Health & Medicine
LED Lighting at Night Causes Adverse Effects
Brooke Miller
First Posted: Sep 11, 2012 07:03 AM EDT
A new study focuses on the dangers and harm caused by night time artificial lighting. It projects how the short wavelength illumination of LED lighting, which we have come to know as the 'eco friendly illumination', causes major harm.
"The most important thing for us is to raise awareness of the dangers of artificial light at night and we have already come a long way now that the American Medical Association (AMA) recently announced its new policy recognizing adverse health effects of exposure to light at night and encouraging further research into the matter," said professor Abraham Haim, a leading authority on light pollution, who coordinated the 21st International Congress of Zoology (ICZ) that was held last week at the University of Haifa, Israel.
In order to prove the hypothesis that exposure to LED causing adverse effects, Haim conducted a study among the blind mole rat and seeing rats. They both showed varying levels of damage to their metabolic rates, hormone production, body mass, and oxygen consumption following exposure to LAN, plus suppressed levels of melatonin production, which is responsible for tumor growth.
"We expect to find similar results of damage from human exposure to LED lighting," Haim concluded, pointing out that "Western youngsters are typically surrounded by this sort of lighting in the confines of their own bedroom: from the smartphone, computer screen, and television."
"Street lights in populated areas are responsible for 60 percent of LAN pollution, which is intensified under cloudy conditions when the light is reflected back down to the ground," said Dr. Franz Hölker of the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Germany.
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First Posted: Sep 11, 2012 07:03 AM EDT
A new study focuses on the dangers and harm caused by night time artificial lighting. It projects how the short wavelength illumination of LED lighting, which we have come to know as the 'eco friendly illumination', causes major harm.
"The most important thing for us is to raise awareness of the dangers of artificial light at night and we have already come a long way now that the American Medical Association (AMA) recently announced its new policy recognizing adverse health effects of exposure to light at night and encouraging further research into the matter," said professor Abraham Haim, a leading authority on light pollution, who coordinated the 21st International Congress of Zoology (ICZ) that was held last week at the University of Haifa, Israel.
In order to prove the hypothesis that exposure to LED causing adverse effects, Haim conducted a study among the blind mole rat and seeing rats. They both showed varying levels of damage to their metabolic rates, hormone production, body mass, and oxygen consumption following exposure to LAN, plus suppressed levels of melatonin production, which is responsible for tumor growth.
"We expect to find similar results of damage from human exposure to LED lighting," Haim concluded, pointing out that "Western youngsters are typically surrounded by this sort of lighting in the confines of their own bedroom: from the smartphone, computer screen, and television."
"Street lights in populated areas are responsible for 60 percent of LAN pollution, which is intensified under cloudy conditions when the light is reflected back down to the ground," said Dr. Franz Hölker of the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Germany.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone