Even dim light can disrupt sleep, increasing the risk of serious health problems in seniors, according to a new study published this week in the United States.
“Exposure to any amount of light during sleep was correlated with a higher prevalence of diabetes, obesity and hypertension in both older men and women,” he told the BBC. CNN the study’s senior author, Dr. Phyllis Zee, chair of sleep medicine at Northwestern Feinberg University in Chicago.
“People should do their best to avoid or minimize the amount of light they are exposed to while sleeping,” he added.
Another search published earlier this year, also by Dr. Zee and his team, already examined the role of light in sleep for healthy adults in their 20s. Sleeping just one night with dim light, such as a television on with the sound on mute, raised the young people’s blood glucose and heart rate during the sleep lab experiment.
Elevated heart rate is cited in previous studies as a risk factor for future cardiovascular disease and early death. Higher blood glucose levels are a sign of insulin resistance, which can lead to type two diabetes.
According to the researcher, the dim light entered the eyelids and interrupted the young people’s sleep, despite the participants sleeping with their eyes closed. Even the tiniest sliver of light created a deficit in slow waves and rapid eye movement, the phases of sleep in which most cell turnover occurs.
in the elderly
The new study by the same group, published on Wednesday (22) in scientific journal “Sleep”focused on older adults who “already have a higher risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease,” explained Dr.
“We wanted to see if there was a difference in the frequencies of these diseases related to light exposure at night,” Kim said.
Rather than putting participants in a sleep lab, the new study used a real-world setting. The researchers gave 552 men and women between the ages of 63 and 84 an actigraph, a small wristwatch device that measures sleep cycles, average movement and light exposure.
“We measure the amount of light the person is exposed to with a sensor on their body and compare it to their sleep and waking activity over a 24-hour period,” Zee detailed. “What I think is different and remarkable about our study is that we have objective data with this method.”
Zee and his team said they were surprised to find that less than half of the men and women in the study consistently slept in darkness for at least five hours a day.
“More than 53% had some type of light at night in the bedroom,” said the researcher. “In a secondary analysis, we found that those who had the highest amounts of light at night were also the most likely to have diabetes, obesity or hypertension.”
In addition, people who slept with higher levels of light were more likely to go to bed later and get up later, and “we know that people who sleep late tend to also have a higher risk for cardiovascular and metabolic disorders.” .
What to do
Strategies to reduce light levels at night include positioning the bed away from windows or using blackout drapes. It is also important not to bring laptops, tablets and cell phones into the bedroom, as light affects the production of melatonin and consequently disturbs sleep. If low light levels persist, a sleep mask (such as those distributed on airplanes) can help.
Another tip: if you have to get up at night, don’t turn on the lights unnecessarily. If necessary, keep the environment as dark as possible, lit only for brief periods.
The researcher explains that elderly people often need to get up at night to go to the bathroom, due to health conditions or the effects of medication, so advising them to walk in the dark is not always possible due to the risk of falling.
In this case, a good option might be to use night lights positioned very low to the ground, in addition to choosing lights with an amber or red color. This spectrum of light has a longer wavelength, and is less intrusive and disruptive to our circadian rhythm, or body clock, than shorter wavelengths like blue light.
Source: CNN Brasil
