Nighttime outdoor artificial light may increase type 2 diabetes risk
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Chronic exposure to outdoor artificial light at night was associated with increased glucose levels, HbA1c and insulin resistance, according to study findings published in Diabetologia.
“With the rapid development of urbanization and economics, urban artificial lighting has greatly increased in China,” Ruizhi Zheng, MD, from the department of endocrine and metabolic diseases at Shanghai Institute of Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases, Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine in China, and colleagues wrote. “People living in cities are more prone to being shifted away from nature’s 24 hour day-night rhythm towards a pattern of working around the clock, staying out late and exposure to artificial light at night.”
For the China Noncommunicable Disease Surveillance Study, researchers evaluated data from 98,658 adults (mean age, 42.7 years; 49.2% women) who were living at their current residence for at least 6 months across mainland China in 2010. Researchers assessed the association between exposure to outdoor light at night, estimated from satellite data, with markers of glucose homeostasis and diabetes determined from blood samples.
Researchers found that exposure to outdoor light at night was positively associated with HbA1c, fasting and 2-hour glucose concentrations and with Homeostatic Model Assessment for Insulin Resistance. However, exposure to outdoor light at night was negatively associated with Homeostatic Model Assessment of beta-cell function.
In addition, researchers observed a significant association between diabetes prevalence and per-quintile light at night exposure (Prevalence Ratio = 1.07; 95% CI, 1.02-1.12). The median light intensity in the highest outdoor light at night exposure quintile was 69 times greater than the lowest quintile (69.1 vs. 1.0 nW cm—2 sr—1).
“Our findings contribute to the growing literature suggesting that light at night is detrimental to health and demonstrate that light at night may be a potential novel risk factor for diabetes,” the researchers wrote. “However, we advise caution against causal interpretation of the findings and call for further studies involving direct measurement of individual exposure to light at night.”
Reference:
- New study reveals that exposure to outdoor artificial light at night is associated with an increased risk of diabetes. Published Nov. 14, 2022. Accessed Nov. 14, 2022.
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Zheng R, et al. Diabetologia. 2022;doi:10.1007/s00125-022-05819-x.
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