Ohio State University researchers found that mice exposed to dim light at night for eight weeks, about 50 percent gained weight than mice that were kept on a standard light-dark cycle.Click here to learn more!
"Although there were no differences in activity and daily consumption of food, the mice that lived with light at night, were always thicker than the others," lead author Laura Fonken, a doctoral student in neuroscience, said in a press release by the University .
The mice exposed to eat light at night no more than other mice. But compared to mice on a standard light-dark cycle, they ate significantly more food during the day if they do not eat normally after Fonken and her colleagues at OSU and the University of Haifa in Israel.
"Something about light at night, the mice in our study do want to eat at the wrong time to properly metabolize their food was," study co-author Randy Nelson, an OSU professor of neuroscience and psychology, said in the press release.
The researchers placed a third group of mice, constant light at night, and the group also gained more weight than mice on a standard light-dark cycle. But the dim light was comparable with more lights that people use at night, she noted.
Light at night could levels of the hormone melatonin (which is involved in metabolism) and the expression of genes that help to disrupt the clock when to feed animals and when they are active, the researchers said.
Many experiments on animals do not pan in humans. However, if the results are confirmed in humans, it would suggest that to eat late at night, a specific risk factor for obesity, "said Nelson.
The study suggests that people eat, usually at night while watching TV or work on the computer, the risk of weight gain for reasons other than sitting, he added.
The study appears online 11th October in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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