Is artificial light making us frail
A new study says that artificial lighting could be making us frail with withering muscles and fragile bones.
Researchers kept mice under a constant light for six months – a technique used by security services around the world. When the mice were examined, they were found to be suffering from muscle loss and early signs of osteoporosis, while their immune system seemed as if it was reacting to an infection.
The bottomline, the academics said, was that the natural cycle of day followed by night matters to animals.
Professor Johanna Meijer, of Leiden University Medical Centre in The Netherlands, who led the research, said, ‘We used to think of light and darkness as harmless or neutral stimuli with respect to health. We now realize this is not the case based on accumulating studies from laboratories all over the world, all pointing in the same direction. Our study showed that the absence of environmental rhythms leads to severe disruption of a wide variety of health parameters.’
However, the mice recovered after they were exposed to natural light, says a study, published in the journal Current Biology.
Professor Meijer said, ‘the good news is that we subsequently showed that these negative effects on health are reversible when the environmental light-dark cycle is restored.’
