Health scare of the week

Don’t drop off in front of the TV—it might make you fat. That’s the conclusion of a new study that found sleeping with a television or light on was closely linked with weight gain. Researchers followed 43,722 healthy women, ages 35 to 74, for about five years. After controlling for diet, physical activity, and other factors, scientists found that the participants who slept with an artificial light source on nearby were 17 percent more likely to have gained 11 pounds over the study period than those who slept in darkness. They were also about 30 percent more likely to become obese. The researchers suspect that artificial light may affect levels of appetite-regulating hormones or cause daytime drowsiness that results in people being less active. “Getting a good night’s sleep is really important for health,” senior author Dale Sandler, from the National Institutes of Health, tells The New York Times. “A very simple thing people can do to reduce the risk for obesity is to turn off the lights before going to sleep.”

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