Back

Low daytime light and bright night-time light are associated with psychiatric disorders: an objective light study in >85,000 UK Biobank participants

Burns, A. C.; Windred, D. P.; Rutter, M. K.; Olivier, P.; Vetter, C.; Saxena, R.; Lane, J. M.; Phillips, A. J. K.; Cain, S. W.

2022-12-12 psychiatry and clinical psychology
10.1101/2022.10.16.22280934 medRxiv
Show abstract

Circadian rhythm disturbance is a common feature of many psychiatric disorders. Light is the primary input to the circadian clock, with daytime light strengthening rhythms and night light disrupting them. Therefore, habitual light exposure may represent an environmental risk factor for susceptibility to psychiatric disorders. We performed the largest to-date cross-sectional analysis of light, sleep, physical activity, and mental health (n = 86,772 adults; aged 62.4 {+/-} 7.4 years; 57% women). We examined the independent association of day and night light exposure with covariate-adjusted risk for psychiatric disorders and self-harm. Greater night light exposure was associated with increased risk for major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, PTSD, psychosis, bipolar disorder, and self-harm behavior. Independent of night light, greater day light exposure was associated with reduced risk for major depressive disorder, PTSD, psychosis, and self-harm behavior. These findings were robust to adjustment for sociodemographics, photoperiod, physical activity, and sleep quality. Avoiding light at night and seeking light during the day may be a simple and effective, non-pharmacological means of broadly improving mental health.

Matching journals

The top 6 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

50% of probability mass above

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.