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Performance-Enhancing Contact Lenses?

With the controversy over performance-enhancing drugs quieted for now, a new performance-enhancing substance is hitting the baseball field—contact lenses. And with both kids and adults seeking an athletic edge, the question is: will these new lenses be the safe and legal advantage they are looking for?

Developed by Nike, the new high-tech contact lenses are designed to give both amateur and professional athletes an enhanced view of their playing field. The tinted, soft contacts, called MaxSight, filter out 95 percent of UV light, and highlight the objects an athlete most needs to see.

Older color contacts merely change the color of the eye, but MaxSight is among the first contacts to have a UV-protective tint covering its entire surface, shielding the entire pupil and iris from sun damage. While contacts do leave the white of the eye exposed, a region less prone to damage, sunglasses can’t even claim to protect your entire eye, as light can enter through the top and sides of glasses.

The amber lens used for fast-moving sports blocks out the “visual noise” surrounding a ball, highlighting the red seams of a baseball and giving hitters and fielders a better view of their target. If a slower-moving game like golf is more your speed, the gray-green lenses help to highlight the various shades of green in a course and eliminate glare.

Baseball players, such as Brian Roberts of the Baltimore Orioles and Ken Griffey Jr. of the Cincinnati Reds, have been spotted with the lenses’ distinctive amber ring in their eye during batting practice and spring training. Roberts has even begun to use the lenses during day games.

The question of how much these lenses improve one’s game lingers.

Roberts, the only professional athlete consistently using them, has improved upon his .273 batting average from last season to be on pace to hit .358 the year, almost the equivalent of an extra hit for every 10 at-bats. Remember, however, that these lenses were developed to be used in daylight, and most baseball games are played at night. (A night-time version is in development.) But while no one can determine how much of this improvement is the result of the lenses, athletic growth, pure luck or any of a list of potential causes, Roberts seems to be convinced of the tinted-lenses’ power.

Abby Wambach tries on the MaxSight contact lenses. (Credit: Nike, Inc)

“It has been a lot of fun to start the season this hot,” said Roberts in a Nike press release. In his first game with the new lenses playing against the Yankees, he got on base twice with four at-bats. “They are so awesome,” he said of MaxSight.

But until these super-lenses become available to the public in August, one wonders if the weekend warriors will like what they see.

“Most people don’t care so much about the UV stuff,” said Robert Cykert, MD, professor of ophthalmology at New York University Medical Center. “I have a feeling that it is going to be sold more for the tint aspect.”

For those who don’t like to wear sunglasses, MaxSight’s tint should help prevent squinting and eye strain, allowing one to relax more easily on the field or golf course. And since they act like sunglasses, the contacts will help to prevent macular degeneration and cataracts, which are caused by UV damage. Additionally, contacts naturally prevent the sweating and fogging that sunglasses can cause, not to mention preventing the visual distortion created by a plastic or glass lens.

“These lenses are OK for participation in activities where sunglasses are cumbersome,” said Dr. Cykert. “But if you live where there is constant sunlight, sunglasses will better protect your eye.”

The tinted lenses will cost about the same as a pair of normal contact lenses and need to be replaced about once a month. They are available with or without vision correction, so a current contact-lens wearer may have little to lose by trying them out. Younger users will, no doubt, be turned on simply by the raging-bull-like red tint they give to the eye.

“It makes the eye look distinct,” says Alan Reichow, an eye doctor and Nike Vision Consultant, “It looks competitive.”