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Written By: Editorial Team | Published : May 30, 2014 9:05 PM IST
A new study has revealed that sleeping with too much light in the room increases the risk of obesity in women.
Greater exposure to light at night raised both Body Mass Index (BMI) and waist size in more than 113,000 women taking part in the British study, scientists found.
The Breakthrough Generations Study followed the women for 40 years in an attempt to identify root causes of breast cancer. Obesity is a known risk factor for the disease, News.com.au reported.
Professor Anthony Swerdlow, from The Institute of Cancer Research in London, said that metabolism is affected by cyclical rhythms within the body that relate to sleeping, waking and light exposure.
The findings are reported in the American Journal Of Epidemiology.
What is obesity?
Obesity refers to increased body fat but it is not same as being overweight. A person who is overweight need not be obese but a person who is obese is overweight. Overweight is the term used for a person who weighs more. The weight can be muscle weight, bone weight or fat weight. But a person is said to be obese when he/she consumes more number of calories than the number of calories used by the body. If your Body Mass Index or BMI (calculated by dividing height by weight) is more than 30, then you are obese. Obesity is becoming a global epidemic not only in developed nations but also in developing nations like India. Obesity is linked to a host of lifestyle disorders like diabetes, heart diseases, hypertension and stroke. Easy availability of sugars and fats, messing with our body clocks and an increased sedentary lifestyle are responsible for obesity. Being overweight and obesity are the fifth leading risk for global deaths with at least 2.8 million adults dying each year due to them. In this section, you'll find articles like the need to control obesity, hazards of being obese, childhood obesity etc. You can also look for ways to fight obesity, for ex: exercises for obese people, bariatric surgery, possibility of eating obesity without healthy diet and exercise, healthy food option to lose weight quickly.
With inputs from ANI
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