Sleeping with TV, lights on increases risk of diabetes

A new study published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes [EASD]) has found that having artificial lighting when going to bed could lead to diabetes.

A study involving 100,000 Chinese adults found that people who lived in areas of China with high light pollution at night were about 28 percent more likely to develop diabetes than people who lived in the least light polluted areas.

Yep, that is a huge 28%.

This also extends to having your TV, laptop or lights on when you go to sleep.

Why all this matters.

Humans have a rhythm for sleep. It is called a circadian rhythm which is reset every 24 hours based on lightness and darkness.

In people who are exposed to artificial lights all the time, their body’s glucose level starts increasing without eating anything. This reduces the activity of beta cells in our body. Due to the activation of this cell, insulin hormone is released from the pancreas.

And that is where the problem lies.

So what to do.

You will want to make sure you sleep in a room dark as possible. If you do not have a separate room from your TV, then you switch those off. Switch off your laptop and also, yes, keep your phone as far from yourself as possible.

If you can afford, where there are streetlights outside, invest in dark curtains which black out the room.

In Zimbabwe, one in 10 people have diabetes.