Feature • Health • Sci - Tech
Smartphone’s Bright Light Messes Your Metabolism
Eshan Maitra
Sunshine! Direct sun-beam sends signal to the brain that, it is time to wake up. In the same manner, when you reach out for checking that WhatsApp reply in your bed, in the dark, the direct bright LED light from your smartphone does the about the same thing. Shockingly the recent study proved it not only ruins the brain’s sleep mode (making your sleep deprived) but also can make you FAT!
Simply what is does is that, the bright light confuses up your day-night cycle, such as circadian rhythm. Which is totally connected to your metabolism and how your body functions (Yes, your body has Day/Night mode, even more than that). “These results provide further evidence that bright light exposure may influence metabolism,” said lead researcher Kathryn Reid from Northwestern University in Illinois.
The primary goal of the researching team was to identify how blue-enriched light or blue health may affect our health. Computer and smartphone screens are most popular source for this. After testing with the lab rats, they finally decided to take on 19 healthy volunteers in a controlled environment for four days. First two days they mostly spent days in dim light. On the rest two days, they were divided into groups. Of whom, one group was exposed to such bright lights before the midday and the other over near evening time.
Their result greatly showed variance between two teams. That, exposure to such light after the midday for a good amount of time, slowed down their insulin response in bloodstream; sometimes to halt. Causing them to stop breaking glucose. Rather most of the carbs were getting stored as fat. Which is a clear evidence of what Cheung saying in their journal on ‘PLOS ONE’,” The results of this study emphasize that our lighting environment impacts our health outcomes.”