‘Light at night can trigger cancer’

The study is the first to show that even short-term exposure to bright artificial light in dark can be linked to an increased risk of cancer,the Daily Mail reported.

“People waking at night would be best advised not to turn on the light,” Rachel Ben-Shlomo of the University of Haifa said in the journal Cancer Genetics and Cytogenetics.

Ben-Shlomo said: “We believe that any turning on of artificial light in the night has an impact on the body clock. It’s a very sensitive mechanism.

“If you want to get up to go to the toilet,you should avoid reaching for the light switch. There are some plug-in lights that just glow,that are safe and you could use them as an alternative,” she advised.

For the research,the team of scientists studied the effect of short-term exposure to artificial light in dark on mice.

During the trial,a group of mice were exposed to a light for one hour. When compared with mice who were kept in the dark,the team observed changes in brain cells responsible for the circadian clock that controls body function.

“These latest findings are preliminary research and we are now looking into this area in more detail,” the researcher added.

Earlier researches have shown that those people who worked in night shifts and were exposed to bright artificial light for long term had an increased risk of breast cancer and prostate cancer.