Too much light in your bedroom at night could raise your chances of developing type 2 diabetes , a major new study has found. Even dim night-lights during sleep can disrupt the body’s natural daily rhythms, eventually leading to diabetes, a condition where blood sugar levels are poorly regulated. Bright lights before bed-time could also contribute.
While doctors already suspected a link between diabetes and artificial lighting, the new findings are the strongest evidence yet that excess night-time lighting is a real health risk, according to the team behind the study published in The Lancet Regional Health – Europe . Professor Sean Cain at Flinders University in Bedford Park, Australia , said: “This is the largest ever study showing that real-world personal light exposure at night leads to increased diabetes.” The results also suggest ways to lower your diabetes risk – including making your bedroom as dark as possible overnight, and limiting bright lights in the evening.
“It really points to an easy, cost-free way to be healthier,” Professor Cain added. Previous research has also suggested this kind of effect from artificial light, but has been on a smaller scale, or used different methods. One recent such study found that one night of higher light levels could change responses to blood sugar, which might raise diabetes risk – but it didn’t follow them up in the long term to check whether they did develop more diabetes.
In the new study, nearly 85,000 people.
