IS THAT NIGHT LIGHT KILLING YOU? We’ve known for some time that shift works are at higher risks of certain types of cancer, and that “light maps” of the US show correlations with breast cancer is the more highly lit regions of the country.
This study starts to shed some light on potential mechanisms. Many have postulated that the hormone melatonin, which is known to have very strong antioxidant properties, may be at work.
This study, however, looked at the effect of one hour of night time light exposure on mice’s cell division and found that normal cell division was affected. By no means is this the end of the story, but it adds further concern to those who work graveyards or stay up into the wee hours of the night reading my FB posts…