According to the NHS [1] in England in 2010, there were approximately 3.1 million people aged 16 or over with diabetes (both diagnosed and undiagnosed). By 2030, this figure is expected to rise to 4.6 million, with 90% of those affected having type 2 diabetes. It is known among scientists that night shift workers have a 5-fold higher risk to develop type 2 diabetes than individuals who have never worked night shifts.
The study interventions are aimed at improving the participants’ adjustment to their disrupted sleep-wake patterns by positively influencing their body clocks. One of the groups, made up of 65 night shift workers, is undergoing light therapy treatment in four different study centres in Germany, Italy and Austria. For this study Lumie has supplied Lumie Brazil, its most powerful lightbox for optimum bright light therapy. Lumie Brazil delivers 10,000lux at about 35cm and is a certified medical device, which means the products are rigorously tested to European safety and effectiveness standards.
Workers undergoing three or more consecutive night shifts are receiving light therapy daily; light is applied during the first half of the night shift, and switched off during the second half. In addition, these workers receive light therapy on off-night shift days at home, accumulating to one hour during the first three hours after waking up. The workers are otherwise maintaining their usual living habits (diet, exercise activity) and sleep-wake patterns on non-night shift days as before the study.
Project coordinator, Prof Rainer Böger from the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany says “The study participants feel very satisfied with this intervention. Those who have already finished the study reported that their subjective well-being was much improved by the light therapy. They were not only able to cope better with the work at night, but they also observed that it took them less time to re-adjust to a normal day-night cycle after the night shifts. This helped them to maintain their social life more easily.”
The EuRhythDia’s researchers now aim to study if – beyond the subjective well-being of the study participants – this treatment also helps to reduce the risk of developing chronic diseases, such as diabetes mellitus.
“We are eager to see if light therapy offers an easy and effective means of helping to maintain the health of our working population. The light therapy devices can conveniently be placed on any work desk, our study participants report; many of them asked if they may keep the light therapy device even after the end of the study”, Professor Böger says.
“Lumie prides itself on being at the forefront of research into light therapy and is delighted to be able to participate in this potentially significant project. The therapeutic impact of light on our body clock and its particular benefit to shift workers is already clear [2] and it’s an effective and relatively inexpensive treatment. It is exciting to think light therapy might now also be shown to reduce the risk of a shift worker developing type 2 diabetes.” Jonathan Cridland, CEO, Lumie
[1] http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Diabetes-type2/Pages/Introduction.aspx
[2] 2008 Aug;23(4):341-52. ‘The Impact of Sleep Timing and Bright Light Exposure on Attentional Impairment during Night Work’ Santhi N, Aeschbach D, Horowitz TS, Czeisler CA.
About Lumie:
Since 1991 Lumie has been researching and designing bright lights to treat seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and other conditions. Our first Bodyclock dawn simulator – an alarm that wakes you up with increasing levels of light – was the world’s first wake-up light and brought light therapy into the mainstream. We also designed and developed Lumie Clear, a unique hand held device that uses combined blue and red light therapy to treat acne.
Over the years Lumie has worked closely with the scientific community. All of our products – the broadest range in Europe – are based on published research and designed by us from our base in Cambridge. Lumie is in the EuRhythDia consortium investigating circadian rhythms and type 2 diabetes, and is working with Liverpool John Moores University sports science department. We continue to research new applications for light therapy.
Lumie products are medical devices, certified to the Medical Devices Directive (93/42EEC)and supplied to the NHS on an occasional basis. Distance and brightness levels (lux) are independently verified and Lumie is registered with the government's Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.
The benefits of light therapy reach far beyond SAD. Our lights help you to sleep well and get up in the morning, beat the afternoon slump, conquer jetlag and look after your skin. They also optimise sports performance and we are proud to provide lights to some of Great Britain’s elite athletes as well as acting as official suppliers to British Swimming.
Two of our wake-up lights, Active and Elite, provide white noise as an option. If you are trying to sleep in a noisy environment or during the day, white noise helps to muffle other sounds, like traffic or people talking.
In the UK our products are available through www.lumie.com as well as major retailers like John Lewis, Boots, amazon, Selfridges and wiggle.co.uk and we have an expanding network of distributors across Europe and in North America. For consumers buying through www.lumie.com we provide a home trial on all products.
About EuRhythDia:
EuRhythDia is a collaborative project funded by the European Commission within the FP7 programm. EuRhythDia started on October 1, 2011 and is coordinated by the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany. The whole consortium consists of 16 partners from different European Countries. Further info at http://eurhythdia.eu/
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