Review and Special ArticlesAdverse Health Effects of Nighttime Lighting: Comments on American Medical Association Policy Statement
Section snippets
Electric Lighting in the Modern World
The American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates in June of 2012 adopted a policy statement on nighttime lighting and human health.1 The Executive Summary states:
Biological adaptation to the sun has evolved over billions of years. The power to artificially override the natural cycle of light and dark is a recent event and represents a man-made self-experiment on the effects of exposure to increasingly bright light during the night as human societies acquire technology and expand
Recommendations
There are specific recommendations that come from the emerging recognition of the importance of maintaining robust circadian rhythmicity in our daily lives.
The conclusion of the Executive Summary1 is as follows:
Due to the nearly ubiquitous exposure to light at inappropriate times relative to endogenous circadian rhythms, a need exists for further multidisciplinary research on occupational and environmental exposure to light-at-night, the risk of cancer, and effects on various chronic diseases.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported in part by The Institute for Integrative Health (GCB) and in part by grant 1R21CA129875 from the National Cancer Institute to DEB. This work was also supported by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute through grant NASA NCC 9-58 to GCB and SWL. The authors appreciate the support and advice of the Council of Science and Public Health of the American Medical Association.
No financial disclosures were reported by the authors of this paper.
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