seem to like them just fine, no evidence of undue insect or arachnid illness or depression. :)
 
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