#New EnChroma glasses reduce red-green colorblindness: study

Seeing the world through rose-colored glasses might not be so bad after all.

Special filters in EnChroma glasses could help red-green colorblindness sufferers see colors better even after they’ve removed them, according to a to a study by the UC Davis Health Eye Center and Inserm’s Stem-Cell and Brain Research Institute of France. The eye-opening study was published in the journal Current Biology.

“I had no idea how colorful the world is,” Alex Zbylut, one of the colorblind study participants who had observed vast improvements in color vision due to the glasses, said in a statement.

The filters work by increasing the separation between color channels, thereby helping those with red-green colorblindness see pigments more vibrantly, clearly and distinctly.

To test out the state-of-the-art spectacles, participants wore either the EnChroma or placebo glasses over two weeks, during which they logged their results in a diary. They were retested on days 2, 4 and 11, but without wearing the special lenses, to determine if they provided residual benefits.

The research found that “extended usage of these glasses boosts chromatic response” in the red-green colorblind participants, said John S. Werner, a professor of ophthalmology at UC Davis Health. Werner noted that this feat can’t be achieved with other filters sold as aids to the colorblind.

“These improvements persisted when tested without the filters, thereby demonstrating an adaptive visual response,” he added.

“When I wear the glasses outside, all the colors are extremely vibrant and saturated, and I can look at trees and clearly tell that each tree has a slightly different shade of green compared to the rest,” said Zbylut. He feels EnChroma glasses “can help colorblind people better navigate color and appreciate the world.”

As promising as the results were, there were some caveats. Not only did the study only include 10 participants, but 2018 research conducted by the University of Granada on 48 color-vision deficiency patients found EnChroma glasses don’t make colorblind people’s vision comparable to that of people without colorblindness.

Currently, colorblindness affects 13 million people in the US and 350 million worldwide.