Outdoor artificial light-at-night and cardiometabolic disease risk: an urban perspective from the Catalan GCAT cohort study
We investigated the association between outdoor artificial light-at-night (ALAN) exposure and cardiometabolic risk in the GCAT study. We included 9752 participants from Barcelona (59% women) and used satellite images (30 m resolution) and estimated photopic illuminance and the circadian regulation-relevant melanopic equivalent daylight illuminance (melanopic EDI). We explored the association between ALAN exposure and prevalent obesity, hypertension, and diabetes with logistic regressions and assessed the relationship with incident cardiometabolic diseases ascertained through electronic health records (mean follow-up 6.5 years) with Cox proportional hazards regressions. We observed an association between photopic illuminance and melanopic EDI and prevalent hypertension, odds ratio (OR) = 1.09 (95% CI, 1.01-1.16) and 1.08 (1.01-1.14) per interquartile range increase (0.59 and 0.16 lux, respectively). Both ALAN indicators were linked to incident obesity (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.29, 1.11-1.48 and 1.19, 1.05-1.34) and hemorrhagic stroke (HR = 1.73, 1.00-3.02 and 1.51, 0.99-2.29). Photopic illuminance was associated with incident hypercholesterolemia in all participants (HR = 1.17, 1.05-1.31) and with angina pectoris only in women (HR = 1.55, 1.03-2.33). Further research in this area and increased awareness on the health impacts of light pollution are needed. Results should be interpreted carefully since satellite-based ALAN data do not estimate total individual exposure. This article is part of a Special Collection on Environmental Epidemiology.
Authors
- Barbara N Harding (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9460-9399)
- Salvador Bará (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1274-8043)
- Manolis Kogevinas (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9605-0461)
- Natàlia Blay (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7160-8529)
- Kyriaki Papantoniou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0340-9659)
- Marta Cirach (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5518-1529)
- Antònia Valentín (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9275-7101)
- Dora Romaguera (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5762-8558)
- Alejandro Sánchez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9054-7346)
- Rafael de Cid (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3579-6777)
- Ana Espinosa (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7399-3267)
- Gemma Castaño‐Vinyals (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4468-1816)
- Anna Palomar‐Cros (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8151-9290)
Institutions
- Universidad Complutense de Madrid (ES)
- University of New Mexico (US)
- Universitat Pompeu Fabra (ES)
- University of Exeter (GB)
- Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ES)
- Sustainability Institute (ZA)
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red (ES)
- Health Research Institute of the Balearic Islands (ES)
- Institut Universitari d'Investigació en Atenció Primària Jordi Gol (ES)
- Hospital Del Mar (ES)
- Municipal Institute for Medical Research (ES)
- Institut d'Investigació en Ciències de la Salut Germans Trias i Pujol (ES)
- Instituto de Investigaciones Agrobiológicas de Galicia (ES)
- Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ES)
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Epidemiología y Salud Pública (ES)
- Hospital del Mar Research Institute (ES)
- Impact (CA)
- Medical University of Vienna (AT)
Publication Details
- Journal
- American Journal of Epidemiology
- Published
- 2024-08-19
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwae269
- Citations
- 12
- Primary Topic
- Impact of Light on Environment and Health
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 3.39
Funders
- Centres de Recerca de Catalunya
- Generalitat de Catalunya
- Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca
- Instituto de Salud Carlos III
- Agencia Estatal de Investigación