A new study is trying to link artificial light to prostate cancer. Hmmmm. Not ready to buy into this one yet. What they found was that on average, the countries with the highest nighttime light emissions had a prostate rate of about 157 cases per 100,000 men, compared with about 67 per 100,000 among the countries with the lowest nighttime light emissions. The researchers cannot prove cause and effect but believe the disruption of melatonin by the light is the culprit here. The article goes on to talk about how to change the spectrum of lighting or just keep it down altogether. I am all for this anyway and intuitively it seems that we would be healthier with a better sleep if the room was darker. I also have seen how the job has taken its toll on shift workers who come to see me as patients. This study, however, has too many confounding variables to make me believe it just yet; one being that the American Cancer Society states about 1 man in 6 will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during his lifetime, but only 1 man in 35 will die of it. It seems to me that the numbers listed in the article are too low to begin with. Regardless, I can foresee a time that Motel 6 will have to change its slogan to "We won't leave the light on for you".
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