Pre-diabetes study finds benefit in brighter days and dimmer evenings

[Northerner]

Boosting exposure to bright light during the daytime and dimming the lights in the evening could help to improve blood sugar control in people with pre-diabetes, data suggests.

Light plays a key role in synchronising the body’s internal or circadian clock – which controls the timing of multiple biological processes – to the 24-hour day-night cycle.

Previous research has suggested exposure to light at night can disrupt these rhythms, while working night shifts has been associated with a greater risk of obesity, cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. There is also evidence that being exposed to too little light during the daytime may disrupt the rhythms, resulting in poorer sleep.

To investigate how light exposure affects people’s metabolism, Jan-Frieder Harmsen and Prof Patrick Schrauwen, of Maastricht University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, and colleagues brought 14 overweight individuals with pre-diabetes into specially designed respiration chambers – airtight cabins that can measure people’s energy expenditure using various sensors – for two 40-hour sessions.

Pre-diabetes study finds benefit in brighter days and dimmer evenings

Increased light exposure during daytime is shown to help improve blood sugar control

www.theguardian.com

 

[Deleted member 21371]

I had jobs with rotating 12 hour shifts, ones where days ran into nights and days again, my clock was completely messed up.
It has got better after I retired and started to live a normal day/night pattern.

 

[mikeyB]

It’s long been known that shift workers who rotate through nights and days are more likely to develop T2 diabetes. And develop heart disease. It’s nothing to do with sunlight directly, it’s the disruption of the circadian rhythm. So it’s not the exposure to sunlight, it’s the sleep pattern. And it takes more than a week or two to recover from working nights. The cumulative effect of those working conditions will make you feel unwell mentally and physically. Two weeks without sleep can kill you.