Artificial light develops breast cancer

High rates of breast cancer in industrialized countries have long challenged medical researchers. A group of American scientists have found a new hypothesis that explains how women in developed countries are at a higher risk of developing the disease: exposure to electric lights at night.

Researchers have linked electric light exposure at night to breast cancer tumor development. Tumors grow because artificial light prevents the ability to produce melatonin, the hormone that regulates the body's daytime and nighttime circadian rhythms.

This finding is highly relevant to public health because most women in industrial societies often turn on lights at night at home and in the office and may be at risk for this type of contact.

David Blask, a scientist at the Bassett Research Institute in Cooperstown, New York, said: 'In our experiment, artificial light stimulates the development of breast cancer, the ability of light to prevent production. Melatonin birth is also clear '.

Blask said: ' Melatonin causes cancer cells, especially breast cancer cells, to sleep at night. If this level of hormone decreases due to night light exposure, cancer 'becomes insomnia ' and develops at all times.

Q.HONG