According to a recent Northwestern Medicine study, pregnant women should dim their home lights and turn off their screens (computer monitors and smartphones) a few hours before bedtime to lower their risk of gestational diabetes. Needed In a multi-site trial, women who had been diagnosed with gestational diabetes were exposed to more light for three hours before bedtime. Compared to individuals who did not achieve this, they did not differ in their levels of exercise, sleep or daily light exposure. ,” said lead study author Dr. Minji Kim, assistant professor of neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a Northwestern Medicine neurologist.
Growing evidence suggests that exposure to light at night before bedtime may be associated with impaired glucose regulation in non-pregnant adults. However, little is known about the effect of evening light exposure during pregnancy on the risk of developing gestational diabetes, a common pregnancy complication with significant health implications for both mother and offspring. This is believed to be one of the first multi-site studies to examine exposure to light before bedtime on the risk of developing gestational diabetes. Gestational diabetes is on the rise in the US and globally. About 4.5 percent of first-time pregnant women with a baby born between 2011 and 2013 developed gestational diabetes, rising to an average of 3.4 percent per three-year period through 2019. Gestational diabetes rate in 2020 was 7.8 percent of all births in the US
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“This is worrying,” Kim said, “as gestational diabetes is known to increase obstetric complications, and puts the mother at risk for diabetes, heart disease, and dementia. more likely.” Kim said data show that women who have gestational diabetes are about 10 times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than women who don’t have glucose problems during pregnancy. Bright light can come from devices such as TVs, computers and smartphones. “We are not aware of the potential harm of keeping the environment bright from the time we wake up until we go to bed,” Kim said Think,” said Kim, “but it should be fairly dim for several hours before you go to bed. We probably don’t need that much light for what we regularly do in the evening.” Scientists don’t know which source of bright light causes the problem, Kim said, but it could all add up. Is.
“Try to reduce whatever light is in your environment in those three hours before you go to bed,” says Kim, adding that it’s best not to use your computer or phone during this period. But if you must use them, keep the screen as dim as possible,” Kim said, suggesting people use the Night Light option and turn off blue light. If pregnant individuals develop gestational diabetes during their first pregnancy, , they are more likely to have it in the next pregnancy. Light exposure before sleep may affect glucose metabolism through sympathetic hyperactivity, meaning that the heart rate rises before bed when it has to go down. “There seems to be an inappropriate activation of the fight or flight response when it’s time to rest,” Kim said.
Data suggests that sympathetic hyperactivity may lead to cardiometabolic disease, a cluster of conditions including abdominal obesity, insulin resistance, increased blood pressure and lipid imbalances, leading to heart disease. Between 2011 and 2013, 741 women in their second trimester were studied at eight clinical US sites. Participants’ light exposure was measured by an actigraph worn on their wrists. The women were measured during their second trimester of pregnancy, the time when they get routine screening for gestational diabetes.
Before bedtime, after separately adjusting for age, BMI, race/ethnicity, education, commercial insurance, employment program, season, sleep duration, sleep midpoint, sleep regularity index, and daytime light exposure Light exposure was significantly associated with gestational diabetes. The increasing rate of gestational diabetes has been attributed partly to the increasing body mass index and older age of pregnant individuals. “But even after adjusting for BMI and age, gestational diabetes is still on the rise,” Kim said. “We have a lot to prove, but my personal concern is that Prakash may be quietly contributing to the problem.” Maybe, without most people realizing its potential.” Injury.”
Reducing body weight and exercising also reduce the risk of developing gestational diabetes, which is important but takes some effort. “Now I’m the light police in the house,” Kim said. “I see all this light that I never thought about before. I try to reduce the light as much as possible. Only for evening activities like dinner and bathing the kids, you need bright light.” Is not needed.”
“This study highlights the importance of reducing light exposure in the hours before bedtime,” said senior author Katherine Reed, research professor of neurology at Feinberg. The name of the paper is “The association between exposure to light before bedtime in pregnancy and the risk of developing gestational diabetes.”