According to a massive study of around 89,000 people, the more light a person is exposed to at night, the higher their risk of heart disease. The study looked at 13 million hours of personal light exposure data to see how it affects the body’s circadian rhythms and discovered that it is a significant risk factor for developing five major cardiovascular diseases.

A body’s circadian rhythms help govern essential bodily functions. They create the pattern your body follows during a 24-hour day, i.e. its internal clock. Any disruption of one’s circadian rhythms can affect things like hormones, digestion and body temperature.

Researchers from the Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute have now learned that exposure to light at night, which can disrupt a body’s circadian rhythms, can cause significantly higher risks of developing coronary artery disease, heart attack, heart failure, irregular heartbeat, and stroke.

In their research paper, published on the pre-print server medRxiv, using data captured from wrist-worn light sensors which captured any natural or artificial light from a person’s environment, including light coming from phones, the researchers “observed higher risk of mortality by cardiometabolic causes” in people that were exposed to light at night.

They also found that a person’s body continues to be affected by artificial light after it has been turned off and that even a short exposure at night can affect circadian rhythms. These disruptions to circadian rhythms can also increase the risk of type 2 diabetes, a leading cause of heart disease.

“This is the first study of personal light exposure patterns and incident cardiovascular diseases, establishing night light as an important new risk factor,” the study’s authors wrote. “Our findings demonstrate that, in addition to current recommendations, avoiding night light may be a promising approach for preventing cardiovascular diseases.”

Study co-author Daniel Windred at Flinders University, told New Scientist, “Choose an interval of time when you are usually asleep and protect the darkness of this interval each night. If you get up during the night, use dim, warm lighting, and avoid turning on bright overhead lights.”

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