ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2015
Electric light, particularly at night, disrupts human circadian rhythmicity: is that a problem?
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 49 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
49 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Influence of light at night on allergic diseases: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC medicine · 2024Pooled it
- Genetic variation of clock genes and cancer risk: a field synopsis and meta-analysis.Oncotarget · 2017Pooled it
- Investigation of a PID-Based Dynamic Illuminance Control System for Intelligent Neonatal Jaundice Phototherapy Using a Blue Light LED Array.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Outdoor Exposure to Artificial Light at Night and Breast Cancer Risk: A Case-Control Study Nested in the E3N-Generations Cohort.Environmental health perspectives · 2025Article
- Mental health and sleep correlates of self-reported outdoor daylight exposure in over 13,000 adults with depression.European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2025Article
- Circadian system and aging: where both times interact.Frontiers in aging · 2025Review
- Disrupted Circadian Rhythms and Substance Use Disorders: A Narrative Review.Clocks & sleep · 2024Review
- One Health: Circadian Medicine Benefits Both Non-human Animals and Humans Alike.Journal of biological rhythms · 2024Review
- Light Pollution and Oxidative Stress: Effects on Retina and Human Health.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Association between Outdoor Light at Night and Prostate Cancer in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology · 2023Article
- Chronodisruption of the acute inflammatory response by night lighting in rats.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Individual light history matters to deal with the Antarctic summer.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Review on age-related differences in non-visual effects of light: melatonin suppression, circadian phase shift and pupillary light reflex in children to older adults.Journal of physiological anthropology · 2023Review
- Review
- The Effect of Light Therapy on Electroencephalographic Sleep in Sleep and Circadian Rhythm Disorders: A Scoping Review.Clocks & sleep · 2022Article
- Salivary Melatonin Changes in Oncological Patients: A Systematic Review.Metabolites · 2022Review
- A Growing Link between Circadian Rhythms, Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Alzheimer's Disease.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Review
- Exposure to dim light at night alters daily rhythms of glucose and lipid metabolism in rats.Frontiers in physiology · 2022Article
- Influence of moon and clouds on night illumination in two different spectral ranges.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Co-distribution of Light At Night (LAN) and COVID-19 incidence in the United States.BMC public health · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Over the past 3 billion years, an endogenous circadian rhythmicity has developed in almost all life forms in which daily oscillations in physiology occur. This allows for anticipation of sunrise and sunset. This physiological rhythmicity is kept at precisely 24 h by the daily cycle of sunlight and dark. However, since the introduction of electric lighting, there has been inadequate light during the day inside buildings for a robust resetting of the human endogenous circadian rhythmicity, and too much light at night for a true dark to be detected; this results in circadian disruption and alters sleep/wake cycle, core body temperature, hormone regulation and release, and patterns of gene expression throughout the body. The question is the extent to which circadian disruption compromises human health, and can account for a portion of the modern pandemics of breast and prostate cancers, obesity, diabetes and depression. As societies modernize (i.e. electrify) these conditions increase in prevalence. There are a number of promising leads on putative mechanisms, and epidemiological findings supporting an aetiologic role for electric lighting in disease causation. These include melatonin suppression, circadian gene expression, and connection of circadian rhythmicity to metabolism in part affected by haem iron intake and distribution.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.