Get Fit: Using a Smartphone or Tablet Could Make You FAT.
While your cell phone doesn’t cause cancer it may be making you fat.
Results of the US
study show that blue-enriched light exposure, compared with dim light
exposure, was associated with an increase in hunger that began 15
minutes after light onset and was still present almost two hours after
the meal.
Blue light exposure has also already been shown to decreased sleepiness in the evening increasing the risk of insomnia.
Study co-author
Ivy Cheung, of Northwestern University, in Chicago, said: ‘A single
three-hour exposure to blue-enriched light in the evening acutely
impacted hunger and glucose metabolism.
‘These results are important because they
suggest that manipulating environmental light exposure for humans may
represent a novel approach of influencing food intake patterns and
metabolism.’
The findings are published in the science
journal Sleep and were presented today at an annual meeting of the
Associated Professional Sleep Societies in Minneapolis.
The study group comprised 10 healthy
adults with regular sleep and eating schedules who received identical
carbohydrate-rich meals.
They completed a
four-day trial under dim light conditions, which involved exposure to
less than 20 lux during 16 hours awake and less than three lux during
eight hours of sleep.
On day three they
were exposed to three hours of 260 lux, blue-enriched light starting
10.5 hours after waking up, and the effects were compared with dim light
exposure on day two.
Ms Cheung said
more research is needed to determine the mechanisms of action involved
in the relationship between light exposure, hunger and metabolism.
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