University Heights, OH (PRWEB) June 12, 2013
A new study at the University of Iceland (1) showed that over a five year period, 135 men developed prostate cancer out of 2102 men in the study. Those who reported poor sleep patterns were about twice as likely to develop prostate cancer as those with normal sleep.
A plausible explanation is that those who had trouble sleeping produced less melatonin, a hormone that has been shown to reduce the incidence of prostate cancer in animals and to slow cell division in cultures of human prostate cancers.
The glasses that eliminate blue light and light bulbs that don’t radiate blue light were invented at John Carroll University (JCU) in 2005 by physicists in the Lighting Innovations Institute. Dr. Richard L. Hansler, who led the group, had researched better and brighter light bulbs at GE Lighting for 42 years before coming to JCU. After the move, he began studying the effect of exposure to ordinary light bulbs at night and discovered it is damaging to health. For example, mice raised with 14 hours of darkness had almost no breast cancer while those raised in only 8 hours of darkness (like we get) had many tumors. All the mice had been injected with a carcinogen to produce breast cancer. Nurses who had worked night shift for many years had about double the incidence of breast cancer as those that had not. Danish nurses who had worked night shifts for many years and developed breast cancer were paid compensation by the Danish government. The JCU group was motivated to solve this problem caused by ordinary light bulbs.
Fortunately, it had been demonstrated in 2001 that it is the blue rays in ordinary white light that cause suppression of melatonin. By developing light bulbs that don’t produce blue light the problem is solved. Another solution is wearing glasses that eliminate blue light. They help when watching television or working on a computer. The group also developed filters for iPads and iPhones that eliminate the blue wavelengths. These products are all available at http://www.lowbluelights.com operated by Photonic Developments LLC a spin-off company.
Dr. Hansler has written two books “Great Sleep! Reduced Cancer!” and “Heroes of Cancer Prevention Research” that are available on the website or from Amazon as paperback or Kindle books. He may be contacted at JCU at 216 397 1657 or at rhansler(at)jcu(dot)edu.
Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2013 May;22(5):872-9. doi: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-12-1227-T.
Sleep disruption among older men and risk of prostate cancer.
Sigurdardottir LG, Valdimarsdottir UA, Mucci LA, Fall K, Rider JR, Schernhammer E, Czeisler CA, Launer L, Harris T, Stampfer MJ, Gudnason V, Lockley SW.